ANU Co-Founder & Artistic Director Owen Boss introduces one of the acclaimed theatre company's most ambitious projects to date, The Good Luck Club, a 'blistering' new immersive work created in collaboration with the National Archives of Ireland.
Working with historical material through archival primary sources has been a cornerstone of our work since we founded ANU in 2009.
Over the last number of years an exciting and fruitful collaboration has been built between ourselves at ANU and the National Archives of Ireland. To be commissioned by the custodians of the country's public records and asked to respond to the collection marking the launch of the digitisation of the 1926 census is both a thrilling and daunting prospect in equal measure. The challenge to bring audiences into the very heart of their new building for an intimate immersive show is such a privilege for us. We have been very lucky to be ensconced in the boardroom of the National Archives developing the project, with access to the vast experience of the buildings’ archivists, as they assist us to navigate the complex nexus of our State Papers.
From 2013 to 2023, we created 22 artworks in response to the Centenary Decade and are now exploring the challenges faced by this group of disparate idealists as they pushed to be an independent state on the global stage. How were they going to build a new nation and what were the challenges? It was with these curiosities that we found the extraordinary story of the Irish Hospital Sweepstakes; an all singing, all dancing, complex, glittering spectacle demonstrating the ingenuity of our fledgling nation.
For The Good Luck Club, audiences can expect to traverse the normally unseen rooms of the National Archive in this high octane, intimate and immersive show. We are creating a dreamlike space in the heart of the building where time space and ideas collide as the energy of the original sweepstakes comes to life. It will be a surreal world of hope, dreams and chance set against a backdrop of the great depression.
Working with the National Archive has been both a dream collaboration and a privilege. The importance of which has not been wasted on us. For a company like us, that has been in continual dialogue with archive material and archivists, this feels like the ultimate of challenges.
of the Irish Hospital Sweepstakes' (Pic: Album / TT News Agency / SVT)
It has taken huge amounts of research, care and conversation to stage The Good Luck Club at the National Archives and this is always the case when making off site work. How do we plug our world of the play into the infrastructure of a functioning building and how do we respond to the rhythms and culture of that working space. It is always challenging and sometimes difficult but our relationship with the National Archives has been built steadily over years and has been incredibly productive. The work of the archives and the staff doesn’t stop because we are there. We need to be sensitive to the site, the staff and the people that use the building.
The Good Luck Club runs from 27th May to 14th June at the National Archives of Ireland, Bishop Street, Dublin - find out more here
