Irish Playwrights
Cast & Characters (4)
Bits & Timeline (13)
Introduction to the Irish Playwrights
The hosts introduce a panel of four legendary Irish playwrights, setting a dark, brooding, and whimsically funny tone for the discussion on their craft.
"Nothing captures the inspiration of dark, brooding, yet whimsically funny plays like Irish playwrights."
The Legend of Double Saints Day
The playwrights discuss the influence of twins and the dark legend of a royal scribe and his evil double, which serves as the foundation for their superstitious approach to storytelling.
"Twins have always been God's trick. The greatest trick God has ever pulled."
"If you tell a story twice, that makes the twin of a story."
Samuel MacLeary's Exercise in Futility
Samuel MacLeary introduces his play 'Waiting for One Sister by The Long Dark Pier' and discusses the 'biological clock' of Irish playwrights, who only start writing in their 50s.
"The 50s are the Irish playwrights' 20s."
"I see God every day I look in the mirror."
Daniel Cricket and the TikTok Monologues
Daniel Cricket discusses his famous play 'The Galway Girl' and his frustration with 16-year-old girls performing his mother's hospice words for 'Monologue Mondays' on TikTok.
"You're posting your Carnegie Mellon shit on TikTok. Why do you think that's going to help you?"
"My life has just been a mirror for people who are looking beyond me into their own brains."
Shannon Deidre O'Shannon's Adaptation Process
Shannon explains the 'great Irish dance' of adaptation, turning American IP like 'What's Up With That' and Mattel's 'Fuggy Dog Dolls' into dark Irish tragedies.
"Adaptation is the great Irish dance. It's taking an American IP and turning it Irish."
"I find it in the castle of my mind."
Guinness Scott's Profound Hillside
Guinness Scott introduces his controversial masterpiece 'Abortion on a Hillside,' praised by the panel for its empathetic handling of church versus state and bunny metaphors.
"What if bunnies could get an abortion?"
"That's where we see church versus state."
"Where does life begin? At the beginning of a pregnant pause."
"What if a tree could get an abortion?"
The 70,000 Things in Common
Samuel MacLeary describes meeting a man in a pub and discovering they have 70,000 things in common, eventually realizing they are twins who shared a womb.
"We had near 70,000 things in common."
"No way me womb. We shared it together."
"Twins are God's trick."
The Shoelace Noose
Samuel MacLeary describes his dark writing process involving a noose that turns out to be a very thin shoelace, leading to a debate about the definition of a noose.
"I pick up the pen instead of the noose."
"The noose is very, very thin. It's a shoelace."
"It's a noose for a baby."
Walking the Malls of Ireland
Daniel Cricket explains his writing ritual of walking 'malls' (pronounced 'molls') and finding inspiration in dusty juice boxes and Snapple facts.
"I walk malls in Ireland."
"I'll pick the dustiest buck I can find."
"Does a drink have a sibling or is it just itself in another glass?"
Coherence vs. Shite
A heated argument erupts over whether literature should be coherent or 'nasty shite,' culminating in Samuel MacLeary receiving a divine message to write a play about a sweater.
"If you wrote something coherent, you wrote shite."
"Coherence is the death of the unknown."
"You have to write a play about a sweater."
"I spoke to God directly and he said, You have to write a play about a sweater."
The Irish Popcorn Play: The Sweater
The panelists engage in 'Irish Popcorn' style improv to write a bleak play about a coal miner, a delivery man named Phineas, and a green sweater.
"Rather than saying popcorn and pointing at somebody, you're going to scream popcorn to take it over."
"So, Phineas, you going to take your dick out or what?"
"Curtain. Sorry, popcorn. Curtain."
Rapid-Fire Playwriting Tips for the Youth
The playwrights offer increasingly absurd advice to young writers, covering everything from screenplay formatting to parking your car before opening night.
"If they're arguing about semantics, they didn't want to read it in the first place."
"Make sure the car is in park before you leave it in the park."
"If they want you to stop using the word abortion, start using bunny."
The Monologue Formula and Final Revelations
The group shares 'instant monologue' prompts before Guinness Scott's phone goes off, leading to a chaotic series of personal revelations and a gay bar date.
"Death is... Now you got yourself a monologue."
"I swear you said you were gay!"
"Okay, I'm a little gay."