Momentum (by director Alan Dalton)

“No director is perfect. However talented or technically brilliant a director might be, there is always some hidden flaw. But then again no director, however limited his gifts, will be entirely without some hidden virtue” (John Caird, Theatre Craft)

All in all, it has been a super busy last few months since I graduated from the CIT Cork School of Music honours degree in Theatre and Drama Studies. I wasn’t totally sure about what route I was going to follow after my training. To keep going down the performance route or to follow my gut into Directing.

When I look back now to how anxious I was finishing college. All the usual “out in the big world” graduate questions bopping around my head; “What am I going to do next? Where am I going to find work? Will I go to London? Will I end up working in theatre? Will I be an actor? Am I an actor? Will I end up working in a café? Will I do a masters in Directing? Will I do a masters and end up working in a café?”.

No, I didn’t move to London and start a masters (that story is for another day).

I did end up getting the part time job in the café.

Instead of falling into this hole of anxiety and dread, that can easily happen to all of us, I decided to look at things a bit more positively and take things each step at a time. Quite quickly things began to fall into place. I feel like I’ve been riding this massive wave of forward momentum since the Summer. This wave has already brought about so many great things for me; was assistant director on Corcadorca’s Cork Midsummer Festival production, I set up a production company ALSA Productions with my girlfriend and fellow graduate Sadhbh Barrett Coakley, we self-produced a show and brought it to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, we devised and presented a brand new piece of theatre as part of TDC SHOW 2017, was hired to direct a new piece of writing by Strive Theatre which will tour Waterford and Cork and I am also back in college production managing their final year show.

Not only all that, in among all that madness, I was also accepted onto this wonderful Belltable:Connect Fishamble Mentorship Programme.

We are now at the half way point of the programme and the time has just flown. Each session more invaluable than the last. Before I started, I was not comfortable calling myself a “director”. I wasn’t sure what to call myself and I was afraid to call myself a director in case anyone would ask me, god forbid, about being a director. Through our monthly discussions, facilitated with such ease by Jim Culleton and listening to the experience from my fellow mentees, I’ve realised that I am and we are, most definitely all directors! It has been such a privilege to be able to sit among the group and listen to opinions, thoughts, problems, concerns and most importantly advice. Every session I have left with another door that I thought was closed shut, now open and available to walk through. I think I am most blown away by the amount of respect in the room for one another. It is truly a haven. I refer to the sessions as a “self-help group” for directors, and have continued this “therapy” back in Cork with fellow mentee Mike Ryan over the last few months as we tackle individual projects of our own.

We all can create our momentum and when we do anything is possible.

Al Dalton

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