The work I did with Equinox Theatre Company in Callan was like the community theatre work, and the Gaiety School plays, and also like Breathing Space (1998).
One of the starting points was that there would be a play with parts for eight actors, because there were eight actors in the company. After that, the sky was the limit. The question arises all the time in this kind of work: how do you take a theme or an idea and turn it around, and inside out, so that you emerge with a story.
In many cases, and The Lost Prince is probably one of them, I have to digest the stories of the other participants, and ruminate them with my own experience...
This metaphor is heading towards a sticky end, but that is what happens: something emerges.
As Bernard Farrell once said to me long ago about the phrase "something in the pipeline": "You really don't know what the "something" is until it comes out the other end; it could be oil, or it could be mud."
At least, I think he said "mud"; my memory lets me down sometimes.
Anyway, for me The Lost Prince was pure gold.
