I am delighted to introduce Alan King, recently retired (but never retiring) Chair of Dublin Youth Theatre. His teachers in school would have described him as “Very talkative. Plenty of ability, but could try harder. C-” He’s an A+ in our book. Not only did he steer the Good Ship DYT for the last few years but he has also participated in the 2013 production of The 24 Hour Plays in aid of Dublin Youth Theatre supported by BNP Paribas Real Estate.
We asked Alan to tell us a little about his experience, “I directed It’s The End of The World As We Know It And I Feel Hungry, by Fiona Looney back in 2013. My fondest memory was allowing my cast of Stefanie Priessner, Marie Ruane and Pauline McGlynn to take a half hour nap at 4pm, during rehearsals, cause they had already worked so hard that day!” Starbars!
Alan (remember “Very talkative) went on, “As former Chair of the Board of DYT I would usually make a well scripted appearance at the interval, give a running total for the night, and look for more money. This year I have a slightly harder task in that I’ll be acting in one of the plays.
I’m mostly looking forward to being onstage after a self imposed exile of 5 years.” We can’t wait!
We wanted our participants to impart some of their hard earned theatre knowledge with us and asked if there was one element that they would include in a play what would if be? Without missing a beat Alan responded, “Microphones. You can never have enough microphones on stage. And Irony.”
We certainly hope he was being ironic with his reply to our next question about how he feels about that old showbiz adage “Never work with children or animals” Alan warns us, “Never work with children who are animals. I’ve worked with both and have lived to tell the tale.” I have memories of working on a DYT production with Alan that involved a cat. The cat did not live to tell the tale. Enough said.