We caught up with former DYTer Faith Jones to talk touring internationally, DYT memories, and her new company.

 

Hi Faith, thanks for chatting with us! You were a member of DYT for about four years, what encouraged you to join?
As most people who did drama when they were growing up, I was definitely on the outskirts socially at times in school. I had my friends but I wasn’t necessarily fully confident in my weirdness. Then, my brother Isaac was a member of DYT, so he did it and said to me “I really think you’d find a confidence if you join DYT” and so I auditioned, didn’t get in the first time, then auditioned again because I really wanted to be involved in that kind of community. Then once I was in it, my whole worldview shifted because it was like “Oh my god you can have fun with people who are like-minded who get that you’re a little bit eccentric, that get that you might be a messer but you still love things and taking things seriously and then you get that opportunity to express and create in a totally different way than school or homelife.” It was totally the escape to a community that I really wanted from DYT, and I absolutely got that, I was so lucky to have found that.

Do you have any advice to current members who are hoping to work in the theatre scene?
Do everything you can in DYT. There are so many amazing opportunities and so many amazing people you get to meet, like people in the industry who are interested in working with young people. It’s really rare to find a place where people want to hear your voice and hear your thoughts. Do as much as you can. I never did a ‘Big Show’ before I did ‘The Sleepwalkers’ because I was too nervous to audition or my parents would say “No you have school” and then once I did ‘Sleepwalkers’ it was a total introduction to a whole new world.  Do the writers groups, go to every Saturday workshop, stay for the social time because there really are people who get you and know you in a time when people don’t get to see the real you. When you’re a teenager, people might not get to experience what you’re really like or see the genuine side of you but in DYT, people do. I think there’s a real closeness that comes from that. So I say “Try everything” try being a technician, try being a manager, try being an actor because that’s the only time you get to explore every side of theatre. 

Do you have a favourite memory from your time as a DYTer?
I definitely remember the PASH I hosted very well because we did a murder mystery, and in the middle the lights went off and I was lying on the ground or me and Michael [Tient] were lying on the ground? And it was very funny because it was so… suspension of belief because everyone watched me run over and turn off the light switch.
Doing Sleepwalkers was so much fun because I had been in the middle of 6th Year and having a terrible time, and then I got to go into Sleepwalkers and just be around loads of people I really liked, and get a taste for devising.
And working with Carys [Coburn] was definitely fundamental to my practice and what got me to where I was because if I didn’t have Carys as a believer in youth theatre. We were so lucky to have her while we were in youth theatre because it was almost like a rockstar came in and we were like “Woah, we got Carys in here!”. So I remember that feeling of having someone champion you from youth theatre was really important, and having her support writing. All those conversations we had in Writers’ Group were so fun and they really were conversations I’m kind of chasing now to have with people.
I also loved social time, always. It really was just so much fun, and I looked forward to it every week. I really remember it so fondly because I don’t really have many bad memories from DYT. I mean probably just my own behaviour (laughs)

You’ve worked on five Pan Pan productions, and have just finished up touring ‘The First Bad Man’ in Calgary, what is something you love about the experience of working with Pan Pan?
I definitely love the autonomy you have as a performer, because I wouldn’t necessarily want to be a performer forever but I really love working with Pan Pan because you do have some level of input in what you want to do on stage and what you’d like to see. There’s a real back and forth conversation, especially with Gavin [Quinn], all the time about how to make the show better and I think that’s a communal energy, and I really like that about Pan Pan. Sometimes a director can be so dead set on what they want, that you can feel like a vessel rather than a person in the room. But I love with Pan Pan that you have that ability to say “I really want to do this- I’ve always wanted to do THIS on stage” or “I think this would really work in the scene” and there’s that opportunity to play with it even if it doesn’t end up in the show.
Generally, I love experimental work and that’s totally come from working with Pan Pan. I started out in youth theatre wanting to write very traditional, naturalistic shows, and I think the exposure to experimental work has made me think about theatre in a much wider art capacity, and what art you can make in images. That comes down to Aedin [Cosgrove] as well. All of her design is so beautiful, it makes you think like “Oh my god there’s so many other ways to make work, to showcase ideas, and explore things.” I think Pan Pan have really exposed me to that because, to me, they’re the leading experimental space in Dublin, in Ireland, and so they’ve facilitated my exposure to the bigger world of experimental work. 

What type of work inspires you?
Really visual work. I really like performance art, that’s a whole other side of theatre, of art, that I’ve gotten into from college. Watching people have real transformation on stage or in a performance space really inspires me. To me, that’s what it’s about. Work is about the person who is making it or the people who are making it because the audience can be transformed in some way but there’s something beautiful about performers doing real tasks on stage, or having real reactions, and interacting with the audience in a very real sense that only theatre allows for because you’re in a room with people breathing the same air. That inspires me. I do still love a naturalistic play that has an amazing plot, like when you go see something and you’re like “Jesus that is just the most heady, amazing perspective on humans – ever” and I think it is all about looking at humans and figuring out why we do what we do and live the way we live. 

What is next for you?
I’m doing a Scene & Heard show! We’re doing a once-off slot (23rd February 2pm – get your tickets). Mazzy [Ronaldson] and I started this company called Career Suicide, and the goal is to try and push what is accepted on Irish stages, the rules or etiquette of the content. So things like how Irish audiences are so quick to do a standing ovation. So in this Scene & Heard show, we’re hoping to kind of flip that on people so we’re not giving the actors a chance to bow, but they’ll be on stage so the idea is to make the audience decide when they leave. So those kind of small things like f**king with people in that way, and not JUST messing with people but trying to make people question why we do the things we do, and why patterns and traditions become so second nature to you. That is what I’m mostly working on, which should be fun, but it’s very hard directing.
Like I think my easiest time directing was when Kit [Geraghty] and I did ‘Keep Off the Grass’ for MOAF which was hilarious because I was younger than everyone! I was co-director and I was the youngest on the team. That was so fun because I had no notions. I remember my sister saying to me “Just write as much as you can when you’re young because once you turn 18, you start being able to critique yourself for your writing and compare it-” so the things I made in DYT are probably the best things I’ll ever make because they were just me open to the world.
I’m trying to get funding to make work around artificial intelligence abroad. Looking at AI, and now more so thinking about the environmental impact of AI and if you can make alternative programmes because I was so dead set on “I’m going to make EVERYTHING with AI now, that’s amazing!” but then my own carbon footprint, and my own environmental impact will be massive because the amount of times you need to pull from a resource when making a show… so now just thinking about AI and thinking about alternatives as well but keeping those ideas as well. Me and Mazzy were joking about making a show about AI but having the whole time us processing water to be safe to use, (laughs) so we’re both taking and giving in the process of the show. As with anything it’s so loosey-goosey.
And I’d love to do some international funding to work with people abroad, because I think it’s a closed circuit in Ireland and there’s a trickiness there when you work with the same people all the time, and you get bogged down trying to reference the same shows or making work in opposition to the same shows. So I think getting abroad and seeing more of what people are making abroad and the process of that. Places like the Netherlands have totally different attitudes to how they make work, that kind of stuff I’d love to make more. 

What has touring internationally done for you as an artist?
It’s definitely made me think about how small Ireland is in the scheme of things but also how important it is because we can control things, you know? The population of Ireland is small enough to make change. So I think touring has made me realise that they’re pushing the boat way out in other places and they’re way more isolated in that, whereas there’s so many like-minded people here so it’s like “why aren’t we working towards a shared goal?”. Because Ireland is maybe slower moving in contemporary change of what we can accept on stage, there’s not even ethics codes for those things or ways of looking at it. We’re only getting into the world of intimacy directors, into the world of people questioning casting and diversity. Those are conversations that have hopefully always been going on but they feel like they’re only becoming industry standard conversations now. Seeing abroad just how many different kinds of people are making work and how many people have space to make work. And I think so much about how entry points into the Arts in Ireland need to be broadened so much. Places like DYT, and there’s obviously youth theatres all over the country but they should be so standard like football teams, you know? It’s so important that people have the opportunity to get into those worlds because not everyone can go the route that I did, through college. It can take people ages to get into things, and having that space to have access to making work is a privilege, and I think we need to share that out. I’ve noticed that abroad that kind of funding they have for marginalised groups, and the fact that those works are platformed on a higher level and they’re more consistent. Obviously, everyone in Ireland is trying to work towards that, I don’t think anyone is actively stopping it, but it’s more that we just need to all be pushing for the same thing.
The types of work that happen abroad, the experimental stuff is just so much bigger over there. Like Pan Pan would be one of the only places doing that kind of high-level “we’re doing the art for the sake of doing the art” and not minding about it not making sense all the time, or putting it on the audience. I feel like a lot of the time we feel here we HAVE to do kitchen-sink dramas because that’s the culture we live in but I don’t know if that’s good for everyone all the time to see those shows. 

What is a bucket-list career goal for you?
I’d love to learn how to facilitate. I’d love to do a dance show, and learn about dance. I’d also just love to be involved in programming, I think that’s maybe where I’m moving towards after making stuff, I’d love to be involved in programming work. All those things I’m saying of things I’ve seen abroad, I think the only way to do it is having people who know what they want in those positions.
And then a stupid one is… I’d love to win an Oscar (laughs), no I’m joking.

 

Scene & Heard kicks off next week, are there any shows catching your eye?
Big shoutout to Gifthorse Theatre and their show LEONORA 

My dad’s doing a show about some of our family from the past – I’m looking forward to seeing that: THE QUIET MEN

There’s a few people I met in college doing fun work:
Immolation Papers by Michael Lucey

GO WEST! directed by Aoife Cronin

Catie Grainger (past DYTer) is directing a show: Parasocial Pat –  I’m definitely going to that

To keep up with Faith and Career Suicide you can follow @careersuicidetheatre on instagram, and catch ‘40 Minute Encore’ at the Scene & Heard Festival in Smock Alley on 23rd February 2pm. Tickets available here: 40 MINUTE ENCORE