CROON — A cross-disciplinary project by Daphne Wright + Johnny Hanrahan

ed. Johnny Hanrahan

essay by Brian Hand; interview by Peter Murray; contributions by Tara Byrne, Johnny Hanrahan

ISBN 978 0948037 382     48 pages (paperback)   17 x 16 cm    39 illus

Croon was a cross-disciplinary project produced jointly by Meridian Theatre Company and the National Sculpture Factory. The result of a two-year collaboration between Meridian’s then-artistic director, Johnny Hanrahan and sculptor Daphne Wright, it consisted of a three-part promenade experience lasting roughly one-and-a-half hours. Three different sites in Cork city centre were used – the Metropole Hotel, the IAWS warehouse on the quays, and the stage and wings of the Everyman Palace Theatre. Audiences, in groups of thirty, travelled in rotation between the spaces, each space being activated twice nightly. Large sculptural constructions were integrated with performance-based elements of the event – e.g. an incarcerated choir, a steward of dereliction, a pair of satyr-like rhetoricians ­– to create an event that attempted to combine the governing logic of the two disciplines sculpture and theatre in dialogue, while also allowing each its own integrity. The book features various texts, including essay, interview, scripts and more.