2024
what's happening
Inspired by a magic moment, on a Summer’s evening, when the Sun and Moon share one sky, Grand Stretch presents a Grand "Fest" spontaneous theatre and improvisation.
🌞 6 Days of Play
🌚 5 Nights of Shows
(PS. Evening events are BYOB 🤫 Summer just got a bit more lit!)
and where
DU Players Theatre,
Samuel Beckett Centre,
Trinity College Dublin,
Dublin 2
🌞 6 DAYS OF PLAY
Spirit Guides is a fun-fuelled, games-oriented adventure in spontaneous theatre and improvisation. In six workshops, Darren Yorke will guide Spirited Players from playground games to making 'Absolute Scenes!' with Team Spirit.
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🌚 5 NIGHTS OF Shows
Festival vibes
We're joining forces with Gather Improv to usher in “Festival Vibes” for our first Grand Fest show, with four fresh acts from Ireland’s flourishing improv scene.
Introducing GIGGLEBOX, ROBIN DE NEURO, and TWO MIXER TEAMS!
Mycelium / Yourcelium
Grand Fest proudly presents The Jess's's's with special guest Courtney Tyler.
The Jess’s’s’s are Jessica Keith and Jessamyn Fairfield, a theatrical improv duo who have been performing together for eight years, creating improvised one act plays with nuanced world-building and characters you care about.
Courtney Tyler is an expert forager, alchemist of woodland gifts, and communicator with the natural world. Tonight, in conversation about mycelial networks, she will inspire The Jess's's's in a brand new improv show.
MYCELIUM / YOURCELIUM is a show about the tiny details that we find when we take a moment to look closely at the fantastical world we live in, and the connections we find there. Our two Jess's's's inhabit a new cast of characters - animal, vegetable, and mineral - who flourish together in the undergrowth.
Deckchairs of despair
"Join Underthings on holiday. Yes, it will rain."
Underthings are Debbie Cheevers and Denny MacDermott. They've been performing improv & writing sketch together since 2018. In between taking sniggering tours around the National Gallery, and teaching & coaching improv through Lower the Tone & Improv Playground, they make time for staring at birds, appreciating numerous fictional cowboys, and sitting in comfortable silence. Sometimes there are pretzels. Their approach has been best defined as: "We came here to make art and wear nice trousers."
"LATE NIGHT" MASTERCLASSes, 6pm & 8pm
Possibly the greatest artist of his generation, probably not, Boss Rob is coming to Grand Fest for an exclusive, immersive, interactive, interdisciplinary, and expressly adults-only experience in support of his his recently announced run with Dublin Fringe Festival at the Irish Museum of Modern Art.
Combining spontaneous theatre, comedy, and a visual arts workshop, Boss Rob’s hilarious Masterclass for Aspiring Artists playfully arms children against mean-spirited criticism. This evening, we present a "late night" version, just for you.
Created and performed by Darren Yorke, Duffy Mooney Sheppard and Liam McCarthy, Boss Rob was initially developed for Cruinniú na nÓg in 2023, and later received the Creative Hubs Performance Production Partnership Commission from Dublin City Council. It has since been doing the rounds, but the best is yet to come...
THEATRESPORTS™
There's no "i" in TheatreSports, as teams of improvisers go head to head, making absolute scenes out of audience suggestions, raising the stakes, and risking the competition with mutual challenges. Tonight's show will include:
- The 10 Minute Match (for newcomers)
- Community Games (for freewheelers)
- The Crowdpleaser (for game-raisers)
- The Judges Match (for old-timers)
Generating "heat" in the way true sports can, TheatreSports™ is a high-octane theatrical experience — hysterical one moment and heart-wrenching the next — pushing boundaries, entertaining and educating audiences and performers alike.
TheatreSports™ is a licensed show format inherited from Keith Johnstone and ritually performed by Grand Stretch® as Ireland's leading member of the International TheatreSports™ Institute.
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