Greetings friends, followers and maggots (old, new and future),
We’ve had a crazy year with beginners creative writing, acting, drawing, mindfulness, public speaking, role-playing, team-building, moving all these classes to a new building and that’s not even mentioning all the actor showcases we produced! I’ve decided to write an annual round up of where we are, what we’ve been up to and what we have planned for 2019. Next Thursday, we will host our final Showcase of 2018 – the fruits of the long awaited Level 3 Scene Study class – and nerves are running high I can tell you! It’ll be a great night and a few beverages will be had afterwards at Christmas Drinks.

New Friday Night and Weekend plans 2019
In 2019, we will re-introduce the monthly Friday Night Improv sessions for seasoned maggots. We will also host a Mindfulness and Creativity weekend away retreat (March) as well as some really cool Saturday half day (€25) and all day (€50) workshops in Imrprovisation, Character, Casting, Audition technique, Mindfulness, Drawing, Short Story and Flash Fiction. Keep an eye on our website for info and social media links for all our super early bird offers.

New Internship Programme
Next year we are introducing a new Internship programme. It’s fairly straight forward. In exchange for taking a free course you put up some posters and do social media as well as set up the rooms and complete 30 minutes of reception work each night of the course you sign up for. Click on this internship link and have a read and see what courses/dates interest you. As I write this, Internship 1 and 5 and possibly 3 have been snapped up. So there is one Tuesday(Internship 4) and one Thursday(Internship 2) still available!

Finalised Courses for 2019 – click on link for course that interests you
Beginners Acting Level 1 – Jan 31 to Mar 7, 2019
Beginners Acting Level 2 – Feb 7 to Mar 14, 2019
Beginners Acting Level 3 – Mar 28 to May 9, 2019
Beginners Acting Level 4 – devising a play – May 16 to June 27, 2019
(open to graduates of Level 3 and previous Level 4 maggots)
Effective Public Speaking – Mar 5 to Apr 9, 2019
Beginners Creative Writing – Mar 5 to Apr 9, 2019
Beginners Drawing – Mar 5 to Apr 9, 2019
There will be more Beginner Acting Level 1 throughout the year and more Drawing and Creative Writing and Public Speaking in September.

2018 Highlights
In 2018, we moved all our classes to Chapterhouse Education on Middle Abbey street which has been a great success and has enabled us to grow and develop new courses such as Level 4 Acting, Effective Public Speaking and a new level 2 Drawing class is in the works. We were also able to give something back for the first time ever on Culture Night 2018 – we flung open the doors and ran free classes all night – nearly 100 people tried it out! Watch this video we posted on Twitter about the free mindfulness session.

In June, we devised and wrote our very first play called Private Conversations Public Transport with the Level 4 group which was so much fun to do and was a really satisfying experience. We will run another Level 4 before the summer. With just 6 short weeks to improvise and come up with a show – the maggots really pulled out the stops and developed some hilarious characters and scenarios reflecting contemporary Dublin on the Luas. In fairness, they did lots of extra rehearsals to get it tight by the show date and I was extremely proud of their achievement. The audience response was brilliant.

Our tutors
In September, we bade farewell to Sarah Hone who now works for Ali Coffey casting. Any of you who are serious about getting commercial work, send a current headshot and CV out to her ASAP! We welcomed the brilliant Darren Yorke who is now over the Level 1 class and has been introducing maggots to all sorts of wonderful from his extensive improvisation knowledge having spent two years with a major Improv Troupe in Canada. We are really lucky to have him. Our creative writing tutor Niall McArdle won first prize in this year’s Penguin/RTE Guide Short Story competition and was shortlisted once again for the Hennessy Writers’ Competiton. Well done to him. Our drawing tutor Mahua LeMeur continues to turn out amazing work with ink and paint at her studio in Temple Bar and is busy developing a Level 2 class for next year.

Media and Corporate Developments
Act The Maggot was featured in the September 12 issue of the Dublin Inquirer – nice to get a mention and thanks to our maggots Shane and Irina who were interviewed. We also introduced a 20% discount corporate friends rate which has been taken up by many maggots who have recommended and introduced our team-builidng Improv, Mindfulness or Drawing sessions to their workplaces – yes – we want the whole country to experience the joy of Act The Maggot!

Mental Health
Act The Maggot is also thrilled to have won a tender for the second year running to design and deliver a 12-week course covering Drama, Movement and Creative Writing to DCU Recovery College. This a great new organisation operating in Dublin, Meath and Louth so if you know anyone struggling with mental health issues let them know about it. They run really varied courses all year round and they are virtually free. There are also opportunities to get involved with their talks or help put together their newsletter.

I’d like to thank you all for joining us, returning to us and for telling your friends and colleagues about us. We are nothing without your continued support and great “word of mouth”. Also, many thanks to Leanne Geaney for her support as our very first intern – who stayed with us so long she managed to complete three levels of Acting. We wish her the very best of luck.

As it’s Christmas – this is a shout out to a small, interesting new company called Trustwordie in Wexford designing the quirkiest cards ever. You can buy them online and their Christmas and New Year range are available now. You should definitely find something to make someone chuckle!

That’s all for now from Act The Maggot folks, if you got as far as here, you deserve a medal! Hope to see you at the Christmas Drinks. Have a cosy Christmas and a peaceful and prosperous New Year.
Warm regards,
Amy

“A day without laughter, is a day wasted.”

Charlie Chaplin