I was approached by a fellow after our session yesterday. he and some others have an Irish theatre company. They’re starting out doing some John Millington Syng plays. He said that they wanted a trad. fiddler to play some accompanying/incidental trad. music and asked if I was interested. I asked what he had in mind for tunes and he said he didn’t know, not being a musician himself. They’ve also never done this sort of thing. Has anyone done this and can recommend tunes? I’m not familiar with these plays and straight up dance tunes is probably not suitable. Airs or O’Carolan stuff perhaps? I’d better dust off those! They will also be doing plays by other Irish playwrights in the future. Thanks in advance.
It’s done, I’ve seen (heard) it being done. I would suppose it depends on what the director wants…ambient, dance, what have you. I am certain that if you go for it, you’ll rehearse and decide what will work best. Have some fun. 
Don’t be afraid to vamp. You’re there to set the mood, not recite anything in specific. Most people would jump at the chance you’re getting to be totally wide open, without “informed” direction of what must be played and how to play it.
djm
True djm, I’m so locked in pure drop mode that I’d have to experiment a little beforehand though!
…Let me introduce you my friend…Mr. Jameson… 
Not what I meant, but a good idea nonetheless. I’ve been known to preload just a little if I’m playing by myself. I get the nerves something fierce if I’m playing solo. Not the best way to take care of it perhaps.
I had a limited experience in that realm once. I played solo whistle bits for specific times in a Christmas play, The Long Christmas Dinner (not an Irish play). The setup is the play takes place at an unending Christmas dinner table with generations coming and going. An individual would periodically get up ominously from the table and wander out the ‘dark doorway’ signifying they were passing on to the afterlife. I would play phrases from sad sounding slow airs for the duration of their exits and during a scene where family members are consoling a young mother who lost a baby. The actors were emphatic that it really set the mood. I also played a sprightly “When Johnny Comes Marching Home” as the young man in WWI uniform marches out the dark door to war. (my ironic touch :roll: )
The director had invited me to play ‘something’ on the whistle, having heard me play at a party. Knowing zip about Irish music, he said to do what I thought was appropriate. I played bits from Have You Been to Carrick, Eanach Dhuin in a slow, melancholy fashion, me hidden from view in an echoey hallway.
For some ideas, rent The Secret of Roan Inish and see how they work in trad and trad-sounding bits for background. Some dance tunes can take on a really different quality played slowly and expressively, minor keyed jigs, for instance.
Tony
If it’s a Synge play, you should do “The Black Rogue” at some point:
"An hour later the old man came down from my cottage to say that some of the lads and the ‘fear lionta’ (‘the man of the nets’–a young man from Aranmor who is teaching net-mending to the boys) were up at the house, and had sent him down to tell me they would like to dance, if I would come up and play for them … At first I tried to play standing, but on the upward stroke my bow came in contact with the salt-fish and oil-skins that hung from the rafters, so I settled myself at last on a table in the corner, where I was out of the way, and got one of the people to hold up my music before me, as I had no stand. I played a French melody first, to get myself used to the people and the qualities of the room, which has little resonance between the earth floor and the thatch overhead. Then I struck up the ‘Black Rogue,’ and in a moment a tall man bounded out from his stool under the chimney and began flying round the kitchen with peculiarly sure and graceful bravado.
The lightness of the pampooties seems to make the dancing on this island lighter and swifter than anything I have seen on the mainland, and the simplicity of the men enables them to throw a naïve extravagance into their steps that is impossible in places where the people are self-conscious.
The speed, however, was so violent that I had some difficulty in keeping up, as my fingers were not in practice, and I could not take off more than a small part of my attention to watch what was going on…" (from The Aran Islands)
I’ve done incidental music for an O’Casey play (one about the Easter rising whose name escapes me), and the director and myself independently came up with an almost identical set of tunes that suggested themselves on the basis of the themes of the play.
If you identify the play(s) your friend is planning to put on, people might have a better idea how to advise you.
I believe that would be “The Plough and the Stars”.
Slan,
D.
Correct and right. The only title I could think of was “Shadow of a gunman”, but I knew that wasn’t it.
And now, for a bonus four points, what tunes would you nominate for the P & the S? 
Jackie Daly always says ‘we play three tunes here : the Plough and Star, The Plough and Star and the Plough and Star’
I’m straying from the subject here Peter, but you mentioning Jackie Daly has me positively drooling…his “Music From Sliabh Luachra” LP in the 70s is what got me going on ITM on the harmonica. I shall have to wheel my harps and wife over to Miltown Malbay very soon if that’s the kind of company you’re keeping…
The Plough and the Stars is a great harmonica tune by the way!
Cheers
Steve