ShortWork | losers richard wargo (b. 1957)
losers {27} October 11:00 {30} October, {2} November 15:30 THE AUDITORIUM, PRESENTATION SECONDARY SCHOOL, SCHOOL STREET This production is made possible by the generous support of The Lord Magan of Castletown
In 2010 Winners, the first opera in Richard Wargo’s two-opera work Ballymore, was performed to great acclaim as a ShortWork at Wexford. This year it is the turn of the second work, Losers, to receive its Irish premiere at Wexford. Ballymore was inspired by Brian Friel’s pair of one-act plays called Lovers, in two parts, Winners and Losers.
Andy Tracy Nicholas Morris
Losers is set in the town of Ballymore in County Tyrone, Northern Ireland in the 1960s and begins one evening in early spring as Hanna prepares her mother’s ‘invalid tray’. The scrape of burnt toast gives way to a rumba rhythm and Hanna’s expression of hope that the evening might yield a marriage proposal from her beau.
Music Director
Adam Burnette
Director
Conor Hanratty
Designer
Sarah Bacon
Six months later, in the middle of a dark stormy night, Hanna, heartsick at Andy’s unexplained disappearance, keeps watch while her mother and the Cassidys from next door pray ardently to St Philomena. Andy suddenly appears, drunk and elated, with unexpected news from the Vatican.
Hanna Wilson-Tracy Mrs Wilson Kate Cassidy Cissy Cassidy
Lighting Designer
Cátia Moreso Eleanor Lyons Kristin Finnegan Chloe Morgan
Pip Walsh
Stage Manager
Danny Erskine
Technical Manager
Conor Mullan
Costume Supervisor
Frances White
Props Assistant Design Intern
Nessa O’Brolchain Emily Mahon
The third scene is set six months later. Everything has changed since that fateful stormy night, but Andy resolves somehow, someway to ‘win his Hanna back’! Additional information on our ShortWork operas including artist biographies and director’s notes can be found in our ShortWorks Daytime Programme Book, available for purchase at each ShortWork venue and our box office.
Losers
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