Carmel Winters' play bears Witness to power of the theatre

Carmel Winters: “I have a responsibility to people as a storyteller to not shy away from experiences that need to be aired.”

Writer and director Carmel Winters’ play, Witness, will premiere on August 12 at Bank House, Whiddy Island, as part of the Blood in the Alley West Cork Fit-Up Festival which tours plays from contemporary Irish writers, visiting 11 venues over the summer. Winters wrote Witness a few years ago. It’s a one-woman show with two characters, a 29-year-old mother and her 14-year-old son.

It’s a demanding play for an actor. Winters put it aside thinking it unlikely that she would find someone capable of being convincing as the two characters. She finally cast Kate Stanley Brennan, who played a Bolivian nanny in Winters’ play Best Man which was staged at the Everyman (where Winters is writer-in-residence) as part of the Cork Midsummer Festival in June.