MARTIN ANDRUCKI · BATES COLLEGE ·
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James Nolan.

The following information about Jim Nolan is from the website of  “Aosdana, An Affiliation of Creative Artists in Ireland.”
 
[Jim Nolan was] [b]orn in Waterford [in 1958]. He is a founder member and artistic director of the Waterford-based Red Kettle Theatre Company, which was launched in 1985 with his play, The Gods are Angry, Miss Kerr. His other plays include Round The Garden (1981); Doorsteps (1982); The Boathouse (1986); The Black Pool (1986), which won the O.Z. Whitehead Award; Heartstone (1987); Dear Kenny (1987); Moonshine (1992), which won the RTÉ/Bank of Ireland Award, and was produced at the Irish Arts Centre in New York in 1998; and The Guernica Hotel (1994). In 1998, The Salvage Shop won the Sunday Independent/Ford Play of the Year Award. Blackwater Angel premiered at the Abbey Theatre in 2001 while he was the theatre's writer-in-residence. He lives in Waterford.
 
The following is from an interview with Jim Nolan conducted by  Jennifer O'Connel.
 
Every so often, a critic or a member of Ireland's theatre-going population finds time to draw breath between festivals and opening night parties and wonder about the apparent boom in talented young playwrights.
 
Maybe they muse, it's the experience of 800 years of colonisation, maybe it's Catholic guilt, or the education system, or maybe it's just something they're feeding the cows.
 
Jim Nolan's got an answer for them.  "It's being an altar boy," he says.  "That and football."
 
Long before there was Brian Friel [a well-known and and successful Irish playwright] . . . in his life, Nolan says he was a regular theatre-goer. On Saturdays it was the theatre of penalty shoot-outs, the refs whistle, grass stains and blue scarves; on Sundays it was incense and robes, vestibules and bells.
 
"I know that where I started in theatre was aged about 11 on that altar. I was in love with the ritual of it.  Mass would start at half seven in the morning, but I'd be over there from seven, and I couldn't wait to smell the incense."
 
Nolan's other passion, and the one that hasn’t waned, was for Waterford football club. . . .  “The drama that you experience as a spectator of any sport -- I defy the theatre to match it."
 
Nolan admits he worries occasionally that the theatre is too remote from the here-and-now of football games and mass on a Sunday. "You go into a sanctuary, some dark place for weeks while you create this story, and when you come out, you hope it has some kind of connection to the real world.  The other day in rehearsals, someone mentioned that they'd heard a story about this guy who'd paid $20 million to go into space. "We all said 'nonsense!'.  We might as well be on another planet too.  I worry about that sometimes -- in the act of theatre itself, there's always the danger that it will become dislocated from the here and now." 
  • Home
    • About me
    • Resources
  • The Public Theater
    • Titles A thru G >
      • A >
        • All in the Timing
        • Almost Maine
        • Animals Out of Paper
        • Around the World in 80 Days
        • Art
      • B >
        • Betrayal
        • Biloxi Blues
        • Blithe Spirit
        • The Book Club Play
        • Broadway Bound
        • To Build a Fire
        • The Business of Murder
      • C >
        • A Christmas Carol
        • The Cocktail Hour
        • Collected Stories
        • Communicating Doors
        • The Complete Works of Shakespeare, Abridged
        • Crossing Delancey
      • D >
        • Dancing at Lughnasa
        • Deathtrap
        • Doubt
        • Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
        • Dracula
        • Driving Miss Daisy
      • E >
        • Educating Rita
      • F >
        • Fallen Angels
        • Fiction
        • The Foreigner
        • Fuddy Meers
      • G >
        • The Glass Menagerie
        • Good People
        • Gun Shy
    • Titles H thru O >
      • H >
        • Hedda Gabler
        • Holiday Memories
        • The Hound of the Baskervilles
        • Humble Boy
      • I >
        • Indoor/Outdoor
        • An Infinite Ache
        • Italian American Reconciliation
      • L >
        • The Language Archive
        • Last Gas
        • The Last Mass
        • The Last Romance
        • Lend me a Tenor
        • Lips Together
        • Lost in Yonkers
        • Love/Sick
      • M >
        • Manny's War
        • Marjorie Prime
        • Marvin's Room
        • Miss Witherspoon
        • A Month of Sundays
        • Moonlight and Magnolias
        • Moonshine
      • N >
        • The Nerd
      • O >
        • The Old Settler
        • On Golden Pond
        • Orphans
        • Outside Mullingar
        • Over the River
    • Titles P thru W >
      • P >
        • Pavillion
        • Prelude to a Kiss
        • Private Lives
        • Proof
        • Psychopathia Sexualis
      • R >
        • Red
        • Red Herring
        • The Revolutionists
        • Rough Crossing
        • Rumors
      • S >
        • Seascape
        • Shirley Valentine
        • Side Man
        • Skylight
        • Sleuth
        • Southern Comforts
        • Steel Magnolias
      • T >
        • Terra Nova
        • 13th of Paris
        • Three Days of Rain
        • Tigers Be Still
        • Time Stands Still
      • U >
        • Under the Skin
      • V >
        • Vanya and Sonya and Masha and Spike
        • Visiting Mr. Green
      • W >
        • Wait Until Dark
        • What Rhymes with America
        • The Wind in the Willows
        • The Woman in Black
        • Wrong for Each Other
  • Portland Theater
    • Season 93 94 I
    • Season 93 94 II
    • Season 94 95 I
    • Season 94 95 II
    • Season 95 96
    • Season 96 97
    • Fool for Love
    • Ghosts
  • Playwrights
    • Albee to Coward >
      • Edward Albee
      • David Auburn
      • Alan Ayckbourne
      • Truman Capote
      • John Cariani
      • Noel Coward
    • Dickens to Harris >
      • Charles Dickens
      • Joe DiPietro
      • Arthur Conan Doyle
      • Tom Dudzick
      • Christopher Durang
      • Brian Friel
      • A.R. Gurney
      • Richard Harris
    • Ibsen to Nolan >
      • Henrik Ibsen
      • David Ives
      • Rajiv Joseph
      • Ira Levin
      • David Lindsay-Abaire
      • Jack London
      • Ken Ludwig
      • Donald Margulies
      • James Nolan
    • Pinter to Shue >
      • Harold Pinter
      • Yasmina Reza
      • Willy Russell
      • Susan Sandler
      • Robert W. Service
      • John Patrick Shanley
      • Larry Shue
    • Simon to Zacarias >
      • Neil Simon
      • Mat Smart
      • Craig White
      • Tennessee Williams
      • Karen Zacarias