Directing Work - LIAM HALLIGAN

Current WORK
2019:-
THIS YEAR LIAM DIRected THOMAS ECCLESHARE’S NEW PLAY HEATHER FOR BEWLEY’S CAFÉ WHICH RECEIVED AN EXCELLENT RESPONSE AND IS BEING REVIVED LATER THIS MONTH. HE HAS JUST DIRECTED AND DESIGNED CARYL CHURCHILL’S LATEST PLAY LOVE AND INFORMATION FOR INCHICORE COLLEGE GRADUATES IN SMOCK ALLEY. HE IS CURRENTLY DEVELOPING A NEW PIECE CALLED IDEAL WORLD WITH THE ACTRESS/WRITER ISOBEL MAHON WHICH HAS A READING AT THE IRISH THEATRE INSTITUTE.
Liam is very much looking forward to developing a site specific piece for the Junction Festival in Clonmel for summer 2020.

Recent Work
2018:-
LIAM RECEIVED A FIST CLASS HONOURS Master's Degree IN DRAMA & PERFORMANCE FROM UCD. TAKE OFF YOUR CORNFLAKES  TOURed NATIONALLY AND WAS INVITED TO THE OULU FESTIVAL FINLAND. HE DIRECTED THE COMEDY OF ERRORS FOR DUBLIN YOUTH THEATRE (SMOCK ALLEY) AND WAS ONE OF SIX DIRECTORS WORKING ON THE HUGELY SUCCESSFUL HOME THEATRE (IRELAND) FOR DRAÍOCHT ARTS CENTRE IN COLLABORATION WITH DUBLIN THEATRE FESTIVAL.
2017:-
WORK INCLUDED BEING A CORE TUTOR ON THE TENDERFOOT PROJECT AT THE CIVIC THEATRE, DIRECTING HIS OWN ADAPTATION OF IBSEN’S PEER GYNT FOR THE FINAL YEAR STUDENTS AT INCHICORE COLLEGE OF FURTHER EDUCATION, DIRECTING A REVIVAL OF SHERIDAN’S THE RIVALS for sMOCK ALLEY AND A NEW PLAY TAKE OFF YOUR CORNFLAKES BY ACTORS ROSE HENDERSON AND PAT NOLAN FOR FISHAMBLE’S SHOW-IN-A-BAG (DUBLIN FRINGE FESTIVAL).

2016:-
WORK INCLUDED DYLAN COBURN GREY’S SPOKEN WORD PIECE   DRAWING WORDS ON A DUSTY WINDOWPANE (GALWAY THEATRE FESTIVAL), RISK EVERYTHING BY CANADIAN PLAYWRIGHT GEORGE F. WALKER (NEW & VIKING THEATRES), LANGUAGE OF THE MUTE BY JACK HARTE (NATIONAL TOUR), THE SELL-OUT SUMMER RUN OF SHAW’S PYGMALION  FOR SMOCK ALLEY THEATRE AND A NEW PLAY BY EIMEAR CHEASTY HOW TO LIVE FOR CARLOW YOUTH THEATRE (MAYOR’S AWARD).

Other Freelance Directing
While performing in Cheek By Jowl’s Oliver Award winning production of Macbeth in 1986 the director, Declan Donnellan, encouraged Liam to think about directing. As a result the director Annie Castledine gave Liam the opportunity to direct Purgatory by W.B.Yeats at Derby Playhouse.
This led to other directing work including David Johnston’s adaptation of Lorca’s The Love of Don Perlimplin for Belisa in the Garden (Old Red Lion, London), A Kurt Weill Cabaret (Battersea Arts Centre, Young Vic), Barry McKinley’s Small Box Psychosis and The Lithium Waltz (Andrew’s Lane Dublin/Edinburgh Fringe Festival), Eugene O’Neill’s Anna Christie and Pat Garrett’s Pizza Boy both for Focus Theatre Dublin, Goldoni’s Mirandolina, Wilde’s An Ideal Husbandand Colin Teevan’s The Crack and the Whip all for Galloglass, Hard Times (Storytellers), Bards in the Yard for NAYD in Dublin Castle (2003), Rashomon for Storytellers in 2004 (nominated for an Irish Times Theatre Award as Best Director) and Less Than a Year, Helena Enright’s verbatim piece for Limerick’s Island Theatre Company, Holy Mary by Eoin Colfer and The Importance of Being Honest by Billie Traynor (Bewleys Café Theatre), Last Year by Gavin Kostick (Fishamble Show-in-a-Bag), Another Twin by the award winning Australian writer Lally Katz (GSA Graduation production), The Sylvia by Philip St John (Collaboration Festival Smock Alley), Town & Country by Gary Duggan (GSA Grad play), Schiller’s Mary Stuart at the Freemason’s Hall, Eoin Colfer’s The The Belle Bottoms for Dublin Fringe Festival and Wexford Opera Fringe, Philip St John’s On City Water Hill and Naomi Elster’s Scabs both for Theatre Upstairs.

Artistic Director – Quare Hawks 2000 to 2004
In 2000 Liam founded Quare Hawks touring theatre company which made a very strong impact with new socially relevant work. The devised piece Cracked (2001) was based on the lives of women in St. Loman’s Mental Hospital in Mullingar and Michael McCudden’s Winter Came Down was based on workshops with three diverse rural community groups on the Monaghan/Armagh border which was nominated for a Stewart Parker Award 2003 and funded by the Peace & Reconciliation Fund.

Quare Hawks introduced the work of renowned English playwright Philip Osment with The Undertaking (2000) and Leaving (2002) which was based on interviews with people effected by young male suicide in the Border Region. They also toured Speaking in Tongues by the Australian writer Andrew Bovell which was nominated for an Irish Times Theatre Award as Best Director 2004.

Artistic Director - Storytellers Theatre Company 2004 to 2008
Liam was Artistic Director of Storytellers Theatre Company from 2004 to 2008 during which he adapted and directed Dream of a Summer Day (based on the life and works of Lafcadio Hearn) and Henry James’ The Turn of the Screw. He produced Fiona Buffini’s new adaptation of The Crock of Gold and commissioned and directed Mushroom,  a new play by Paul Meade, which was inspired by meetings with Polish and Romanian people living in Co. Monaghan. He also directed The Red Hot Runaways, a play with songs for young people adapted by Mary Elizabeth Burke Kennedy from Grimm brothers story The Musicians of Bremen.
He co-directed his adaptation of A Midsummer Night’s Dream with Lawrence Evans as a co-production with the Irish Chamber Orchestra integrating all of Mendelssohn’s incidental music. The production performed to full houses in concert halls in Limerick, Cork and at the National Concert Hall Dublin.
For Storytellers’ Youth Outreach Programme he devised and facilitated a number of very popular workshops around Shakespeare’s texts for second level students in schools throughout the country.

Artist-in-Residence
Liam was awarded an Artist in Residence position at Draíocht Arts Centre Blanchardstown in 2012. He worked with over forty people, aged from 18 to 86, drawn from the local Dublin 15 community. He devising a piece with them called You Yes You  which combined verbatim text, improvisation and song.