Local drama students will help our ‘first responders’

‘First Response’ is created and performed by individuals who were first at the scene of the shootings and atrocities during The Troubles.

Local drama students will help first responders explore some of their most difficult experiences of The Troubles, exploring the legacy of conflict on the next generation, and what happens when your professional duty requires you to run towards the scene of the horror, at a time when everyone else is running away.

“My daughter says: ‘Your entire geography of Northern Ireland is skewed. You don’t see the beauty. You see the dead’. She’s right,” one first responder tells the eight strong ensemble from University of Ulster drama.

Another says: “We’ve got to the point where you now have an option you can go left or right. And that’s up to yous how you deal with that”.

The script also explores the high levels of suicide in Northern Ireland as a result of the Troubles.

“When I was in school, nine of my classmates lost a parent to the troubles. In my daughter’s class, the exact same number - nine - lost a parent to suicide”.

Created by The Playhouse Theatre and Peacebuilding Academy, and directed by Japanese-American artist Ailin Conant, ‘First Response’ will open at The Playhouse next week.

Ailin is the latest artist to be announced for the two-and-a-half-year EU PEACE funded Theatre and Peacebuilding project, which will work with a range of internationally based artists with significant experience of utilising arts activity in conflict and areas of social breakdown throughout the world. Her vast experience using theatre as a platform for post-conflict dialogue includes work with former adult- and child-combatants, refugees, war orphans, and survivors of genocide.

Her London-based devising company, Theatre Témoin, is a supported company of The Lowry, an associate company of The Everyman Cheltenham, a Without Walls Portfolio company, and has held residencies with The Salisbury Playhouse and others.

Delivered in partnership with Holywell Trust, Thomas D’Arcy McGee Foundation and Queens University Belfast, the project aims to use theatre as a tool to promote healing and reconciliation in a healing and transformative way.

The PEACE IV Programme is an EU funded Programme designed to support peace and reconciliation in Northern Ireland and the border region. It is managed by the Special EU Programmes Body (SEUPB).

Match-funding for the project has been provided by the Executive Office and the Department for Rural and Community Development.

‘First Response’ will run at The Playhouse from Wednesday, February 26 to Saturday 29.

Tickets are free but booking is essential. Contact The Playhouse Box Office on (028)71268027 or online at www.derryplayhouse.co.uk.