DREAMLAND

June 1934, a rural pub in a village on the south coast of Ireland. Returned Yank, Johnny Kinnane has eight hours to salvage the rapidly decaying carcass of a sixty foot whale. General Eoin O’Duffy plans to attend the Blueshirt Dance in the Parish Hall while a 16 year old would-be jockey dreams of victory in the Cemetery Sunday Races and a Jewish refugee with a cello and a clapped-out truck sets out to make a new life for himself and his daughter. An electricity generating bicycle, an open air jazz dance and a daring triumph of the imagination in a climate of communal hysteria – these are just some of the elements which combine to form Jim Nolan’s new play, Dreamland. Set in rural Ireland in 1934, the play tells the story of the journey from boy to man against the backdrop of the rise of fascism in Ireland.
Jim Nolan is a playwright and theatre director, a founder member and former Artistic Director of Red Kettle Theatre Company and a former Writer in Association at the Abbey Theatre. His plays, including Moonshine, The Salvage Shop and Brighton, have been presented throughout Ireland, in the United Kingdom, the United States and Canada and he has worked as a writer and director with some of Ireland’s leading theatre companies. With the support of the Arts Council and Waterford City Council, he is currently Theatre Artist in Residence at Garter Lane Arts Centre. He is a member of Aosdána and his plays are published by Gallery Press.