A wee bit of Greenock in New York

It's been a busy few weeks. I've mainly been working at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, taking the 2nd year BA Acting students through a course that culminates with them leading workshops and performing scenes from Macbeth with schools. This is a great job for me as it allows me to combine two things that I really love, working with actors on Shakespeare and working with young people. We will be heading out to schools at the end of this coming week and I'm really looking forward to it.

The other main focus of the week is my musical 'Towards the Moon' that will be premiered in it's entirety in an off-Broadway production at the end of the month.  This is really exciting, I've been exchanging emails with the director, Paul Andrew Perez, and it sounds like it's shaping up to be a great show, I can't wait to see/hear some of their work.  I'm still working on getting it performed in Scotland and have been having some really interesting chats about further development opportunities, so here's hoping that it all comes together.

Photo of 'In Time O' Strife' cast by Eoin Carey
It seems like a life-time ago now but it was only a few weeks ago that I finished working with the National Theatre of Scotland on 'In Time O' Strife'.  It was a great experience that I took a lot from, the show went down very well with the public.  To find out more about how it was made and all sorts of other cool stuff then check out the workbook here.

I've also started to think about my next job, which is composing music for 'Bauble Trouble' at the Citizens Theatre.  This is going to be a lot of fun, we are making the show (aimed at 4-6 year olds) from scratch.  I'm really looking forward to creating a soundtrack that will help bring the slapstick nature of the show to life.  This is the first tune I've come up with so far - the sound is a bouncy orchestral kind of thang...:



As well as this we had auditions for a large-scale community production that I am co-directing with the wonderful Maggie Kinloch (Vice-Principal of the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland) in Largs.  It was great to see almost 50 people turn up to take part, including the Mod-winning Largs Gaelic choir.  We will be working on the Scottish classic play 'The Cheviot, The Stag and The Black Black Oil'. It's a really politically potent piece and is perfect for the year of the independence referendum.  It's also great fun. We had a big sing along to start with:
 
We begin work on that show in January and it's going to be great fun to update this play for a modern audience and be part of a true community piece.

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