Today the spotlight is on Peter Campion, actor. A lot of what Peter shares here resonates with me, not least his experience of acting with a cat. Some DYTers of my era will remember poor oul’ Conchubhar the cat in The Girls of Summer who took method acting to the nth degree. His fate in the play was to depart this mortal coil which he did in real life halfway through the run, as I recall. The show went on. I wonder where his handmade plush stand-in ended up…
Back to Peter! Check out his showreel online and read on!
Introduce yourself please. You can even describe yourself as your favourite teacher might if asked today what you were like in school if you are feeling nostalgic.
How would I have been described in school? “Peter was an excited child, who now and again fell into bouts of chosen narcolepsy. He loved a good window, and always complained that the educational system in place today is a definition of pure insanity”. I would quite agree with him. How insane it is to define a child’s intelligence by how much information they can regurgitate in an allocated time period. There are actually 9 different types of intelligence. Who Knew!
Have you participated in The 24 Hour Plays in aid of Dublin Youth Theatre before? If yes what is your fondest/ most nightmare causing memories? If no what are you looking forward to/ terrified of?
Never taken part in this before! Looking forward to, and terrified of feeling violently sick before walking on stage. “Go wrong big” is my motto. [Our producer, the inimitable Eva C. Scanlan, is adopting this as her new motto.]
If you took a notion to write a play what element would you definitely include and why?
Oh I do love a good elephant on stage. A nice big pink one. With regards notes, I always seem to get ‘act better’, so I got ‘Try again, fail again, fail better’ tattooed in small print to my wrist. Puts me at ease it does.
The 24 Hour Plays in aid of Dublin Youth Theatre are now in their fifth year. Five years ago today what were you working on? Tell us what the highlight of that was.
December 2011!? Couldn’t tell you.
Have you worked with children or animals? How did that work out for ya?
I worked with a cat before. It came onto the stage at the end of the play every night, and never did what it was supposed to. I think we had a different ending for each show we did!
Don’t miss Peter’s contribution to The 24 Hour Plays in aid of Dublin supported by BNP Paribas Real Estate. Book your ticket now and see you on January 31 in the Abbey Theatre.
Peter’s Showreel from p4peter on Vimeo.