Terra Nova Productions celebrates its first year of core funding from the Arts Council of Northern Ireland by inviting five of Northern Ireland’s most exciting new playwrights to refresh Northern Irish playwriting. Arrivals, a new production created by all five of them, is coming to touring Northern Ireland this February.
Artistic Director Andrea Montgomery says: ‘Arrivals was created to address the fact that although the 2011 census confirmed that 220,000 of our residents were born outside Northern Ireland, you seldom see their faces or hear their stories on the stages of Northern Ireland’s mainstream theatres.’
Arrivals offered five playwrights the chance to change that, by working with members of Northern Ireland’s multicultural communities, and then writing up their real stories as a new script to be performed by a local and international cast. Northern Ireland’s multicultural citizens were gathered from across the province to take part. Local professional actor James Doran, better known for his work with the Lyric and more recently on Game of Thrones, is joined by Michelle Yim from Hong Kong, Cristina Catalina from Romania, and Bristol-born British Asian actor Raj Bajaj.
MLA Anna Lo who has been Terra Nova’s patron for a number of years, and watched the company grow, says: ‘This is a theatre company with an ambition to do bold, exciting and positive things in Northern Ireland and the World, and I respect that.’
‘You can’t write about what you don’t know,’ says Andrea Montgomery, better known for her comedy productions - including work with Caroline Curran and Nuala McKeever, ‘I knew if I brought talented people together we would find a way to get these great stories on stage’. Montgomery is a Canadian who was born in India, grew up in Thailand, Switzerland and Indonesia, has worked in Macau and Iran, and recently went all the way to Greenland to work on a new play.
Well-respected singer-songwriter and composer Anthony Toner, who was recently shortlisted for the Northern Ireland music prize, is creating the score for the productions and will spend the next month working with the writers, and the multicultural team behind the show.
‘The Arrivals project is based on a three day workshop that saw our writers locked in a room with 21 people from around the world, living in or visiting Northern Ireland. What they wrote was then up to them, but we could not have done the work without the support of our colleagues from Northern Ireland’s multicultural communities,’ says Montgomery, ‘They have come from all over the world to live in Northern Ireland and their stories are incredible’.
Gilly Campbell, Drama and Dance Officer, Arts Council of Northern Ireland, commented: “This fascinating production draws together a truly multi-cultural team of writers, actors and musicians, for what promises to be a show unlike any other. Northern Ireland’s cultural make-up is changing. Arrivals will reflect the viewpoints, stories and experiences of the wider community and the journeys which have brought them here.”
The Northern Irish playwrights chosen for the project are: James Meredith, Deirdre Cartmill, John Morrison, Shannon Yee (who has just finished a project with the Royal Court in London) and Paul Mc Mahon (who has been long-listed for the Bruntwood Prize and is a Stewart Parker Fellow). A partnership with Accidental Theatre Company helped Terra Nova reach out to Belfast’s emerging writers as well as those already established. Greek American script editor, Emily Dedakis, who worked extensively with the five writers to get their drafts ready for today, is a founder member of Accidental Theatre, and a recent recipient of an award from the BBC.
Friday, June 6, 2014 at 02:15PM 
