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A performance of a Traveller in Progress by Michael Collins as an insight into Traveller culture.
Thursday 03 May 2007
Thursday 03 May 2007
2.00pm
4.00pm
Lurgan Town Hall
Free
Event
Traveller in Progress by Michael Collins is an insight into Traveller culture. True tales based on the experiences of a former Glenroe actor & Traveller Michael Collins, portraying the discrimination and hardship routinely experienced by the Travellers Community in Ireland.
'A Traveller in Progress’ is a revised version of a play first put on in Liberty Hall Theatre last March. It is based on the life experiences of Michael Collins, a Traveller, who remembers his childhood through innocent eyes. There is also a running commentary that explains the same events in a different light.
The performance sees Michael going from living in the fields of Kilbeggan in a barrel top wagon to living in a tent at the top of Prosperous Hill. He describes his family’s journey to Dublin to join the other Travellers who started the exodus to Dublin as a result of changes in the social welfare system and the end of the traditional way of life.
During the course of the performance he has to convince his daughter to stay on in school. He takes us through his school days and his first real encounter with settled people. It is a fast paced sequence of stories that are a microcosm of the history of the Traveller community over the past 40 years.
Entertaining, enriching and provocative – you could hardly ask for more from a show. These engaging true tales vividly evoke life in encampments and on halting sites- and some good times – from the mid – 1960’s through the Human Rights for Travellers activism of the 1980’s and the beginnings of self development.
Michael Collins is a member of the Irish Traveller community who has been an advocate of Traveller human rights for over 20 years. He is an actor, writer and performer and has acted on stage in the Abbey and Olympia Theatres.
Michael has written his own play “It’s a cultural thing or is it” which he has spent the past two years performing in venues in Ireland and in the UK this play received a five star review in the Irish Times in the 2005 Dublin Fringe festival.
Michael has been developing the idea of establishing a Traveller Theatre Company which would work with Travellers and other socially excluded and ethnic minority groups to allow them to tell their stories and issues in an artistic way. This company will be called Traveller Wagon Wheel Theatre Company.
If you would be interested in attending this cultural awareness event which is to be held in Lurgan Town Hall at 2pm on Thursday 3rd May or would like more information on the content of the play please contact our office as soon as possible.
Craigavon Travellers Support Committee
Moylinn House
21 Legahory Centre
Craigavon BT65 5BE
t: 028 3834 2089
e: craigavon.travellers@btopenworld.com
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