Tatty Hennessy’s play A Hundred Words for Snow is about being an explorer in a melting world. In this coming-of-age story, Eddie Pattinson is taking on the role of Rory, a "funny, devastatingly earnest and cynical character". We catch up with Eddie ahead of their Melbourne and Sydney tour.
Q: Can you please introduce yourself and tell us how you got into theatre?
A: I’m Eddie, just your average friendly neighbourhood queer. I like oat milk flat whites, crosswords, and telling you my outfit was thrifted. I hate emails, tomatoes and trying to put a single piece of sticky tape in the bin.
I got started in theatre with the gateway drug of reciting poetry for my grandparents and their friends when I was 5, from there it was only a matter of time before I progressed to monologues, musicals, all the way to full blown drama school.
Q: Do you remember your initial response after reading of ‘A Hundred Words for Snow’ by Tatty Hennessy?
A: I instantly loved it and was sitting there crying and smiling in equal measures. It’s different from anything I’ve read before, especially in the kind of voice and vibrancy it gives to a teenage girl. This isn’t a show about someone’s insecurity, or their questioning of themselves, it’s a show about someone who knows exactly what they want. The text doesn’t waste our time justifying that, because it doesn’t need to.
Q: What attracted to you play the role of Rory?
A: Because she is the most fully formed, well written, funny, devastatingly earnest and cynical character I have ever been handed. I have never seen a teenage character that felt real to me, they often feel like an accurate adult interpretation of the process of growing up, but never real. Not Rory. Rory is a person, complicated, detailed, contradictory, she has a mission, a goal, a plan and the kind of bold blinding faith in themselves that you can’t carry past high school. Rory isn’t some awkward half formed thing, in fact I want to be more like Rory when I grow up.
Q: What are some of the challenges about performing in one-person plays? A: It’s a whole other beast for sure. Especially with memorization, there’s basically nothing to do except take it a page at a time and choose between ‘word perfect’ and an ounce of sanity. And standing up and talking for 75 minutes has no right to be this exhausting. It’s a really rewarding process though and the relationship you can build with an audience is unmatched, but yeah it’s a lot of work on and off stage. Q: Can you tell us a bit about the other collaborators working on this project? A: We have a great team, Gavin our producer and director has come to the table with so much trust and respect in us as artists. I think from day one Gavin could tell how much I loved Rory and there’s been this sense of him knowing I’ll take good care of her, it’s been a really generous process. And the world completely comes to life with Connor Ross’ sound design, he’s an incredibly talented composer, I think you could read the phone book while playing one of his compositions and it would suddenly be the most beautiful piece of writing you’ve ever heard. Add in Spencer’s stunning lighting design and you have yourself something truly beautiful. I’ve used the phrase ‘dream team’ more than once. Q: If you could capture the essence of this play in a single song or piece of music, what would it be? A: A haunting acoustic cover of Cheery Bomb by the Runaways. A Hundred Words for Snow By Tatty Hennessy
2-7 May
Explosives Factory BOOK HERE
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