Join us for our free 2025-2026 Speaker Series on select afternoon performances during our Season. With each session led by one of ICTC’s distinguished speakers, the afternoon will begin at 1:30 pm with a dramaturgical presentation and moderated discussion to introduce the world of the play, followed by the matinee performance. After the show, join the speaker and select members of the cast for an enlightening Talk Back.
SAVE-THE-DATES:
A Skull in Connemara by Martin McDonagh: Sunday, February 15, 2026 at 1:30 PM
Islander by Amy Draper, Stewart Melton, and Finn Anderson: Sunday, April 12, 2026 at 1:30 PM
Girl on an Altar by Marina Carr: Sunday, June 14, 2026 at 1:30 PM
UPCOMING EVENT:
Sunday, February 15, 2026 starting at 1:30pm
A Skull in Connemara‘s Speaker: Horror Scholar, Ian Downes
Join ICTC and horror scholar Ian Downes for an exploration on McDonagh’s use of gravedigging, and how it highlights just how close the past is to the present. The gravedigger in A Skull in Connemara follows a long theatrical tradition of gravediggers as dark humorists, but what happens when small town gossip affects our perceptions of the profession? McDonagh uses uncertainty to weave together a play that is full of hearsay and misheard allegations, creating an atmosphere of mistrust, or at the very least an unstable footing for the audience. Can we trust the characters to tell us the truth? Can we even trust the physical evidence of the past when it’s dug up before us?
- 1:30pm – The Speaker will give a 15-minute presentation prior to the show.
- 2:00pm – A Skull in Connemara matinee performance (approximately 2 hours, including one 15-minute intermission).
- Post-show – There will be a 15-minute Talk Back session between the Guest Speaker, select cast members, and the audience.
WHO’S WHO:
Ian Downes (Horror Scholar) Ian Downes (Any Pronouns) is a scholar/playwright hailing from Auburn, Alabama. They received a BFA in Performance from Auburn University, and then received a Masters in Theatre from the University of Missouri – Columbia. They currently are working on a PhD at the SUNY University at Buffalo, where their dissertation explores the queer temporalities of theatrical horror. They have been published in Text and Presentation (“The Embodied Cartoon: The Move Toward Universal in Anne Washburn’s Mr. Burns: A Post-Electric Play“), in the edited collection Re-Imagining the Victim in Post-1970s Horror Media (“The Potential Victim: Horror Roleplaying Games and the Cruelty of Things”) and have a forthcoming chapter in a collection on the Monstrous Utopian. In Buffalo, their play Retail Horror was produced by Post-Industrial Productions and 0º Alcestis was produced as part of the Student Directed Series. Ian can be found on the New Play Exchange through which other theatres have produced their scripts 37 Scenes and a Watermelon and 2043: Mission Weir.