HOME – An Upstate Theatre Production performed at Rowan Heights, Drogheda.

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               Photography Credit: Owen Boss

Community arts organisation ‘Upstate Theatre Project’, as part of the Drogheda Arts Festival, were looking for a home for their latest production which was named “Home” and found it at Respond’s estate Rowan Heights in Drogheda.

The Upstate Theatre Project is committed to facilitating local communities in their endeavours to develop participative drama programmes and mount performances. Their aims include: developing meaningful partnerships with local community organisations and developing dramas for performance by non-professional local groups and participation in local art and community development networks.

This performance was devised by a community cast of seventeen in collaboration with award winning director Louise Lowe. Home came about through the collaboration and support of a number of groups which included the Arts Council and Respond Housing Association (Martina Murray and Garrett Weldon take a bow)

Home was not a nostalgic production but one that aimed to capture what ‘life within the home’ really means to the people of Drogheda today in a time where home is more important than ever.

The Directors note by Louise Lowe and Zara Starr – May 2013:
“Home is a site responsive performance piece in Rowan Heights.

There’s the moving in and moving out, there’s the hovering and the laundry, the shopping and the homework, the breakfasts and the dishes, the kids crying and the dogs barking and the binges and the Bovril and the tears and the laughter and the telly….There’s the million beds made and the thousands of baths running down the drain. There’s the hundreds of lunches and scores of kisses … There’s the sleepless nights and happy mornings. There’s our home”

Home was a resounding success with attendees stating they thoroughly enjoyed the production. Upstate Theatre are genuinely community focused and the content of this production inspired thought around contemporary home life.  If you are curious about involving yourself in the arts process in Drogheda please check this website out: http://www.upstate.ie/

Other photographs of cast and crew will be published shortly.