The Lantern Man 

by Jane Coyle 

Synopsis: 

Set in Dublin in the months leading up to the 1916 Easter Rising. Johnny McGrath returns home from active service on the Western Front. Wounded in body and spirit, he learns that he has inherited a collection of glass lantern slides showing images of soldiers in uniform. He decides to screen them and show the public the reality of the war. In the process, he unites two mourning mothers from different social backgrounds and unwittingly comes across the last missing piece in his family jigsaw. 

World premiere tour: September 2016

Produced in association with Institute for Conflict Research and supported by the Reconciliation Fund of the Department of Foreign Affairs; Causeway Coast & Glens Borough Council; Newry, Mourne & Down District Council; Arts & Business NI

Sponsored by Lighthouse Communications & John J. Rice & Co. Solicitors

Director: Stephen Beggs 

Both Sides 

A pair of interlocking monologues by Jane Coyle 

Inspired by the works of Samuel Beckett

Synopsis: 

Me Here, Me 

From a table in a Paris café, a young woman observes passers-by on the street. They all seem to be in possession of secret lives. She has one too and she fears that it is about to be revealed.

Before Before 

In a bar in Nice, a once glamorous middle-aged woman from Belfast looks back on a colourful, bohemian life and a succession of lovers, while reliving a personal loss too painful to bear.

Who are these women? How are they connected?

Supported by the National Lottery through the Arts Council of Northern Ireland. In association with Shelter NI.

Sponsored by Lighthouse Communications

Director: Rhiann Jeffrey

Cast: Libby Smyth & Hannah Coyle 

First script reading: Commencez! 2016 Beckett Paris Festival, Centre Culturel Irlandais, Paris; Paris Fringe

World premiere: 2016 Cathedral Quarter Arts Festival, Belfast 

Performances: Aspects Literary Festival; John O’Connor Literary Arts Festival; Seamus Heaney HomePlace and on tour. 

European premiere: Alchemy Theatre, Paris

Director: Nathalie Allison.

Cast: Mia Leahy & Hannah Coyle

Venue: Le Pavé d’Orsay Gallery, Paris 7eme

Dates: 3, 4 & 5 May; 14, 15 & 16 June 2024

Brexit: A Tragicomedy 

A dramatic monologue by Jane Coyle

Synopsis: 

Written in the immediate aftermath of the EU Referendum, the piece draws on speeches from Shakespeare, together with reflections from other prominent writers, politicians and philosophers, to examine the motivation of voters in taking this momentous decision.

Director: Rhiann Jeffrey 

Premiere: 2017 Culture Night Belfast 

Performances: 20I8 Imagine Festival of Ideas & Politics, Belfast; Tinderbox Solo Art 2020

Farm Girl 

A dramatic monologue by Jane Coyle

Synopsis: 

Seven year-old Rusalka Hartmann travels to Northern Ireland from her home in Vienna on the Kindertransport. In the coastal town of Millisle, she is given a safe haven, kind friends and a new family. Seventy-five years later, Rosa Maguire shares memories of her grandmother’s eventful life. Based on real life experiences.

With musical inserts from the opera Rusalka by Dvorak.

Director: Jane Coyle

Premiered at Bangor Castle for 2016 Holocaust Memorial Day and read at subsequent annual HMD commemorations in libraries and public spaces across Northern Ireland..

2023 Holocaust Memorial Day: Readings at Northern Ireland War Memorial Museum and Bangor Drama Club.

Bangor Drama Club presented a staged reading of The Suitcase.

Walking With Beckett

PLEASE NOTE: Walking With Beckett is now available on a permanent basis via Visit Belfast.

The tour is presented in association with the Crescent Arts Centre and No Alibis Bookstore, Belfast.

Bookings on: https://visitbelfast.com/event/walking-with-beckett-2/

A new concept in walking tours.

A self-guided audio walking tour around Belfast’s university quarter in the imaginary company of the great Irish writer Samuel Beckett

Synopsis: 

Adapted from Me Here, Me - the first of the two interlocking monologues which comprise Jane Coyle’s play Both Sides.

Beckett was born in Dublin, went to school and taught in Northern Ireland and spent much of his adult life in France. These landmarks are reflected in the play, from which the tour itinerary and the immersive commentary have been adapted by the writer.

Set in a Paris café and a bar in Nice, Both Sides revolves around two women, who observe the people around them. They all seem to be concealing intriguing personal stories, many emanating from Beckett’s enigmatic imagination.

Writer: Jane Coyle

Director: Rhiann Jeffrey

Narrator: Hannah Coyle

Sound production: Spring Lane Productions

Premiere: Belfast International Arts Festival - October/November 2021

After Melissa 

By Jane Coyle

Inspired by The Alexandria Quartet by Lawrence Durrell. 

Synopsis: 

Irish writer Eamon Quiery has returned to his native Donegal, bringing with him an introverted young child, the orphaned daughter of a nightclub dancer called Melissa.

He is writing a memoir about the turbulent years he spent on the island of Corfu and in the Egyptian city of Alexandria, where he became involved with an intriguing gallery of cosmopolitan residents. Foremost in his memory and imagination are his tangled ove affairs with Melissa and Justine, a wealthy socialite.

Meanwhile, he struggles to come to terms with the complex experience of homecoming and the well-being of the child in his care.

Director: David Grant 

Cast: Ruairi Conaghan, Caitriona Hinds, Sanja Nović, Emily Bagnall, Fadl Mustapha

World premiere: Belfast International Arts Festival: 3 to 5 November 2022

Tour: Seamus Heaney HomePlace (10 November), Market Place Theatre, Armagh (11 November), Down Arts Centre, Downpatrick (12 November), Cushendall Golf Club (13 November.)

Reviews from 2022 tour:

“ … brilliant passages … storytelling that took one into Alexandria and another world.” Irish News

“Coyle constructs a coherent narrative from Durrell’s time-shifting storyline, deftly lacing the Mediterranean-located original with a credible Irish flavour.” British Theatre Guide

“ … gorgeous imagery … a verbal landscape of Alexandria.” Grania McFadden, Belfast Telegraph critic

“ … an intriguing work that speaks loudly about concepts of home and belonging, about selective curiosity and incomplete memory, about whether the adults in the room can be trusted with an invisible child’s welfare, about whether love can survive and thrive.” AlaninBelfast

“ A wonderful memory play, totally captivating. Beautiful images and natural emotions, as the story cleverly unfolded. Strains of Lughnasa [Dancing at Lughnasa by Brian Friel]. A triumph.” Arthur Webb, theatre director & international festival adjudicator

Corfu Literary Festival 2022: Reading from play and audience discussion about the play’s connections to Lawrence Durrell, who lived on Corfu for a number of years. He wrote extensively about the island in his poetic travel memoir Prospero’s Cell.

Corfu Literary Festival 2023: Shared platform with author, historian and Greek academic Bruce Clark to discuss the importance of place in great 20th century literature. Chaired by screenwriter David Evan Giles.

Reading from new monologue Alexandria Adieu, inspired by Clea, the final book in The Alexandria Quartet.

“Fantastic event. Plous Bibliocafé packed to the rafters. Speakers Bruce Clark & Jane Coyle bewitched, informed and soothed”.

Little Stranger 

A large-scale dance theatre project

A co-production with Tinderbox & DU Dance

Synopsis: 

On a street in Paris in the winter of 2018, writer Jane Coyle met a young Syrian refugee girl and her family. Their plight touched her heart. They are the inspiration for this project, which has just completed its second phase.

Little Stranger explores the experience of an unaccompanied child migrant, arriving into a strange country and feeling lost and overwhelmed by the strangeness of her surroundings. In the film, the solitary little stranger is portrayed by a faceless paper doll, blown around like a leaf in the wind.

This long term project is being developed with the young dancers of the multi-cultural youth dance groups Sutemos and Suteminis, run by DU Dance and based in Dungannon.

Director: Patrick J. O’Reilly

Choreographer: Sheena Kelly

 Phase 1: Four-day workshop & public performance - February 2020 

Supported by Community Relations Council NI

Phase 2: A 12-minute dance film, shot on location .

Supported by Community Relations Council NI and the Community Foundation for Northern Ireland.

Composer: Isaac Gibson

Camera/editor: Brendan McCarthy

Premiere: EastSide Arts Festival, Belfast, 14 August 2021.

Followed by a live panel discussion, involving professionals and volunteers who work with Northern Ireland’s new arrivals.

Selected by Cinemagic 2022 International Film & Television Festival for Young People to compete for the award for Best Short Film for Young Audiences. In competition with films from France, Portugal, Norway, Germany, Czech Republic and USA. Screening on Belfast Barge, 8 October 2022.

2023 Screening: House of Tolerance Festival, Ljubjlana, Slovenia - 12 to 19 November 2023

Home town community screening:

Sutemos youth dance group presented the film to its home town of Dungannon on 1 February 2023. The screening was followed by a workshop and discussion about themes raised by the film. Event supported by Mid Ulster District Council Good Relations, through the Executive Office.

The Suitcase – The Opera

An opera adaptation of The Suitcase.

Composer: Maury Buchala

Director: Denni Sayers

Libretto: Jane Coyle & Denni Sayers

Producer (for Powerstone): Randall Shannon

The composer is the distinguished Brazilian, Paris-based composer/conductor Maury Buchala.

The director is Denni Sayers, one of the leading operatic choreographers of her generation and a highly regarded opera director/associate director.