Mags Riordan to appear at Majestic performancesDate: 6/10/2016 WEST SPRINGFIELD – Mags Riordan – the founder of Billy’s Malawi Project and the subject of the book “This is Paradise: An Irish Mother's Grief, an African Village's Plight, and the Medical Clinic that Brought Fresh Hope to Both” – will appear at the performances of “Mags (A Conversation with an Audience)” at the Majestic Theater June 9 through 12.
Danny Eaton, the Majestic’s producing director, adapted the one-woman play from Suzanne Strempek’s book and said he could identify with Riordan. He recalled the struggles in making the Majestic a reality but knew “the real challenge is keeping the doors open. That’s quite analogous to Mag’s challenges.”
Riordan started a medial clinic in Malawi as a way to honor her son who died there in an accident. Eaton said she spends nine months a year there working and three months a year traveling to raise money.
The performances will benefit the clinic.
His thought in creating the one-woman show is so “several copies of Mags could be anywhere in the world.”
Easton used passages from Strempek Shea’s book to create the dialogue for the play. He staged a reading of the play in November 2015 and these four performances will be the first ones that are fully produced.
Starring in the play is Cate Damon, who said, “I think the biggest challenges [of being the star of a one-actor show] is the responsibility for being the one telling the story.”
The goal is to being true to the story and Damon said, “Mags is a fascinating person. She has the clearest single purpose of anyone I’ve met.”
Unlike being in a production with other actors, Damon said in a one-actor show “if I go off the lines, there is no one to rescue me.”
When asked if it’s intimidating to portray someone on stage who is sitting in the audience, Damon readily admitted being “very nervous.”
She added, “I’m not going to try to impersonate her. I have my own sense of who Mags is to me.”
Eaton said, “Anything that is in a possible way to help the clinic she [Riordan] will put on a front and endure it.”
He said a run of the play in Provincetown might be next.
The show will be presented, June 9 at 7:30 p.m., June 10 at 8 p.m., June 11 at 8 p.m. and June 12 at 2 p.m. Tickets for the play are $23 and $25 and are available by calling the box office at 747-7797 or visiting Mondays through Fridays 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. and Saturdays 10 a.m. to 1 p.m.
For additional information, visit www.majestictheater.com.
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