Salt O' the Earth
A Cumbernauld Theatre Production
for the Scottish Touring Theatre Consortium
starring Little John Nee
Riverbank Arts Centre
Newbridge
Wednesday 16th to Saturday 19th July 2003
8.00pm (Tickets €10 / €7.50
- Wednesday
€14 /€10 - Thursday to Saturday)
Booking 045 448333
boxoffice@riverbank.ie
Directed by Simon Sharkey and starring Little
John Nee, Salt O' the Earth is previewing at the Riverbank
Arts Centre from July 16th to 19th, before making its world
premiere at the Galway Arts Festival later this month.
Johnny Bonner was a wee boy with a major identity crisis
who battled his way from humble beginnings in Glasgow to
his present moment of glory in the theatre. This is an hilarious
quest for fulfilment that takes him from the sweet searing heat
of a brook in the hills of Andalusia to the rain soaked banks
of Saltmarket on the Clyde, with a long time spent
on the highways and byways of the west of Ireland, introducing us
to a host of beautiful broken people that make life "a precious
thing to behold."
Little John himself is a child of the emigration between Donegal
and Glasgow. He was born in Glasgow, but brought up back
in Letterkenny. After his punk years in Co. Donegal, (where he sang
with a best-forgotten showband) and on the sites in London, he moved
to Galway where he worked as a street entertainer, and with the
Macnas Theatre Company.
Little John Nee's magnetic performances have garnered him an international
reputation, not least for his original play, The Derry Boat,
telling of the vagabond life between Donegal and Scotland. After
opening at the Galway Arts Festival in 1998, it was revived
on several occasions in both Donegal and Galway. In 2000 it played
for three weeks in Washington D.C. gaining John a nomination for
Best Actor, Non Resident Production in the Helen Hayes Awards
(the Washington equivalent of the Tonys').
With a witty mixture of song and the spoken word, Little John brings
the bardic tradition to life.
For further information please
contact Catríona of Gráinne on 045 448314/5,
or by e-mail at artscentre@riverbank.ie