LIGHT THEATRE COMPANY

A COMMUNITY INTEREST COMPANY (CIC)

The Light Theatre Company was conceived by Director, Alistair Livingstone and Writer, Csilla Toldy as a vehicle to develop and perform high quality theatre in small alternative venues. To date it has produced Bananas, a one woman piece based on mental ill health, homelessness and recovery, for the East Belfast Festival and subsequently toured it and The Emigrant Woman’s Story, to various venues in the North and South of Ireland.

Light Theatre Company has now been registered as a Community Interest Company with Seth Linder, the owner of the Rostrevor Inn, joining Alistair and Csilla as directors.

THE BLOOMSDAY FESTIVAL

In 1999, discovering that Rostrevor, where we are based, is the only named place in Northern Ireland to which a character in James Joyce’s Ulysses comes, we created and performed The Bloom Mystery as part of a Bloomsday Breakfast at the Rostrevor Inn on 16th June 2019, with Jason Barnes playing James Joyce, Vicky Blades doubling as a Hungarian journalist and Nora Barnacle with supporting parts played by William Graham, Alfie Corr and Kenneth Tyndall. This was so successful that we decided to create a festival this year incorporating, music, story telling and theatre. This became impossible because of the Pandemic, but we determined that rather than abandoning the idea, we would create an online festival.

BLOOMSDAY 2020

With more than 20 contributions from colleagues in France, London and Dublin, in addition to music, filmed performances and readings by local professionals and amateurs, we streamed content, linked to other Bloomsday festivals around the world over 7 hours on the 16th June and content can be viewed at: https://www.facebook.com/pg/lighttheatrecompany/posts

SPOT-LIT INCUBATOR PROGRAMME

Spot -Lit is a European funded initiative to promote tourism through links to literary works and heritage. Light Theatre Company and is delighted to have been accepted onto the programme and Alistair says that he and fellow directors see this as an opportunity to capitalise on the literary and creative heritage and potential of Rostrevor and County Down as a tourism generator.

Light Theatre Company is now planning a  number of projects under the incubator programme and working towards a much expanded Bloomsday Festival in 2021.