This magazine is published quarterly, and reviews some of the premiere shows in the country. The new issue is just out, and we’ve received a roundly enthusiastic review! 

“K: The Iowa Project literally jumps out at you. From the start, it subverts expectations, delivering a project that is like nothing you might have imagined.”

“The show also profiles the young Hammergrin Theatre Company as a feisty, innovative outfit that is happy to take theatrical risks, and to have a lot of fun in doing so.”

“This young company shows great strength of spirit.”

“If there is a ‘rough around the edges’ feel to this work, it does not disguise its freshness, its creativeness, nor indeed its immediacy.”

Read the full review here…

Ava, Nathan and Douglas. AKA Liam

With special thanks to Michael MacSweeney, Provision and Dyane, Jane and Michelle at the Midsummer Festival. See more photos from K: The Iowa Project in the Photos part of our site. And a nice film about K: THE IOWA PROJECT in our growing gallery of moving images!

Mary Leland writes today, as seen on the great new free online Irish Times… :

“…WHILE THIS YEAR’S drama strand had a touch of Dutch exteriors (Sensazione, Robodock, Braakland , Victoria) it might also cause Cork City Council to consider a heavier investment in the festival, given the way in which locations emerge as immense theatrical opportunities which, as with Hammergrin’s impressively staged presentation of K: the Iowa Project at the Old Distillery, reveal unusual, historic or otherwise fascinatingaspects of the urban landscape. Big productions like [Hammergrin/Corcadorca]… take on extra dimensions, almost an extra significance,from such revelations, as a place becomes a landscape, a site expands into a vista and grim old structures loom into lovely, forgotten perspectives……”

Irish Examiner, 24 June, 2008

By Ian Kilroy

With the clunky charms of a black and white B Movie, Hammergrin Theatre Company’s promenade production succeeds to entertain and confuse in equal measure.

…All in all, the company has devised and directed a great evening’s entertainment – intelligent, amusing and witty.

… a company that is growing into one of the best new company’s on the Cork theatrical scene.

We have been encamped en masse in the Old Distillery for two weeks now, and the transformation of a massive warehouse into the 1950s CIA headquarters of “K.:The IOWA Project”  is nearing completion.

The nature of the show means that only 30 people a night will get in. Obviously our advice is to book early (the box office is in Merchant’s Quay, check out all the other shows on too!). Only 210 lucky people will get to see our biggest ever show, and we really think you’re going to love it! Production shots up here soon…

 K.: The IOWA Project is a large-scale show in a warehouse which has elements of promenade (audience walking around) involved. We are looking for people who would like to help out with this. You will be involved in rehearsals, primarily from the second week of June on, and will get to collaborate on the coming together of the show before it opens on June 22nd. K.: The IOWA Project runs nightly from 9pm until Saturday June 28th. We can accommodate a variety of schedules and you need not be available for the duration of the run. If you are interested drop us a line at hammergrin@gmail.com.

K:The Iowa Project now really exists – it’s in a brochure and online.

You can also book your tickets and admire other shows (quite an interesting mix of Cork-based and international theatre companies).

Our show is about Philip K.Dick, Sci-Fi, and the CIA. It’s shaping up quite nicely. The story we’ve worked on has grown over several months and many many “meetings” (largely involving INCREDIBALL – don’t ask yet – and things we really liked but couldn’t include in the show). We thought we had come up with a really far-fetched fiction for the Cork Midsummer Festival 2008 , but it turns out our colourful tale of 1950s paranoia is all eerily close to reality! Check out Sara-Jane’s new blog for the full scoop on a story involving the CIA and mind altering cold war literature…