apprentice - noun meaning, learner, probationer, tyro, novice, neophyte, raw recruit, fledgling, new boy/girl, novitiate, pupil, student; beginner, starter, greenhorn, TENDERFOOT. OPPOSITE veteran.

During Autumn/Winter 2009 transition year students from 7 different schools in South County Dublin attended drama and writing for theatre workshops at The Civic Theatre. Eighteen of those students wrote original plays and monologues and now six of those plays and two monologues will be produced and performed.

The plays are directed by TENDERFOOT core tutors: Liam Halligan – Theatre Director/Playwright; Gavin Kostick – Literary Officer Fishamble Theatre Company/Playwright; and Veronica Coburn – Programme Director of TENDERFOOT/Playwright. The plays are designed and stage managed by students under the guidance of TENDERFOOT tutors who are all working theatre professionals: Alan Farquharson – Set Design; Suzanne Keogh – Costume Design; and Clive Welsh – Production Management. The plays are performed by TENDERFOOT students. TENDERFOOT operates on a principle of apprenticeship, learning by doing, learning in a hands on way.

We are really excited about this year’s TENDERFOOT plays. TENDERFOOT is unique in that it gives artistic voice to young theatre artists. The decision to produce the plays in The Main Theatre Space in The Civic is important. It affords the work the status of art and respects the students as artists. Young people are not generally thought of as artists. And yet if art is a way to explore the world in which we live, to reflect that world and to try and understand it surely young people on the cusp of adulthood are a natural voice. A voice that in Tenderfoot is given a forum to be heard.

Apprenticeship is all about learning by doing. TENDERFOOT offers transition year students interested in theatre an opportunity to learn about all aspects of the art of theatre in a hands-on way.

The plays in the TENDERFOOT programme are written, performed, produced and designed by the students under the guidance of their tutors. TENDERFOOT tutors are all working theatre professionals. The work in this programme is the work of young theatre artists - our TENDERFEET.

TENDERFOOT is funded by The Civic Theatre, South Dublin County Arts Office and The Arts Council’s Young Ensemble Scheme.

Thursday 28th January @ 1pm – School Performance
Friday 29th January @ 12pm – School Performance
Saturday 30th January @ 3pm; 8pm
Admission: €10; €5 concession

TENDERFOOT Plays 2010
The Dark Will Help You Hide by Aoife Johnston
A modern take on Little Red Riding Hood which replaces the scary forest with a drug infested urban jungle. Funny. Clever.

Silent Communication by Declan Moore*
Truly a tale for the modern generation. Barely a word is spoken but much is said. Txt mssg. MSN. A fascinating look at friendship in the cyber age.

Do You Have Clean Underwear? by Alex Hillerby*
A charming and witty look at that important transition from school to college. The first time living away from home. A transition that is particularly difficult when you are shy.

Straws by Daniel Devoy*
A stylised and stylish piece exploring the terror and tension of modern day living.

Escape by Holly Meade
All is not as it should be at home for Niamh. Over the course of Holly Meade’s play Niamh makes the biggest decision of her life. To leave her home and her family and never come back.

So Long by Jordan O’Reilly
Never did the course of true love ever run smooth and so it is for Lucie and Jayden who survive speed dating, endless study and an unexpected move to Cork.

Wasters by Karla Bridges
Relationships. Abuse. Revenge. A tightly packed plot full of twists and turns.

Gossip by Katie Black
A neatly plotted and well observed comedy of modern manners or lack thereof. Katie Black’s play looks at what happens when someone misbehaves and is caught in the act.

How The Mighty Have Fallen by Cillian Nolan*
Funny. Irreverent. Relevant. Cillian Nolan’s play is a sharp satire of all things recessionary.

What The Doctor Ordered by Melissa Deegan
Craig and Rachel are in love. Craig and Evan are best friends. Craig makes promises and Rachel makes compromises but neither tactic avoids the trouble ahead.

One Friday Night by Muireann MacCarthy
One Friday night. Any Friday night. The ordinary and the extraordinary unfold side by side. And as the young characters negotiate the shifts and changes of this weekend’s free house their future can be glimpsed in the midnight shadows.

My Mistake by Olivia Lukunga
A young woman turns up in an abandoned apartment to meet an old boyfriend. He has something to tell her. From this intriguing starting point Olivia Lukunga’s story unfolds.

Party by Sarah Hanlon*
Sarah Hanlon’s play is a bleak look at what it is to be young in modern day Dublin. Her characters live in a world of moral ambiguity where the lines between what is right and wrong, acceptable and unacceptable, are so blurred as to be almost non existent. A frightening glimpse of a parallel world that exists alongside the one populated by parents and teachers.

Erica; Chris by Seoid Ní Laoire*
Seoid Ní Laoire’s play explores the idea of reality. What is real and who has the right to say what is or isn’t? Ní Laoire’s exploration takes place within the story of a recently bereaved young woman attending a psychologist to help her get over the death of her lover. A mature and accomplished play by a young writer.

Brian and Lucy by Sorcha McManigan
Young love. Young lives. Young choices. Brian and Lucy’s parents think they are too young to make the decisions they want to make. Who is right? And who will listen?

Faith Of A Non Believer by Tara Perry
Two brothers consider God at a crucial point in their lives. For one it is the most important thing in the world. Care of his brother is more important to his sibling.

Backstage by Jennifer Cooke
Backstage takes a comic look at the antics that take place behind the scenes of the school production of Romeo & Juliet. A production where there’s more drama offstage than on.

MONOLOGUES

Cold Shoulder by Aoife Johnston
A tense monologue about fear in familiar territory.

I Am Running by Katie Black*
A present tense monologue that expertly builds tension as the narrator literally and metaphorically pounds the pavement to escape the real world.

I Hate Shopping by Daniel Devoy
Fashion, body image and an argument for mass nudity. I Hate Shopping, a quirky monologue on all things for sale.

Gruelling Choices by Alex Hillerby
A dark monologue, the inner thoughts of an incarcerated murderer, cold and unrepentant.

Shoe Nostalgia by Declan Moore
A teenager stands in a shoe shop. Will it be Vans again? Or something new. Suddenly the shoes on the shelf aren’t Docs or Rocket Dogs but the ghosts of his shoes past. Scuffed and worn, each pair tells a tale.

Alien by Jennifer Cooke
A strange being peruses planet earth and the creatures that occupy it. Us. It comments on the things we do. And the things we fail to do. Sometimes, it takes the unfamiliar to highlight the familiar.

Monologue by Jordan O’Reilly
A lone student roams the corridors of an empty school set on revenge. The punishment will fit the crime.

Twisted by Karla Bridges
Truth. Lies. We’re told that one is right and one is wrong but that only matters when you care about such things.

Living In The Tenements by Cillian Nolan
An old man remembers the Dublin he grew up in. An unpolished city, a poor city but a city with heart and soul.

Offstage by Muireann MacCarthy
A dancer waits at the side of the stage. The moment to step forward approaches. Her heart beats faster. Her mind races back over her journey to this point. The lights shine bright and….

Courtney by Sarah Hanlon
A clever monologue written in the voice of one of the characters from Sarah’s play. Both a stand alone and a companion piece to the original work.

I Am by Seoid Ní Laoire*
A beautiful monologue that presents the narrator as a series of poetic statements.

An October Night by Sorcha McManigan
An atmospheric monologue recalling a Hallowed night of goblins and ghouls. Dark. With flashes of colour. Like the night itself.

Stereotyping by Tara Perry
An emo, a goth, a weirdo, a nerd. Tired of being labelled and consigned to the social scrap heap Tara Perry’s central character lets fly and lets the posters on her bedroom wall know what she things of such things.

A Contemplation Of Sanity by Zachary Canavan
A woman is a prisoner - the moon her only companion. Her husband holds her captive. Rules her existence. A dark monologue about the ersion of power.

* Indicates production.