Conor McPherson: 'Dylan left me alone and didn't try to control it'
Conor McPherson, Girl From The North Country. Picture: Colm Hogan.
It’s not every day that you receive an invitation from Bob Dylan to write a musical. Irish playwright Conor McPherson says when he was approached by the legendary singer’s management to see if he would consider writing a show using Dylan’s music, it felt very strange. However, what initially seemed like a relatively random request from the Nobel Prize winner made more sense in hindsight, according to the award-winning writer of The Weir, Shining City and The Seafarer.
“In his autobiography, Chronicles, he [Dylan] says theatre is the highest art form. He also writes about hanging out with Liam Clancy in New York and learning a lot of Irish folk songs; he always had a strong connection to Irish music. Over the years, he has had a connection to Ireland and its literature. I guess that in some way that he had some instinct about my work and liked what I was saying,” says McPherson.
