Moat Club champions emerging talent at Four 4 Four festival

Four 4 Four’ is an exciting initiative by the Moat Club, Naas’s long-established amateur drama group, whose home is the Moat Theatre.

On the face of it, Four 4 Four is a treat for drama fans in that it is a quartet of short plays running each evening from this Wednesday April 10 to Saturday 13 at 8pm, but there is more to it than that.

In an effort to develop another generation of theatre directors for the club, which typically stages four plays and a pantomime every year, the group engaged theatre practitioner Lianne O’Shea to mentor a small group of aspiring directors drawn from the ranks of its membership.

With support from Kildare Arts Service, the mentoring programme has been taking place over the last nine months and culminates in Four 4 Four.

The participants of the Directors Mentoring Programme have selected, cast and directed a short play each, ensuring a feast of entertainment this April.

Clodagh Cummins, a well-known performer for the Moat Club, having starred in The Last Days of Judas Iscariot, The Good Father and On Raftery’s Hill, chose The Last Tango in Little Grimley by David Tristram as her directorial debut.

In Last Tango in Little Grimley, the first in Tristram’s hugely popular Little Grimley series, the Little Grimley Amateur Society’s membership has rapidly declined, and in a last-ditch attempt to save the club and make the rent, drastic measures are taken with hilarious consequences.

Newcomer to the club, Naas woman Sarah Phipps takes on another chapter in the life of the Little Grimley Amateur Society — Little Grimley Presents Strictly Sex Factor On Ice. In this instalment, reality TV shows have ravaged the dramatic society’s Saturday night audiences.

Never one to take these things lying down, Chairman Gordon has devised a cunning plan to compete head-on in their very own live Saturday night blockbuster, combining the best of all the other formats.

Patricia Voon is more used to the stage than the director’s chair, having starred in a number of Moat Club, Naas Musical Society and Kill Musical and Dramatic Society shows in recent years; yet she has taken to directing with gusto. She will stage Bride Before a Fall by Robert Scott.

In this fast-paced, darkly comic short play, Victor and his cunning mistress Madelyn decide to kill Victor’s annoying but wealthy wife, Lottie.

They scheme 42 different scenarios but things keep going wrong. The final result will have unexpected consequences for all three of them.

Musician-turned-theatre-director Pete Kavanagh has chosen The Star Trap by Michael James Ford for his debut. Set in the colourful world of Victorian theatre, The Star Trap tells the story of the affair between married showgirl Loo Halliday and her lover, a flamboyant Harlequin. When her lover is killed in horrific circumstances in full view of a packed Saturday night house, Loo suspects something more than a tragic accident and will go to any lengths to discover the truth.

Lianne O’Shea, who led the Directors Mentoring Programme said, “Watching these directors develop in skill and confidence over the last nine months has been fantastic. It’s a great privilege to lead this programme and foster and encourage a new generation of directors within the Moat Club, particularly with the knowledge of how successful previous participants have been.

“I’m hugely excited to see what this group brings to the stage this week and what each director promises to offer to the future of drama in Kildare”.

Lianne is currently one of the Abbey Theatre’s Resident Directors and an X-pollinator participant. X-Pollinator is a cross-disciplinary professional development and networking initiative for female, trans and non-binary talent.

Four 4 Four’ runs from Wednesday 10 to Saturday 13 at 8pm nightly. Tickets from 045 883030 and on www.moattheatre.com.