• For more information about the Big Tickle comedy festival, visit www.thebigtickle.com.
(Original publication: April 2, 2006)
YONKERS — The Hamm & Clov Stage Company didn't set out to produce
a comedy about an Irish pig farmer's quest for radio fame when aspiring actor
Jimmy Kerr first came to the group's rehearsals off McLean Avenue.
"I wanted to do a radio show," said Holly Villaire, the group's director. "I asked Jimmy what he could come up with because he had never written a play."
With Villaire's guidance, Kerr cooked up a piece called "Ardnaglass, On the Air," and it debuted last summer at Yonkers' Riverfront Library. The small production about a fictional Irish village could have faded into obscurity if not for a series of lucky breaks that have led Kerr's play to its international premiere today at the 2006 J20 Big Tickle Comedy Festival, Northern Ireland's biggest comedy festival, in Derry.
The play's journey from Yonkers to New York City to Derry in less than a year is a breakneck trajectory for Kerr, 35, an Irish immigrant formerly living in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, who fortuitously crossed paths with Hamm & Clov, which since 2001 has produced mostly Irish immigrant performances.
Kerr, who is now enrolled in a creative writing master's program at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland, said his play will face its toughest audience yet in his homeland.
"I'm cautiously excited. It's an Irish comedy, and for the first time it's going home to a pure Irish audience. It will be a real test," said Kerr, who left New York last summer.
As with Hamm & Clov, Kerr made contact with The Big Tickle representatives through acquaintances who were excited he had written a play. A friend put him in touch with a director at The Playhouse in Derry, and the theater decided to stage the work.
Hamm & Clov got a $1,000 grant from the Westchester Arts Council to develop "Ardnaglass, On the Air." Janet Langsam, the council's executive director, said the play's international debut was a validation of the council's support of local arts groups.
"There is nothing that makes me personally feel better than when we support an artist's work, and they end up in a New York gallery or when we support a play that ends up abroad," Langsam said. "That's what it's all about, helping artists do what they do best — create."
Kerr, who was born and raised in Ballymena, Northern Ireland, said he hopes to take "Ardnaglass, On the Air" on a bigger tour in Ireland or the United Kingdom.
He's also working on new performance pieces as part of his university course work. One piece he hopes to develop is based on his interactions with customers while working at a fish-and-chips shop called A Salt and Battery on Greenwich Avenue in Manhattan.
"You just never knew who would come through the door," said Kerr, who hasn't reached for a vinegar shaker very often since quitting that job last summer. "I've probably had (fish and chips) twice, and that's only because I've been hung over."