Welcome to the website of Declan Gorman Arts & Events.
I am a playwright, director, performer and public artist with a practice that has covered many aspects of the arts. At the core is an unswerving belief in the power of live performance – the working towards it and the sharing of it – to change, entertain, question, and somehow to make the world around us a better and more exciting place.
This website contains information about current projects (including work available to tour); selected archive materials; resources and a “News & Views” section which combines news with occasional reflections and personal essays, mainly but not exclusively about the arts.
LATEST NEWS
I am delighted to announce the online premiere on March 26th of “The Pilgrims of Slieve”, an orignal community play, written and performed by 11 members of Aisteoirí Muinchille (Cootehill Players). I have been lead writer and director on this project via Zoom over the past 4 months. Tickets are €10 per household and can be accessed by clicking HERE.
COVID 19 UPDATE 18/03/2021: Like every other theatre artist in Ireland, I was compelled to cancel a raft of significant performance and workshop projects during 2020-21. I hcav been confined to home most of this time. Many of my peers and friends in the theatre (artists and technicians) have suffered exceptional setbacks, I have been fortunate in retaining a number of educational and public art commissions, enough to survive.
Much of my work at present takes place online, although I have gone out during the brief eased restrictions periods to visit schools, adhering to safe social distancing protocols. In one rural primary school I conducted a series of weekly drama workshops in the school yard in ever cooling temperatures!
I moved from an initial distrust of Zoom to coming to terms with it and have greatly enjoyed facilitating on-screen workshops with community participants in Cavan, Monaghan, Louth and Fingal! I am grateful to Fingal, Cavan and Monaghan County Councils who have continued to support and commission my work, and to the Arts Council which has laboured hard to ensure the Creative Schools programme continues in adapted circumstances. Above all I appreciate the keen and good-humoured interactions with both professional colleagues and members of the wider public with whom I have been priviliged to work through this bizarre year. I am confident that by the end of this year, we shall be back in theatres and rehearsal rooms, schools and colleges making live performances with renewed relish!
