We were delighted and privileged to be invited to take part in three
of a wide range of events mounted by Scottish art galleries to celebrate - in mid-2021 -
the centenary of the birth of Joan Eardley.
In Conversation with Kirsty Wark
As part of the inauguration of the Arran Heritage Arts Trail, broadcaster Kirsty Wark discussed the work and legacy of Joan Eardley - with Dr. Jenny Brownrigg, Professor Susannah Thompson, Anne Morrison, Jan Patience and Anna Carlisle and Alexandra Mathie from Heroica Theatre Company - at a day-long symposium dedicated to the artists of the Isle of Arran, on 29 April 2021.
Watch the video here: https://youtu.be/zqOqVgDRrVI
‘Tabernacle’
Also to celebrate the inauguration of the Arran Heritage Arts Trail, a short film was made, directed by Simon Sloan, narrated by broadcaster and writer Kirsty Wark, featuring excerpts from the 2017 play Joan Eardley: A Private View by Anna Carlisle, and featuring the voices of Alexandra Mathie and Ashley Smith as Joan Eardley and Margot Sandeman respectively. The Tabernacle is a small bothy above the village of Corrie frequented in the 1940s and ‘50s by Joan and Margot.
Watch the film here: https://youtu.be/6AJY6lOMIak
and
Joan Eardley and Catterline online panel discussion
In response to the recently opened Joan Eardley & Catterline display at Modern One gallery in Edinburgh, National Galleries Scotland, on 30 June 2021, hosted a panel discussion about Joan Eardley’s relationship to place in her work made in the Aberdeenshire village of Catterline. Curator Leila Riszko was joined in discussion by artist Hannah Mooney, Anna Carlisle (Heroica Theatre Company) and Professor Susannah Thompson (Glasgow School of Art). Alexandra Mathie read two scenes from Joan Eardley: A Private View.
Watch the video here: https://youtu.be/ZFUVzpdKifA
In loving memory
of
Marilyn Imrie, director
1947-2020
We were heartbroken to learn of the death in August 2020 of Edinburgh-based director Marilyn Imrie.
Marilyn was a prolific radio and drama director, spending her working life travelling and working between London and Edinburgh chiefly, and we felt extremely privileged to have been able to have her as director of our most successful production in 2017.
In 2015, Marilyn invited our writer Anna Carlisle to create a play on the life of Joan Eardley RSA, with a view to performing it in front of Eardley paintings at the National Galleries of Scotland in Edinburgh and then on an art-gallery-based touring production across Scotland and England. With Anna Carlisle and Alexandra Mathie, Marilyn saw the entire development of Joan Eardley: A Private View through from 2015 to its premiere - to huge acclaim - at Modern 2, NGS in May 2017.
Marilyn was an inspirational director, allowing the company free rein to explore, improvise and innovate, and she was the epitome - to all - of encouragement, praise and kindness. It was the happiest of productions. She could engender genius from everyone. It was Marilyn’s own inspired idea that the music of the production should all be live and ‘human’ - song, sound and instruments - which created a most evocative and poignant dimension to the play.
We know that everyone involved in the making of Joan Eardley: A Private View - actors, stage and design teams, music and artwork practitioners, the marketing and media team, the Adult Learning team at NGS, all our venue providers and supporters-in-kind and, of course, the audiences - will be as devastated as we are, and it is also on their behalf that we make this tribute to Marilyn.
Marilyn’s untimely death from MND at the age of 72 will only inspire us to go on as strongly as before and to continue to create - as we know she would wish it - beautiful work, couched in beautiful language and steeped in beautiful music.