One December night in 1998, Malcolm and Jahnna had the good fortune to hear Irish storyteller Tomáseen Foley weave his tale of one special family Christmas in west County Limerick in 1950. It was magical. Twenty years later—yes, twenty!—we, along with longtime writing partner Michael J. Hume, optioned the rights to turn Tom’s beautiful story into a musical. Three years ago, more good fortune happened—we went to see director/producer Billie de Buitléar’s evening of one acts Save/Quit at the New Theatre in Dublin where we met not only Billie but composer and one of Ireland’s most sought after session musicians, Kevin Corcoran. It was Kismet. Kevin became our arranger and music director, and Billie became, with Hugh Farrell, the lead producers of the Irish production team.
The New Theatre
By the fall of 2019 Jahnna and Malcolm were in Ireland working on finishing the script in collaboration with arranger Kevin Corcoran. In October we heard the script for the first time at a table read at the New Theatre located in Dublin's Temple Bar. Pat Nolan (Fair City regular) and Rose Henderson (Father Ted and Fair City) were in that original group of actors, as were Sean Roper Nolan (Understudy) and Niamh Branigan (social media).
Irish Theatre Chicago
In December 2019 Parcel from America had its first contact with an audience. After a week of rehearsals, a wonderful Chicago crew of actors drawn mostly from Irish Theatre Chicago and directed by Jim Sullivan, and local musicians directed by Kevin Corcoran gave two concert readings at the Irish-American Heritage Center.
Mountain Avenue Theatre , Ashland, Oregon
The COVID lockdown delayed any further public readings of Parcel until August of 2021. This time we assembled another great crew of actors, including many longtime veterans of the Oregon Shakespeare Festival and the Oregon Cabaret Theatre, and delivered a staged reading in front of a packed house at the Mountain Avenue Theatre in Ashland, Oregon.