The great Russian composer Shostakovich is the worthy subject for a one man show performed by Jack Healy. Shostakovich was twelve at the time of the Russian Revolution and lived right throughout the Stalin era. In 1936 he became the focus of Stalin's wrath when the dictator walked out of his opera, 'Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk' in a rage. This was followed a few days later by a damning but unsigned 'review' in Pravda which seemed to intimate that Shostakovich would soon be either missing or in prison.

He lived to die in his bed in the early seventies, but always under the close scrutiny of the Soviet machine and always having to defend his music against claims that it was at odds with the Soviet cause.

Theatre Makers Ltd, in association with Cork School of Music, presents 'Shostakovich', a one - man show, written and performed by Jack Healy. The play will run at the Stack Auditorium at the Cork School of Music from Tuesday 9 to Saturday 13 February at 8pm.

The play was originally performed during the Cork Midsummer Festival of 2009 at the Curtis Auditorium in the Cork School of Music. The company has decided to give it another outing, this time in the more intimate Stack Auditorium in the same building, as Jack Healy explains: "The original production was very much a site specific presentation in the kind of venue that would have been very much a second home for the composer.

"We hope to tour the play during the coming year and we are keen to develop a version that could be adapted easily to performance in any space. The Stack is an ideal place to start.”

He added: “It is a black box facility with a one hundred seat capacity, a perfect space in which to platform a version of the play that relies more on storytelling but also gives all the technical benefits of a state of the art theatre space”.

Jack Healy, author and performer, has always been a fan of the music of Shostakovich and over the years became acquainted with the extraordinary and dramatic details of his life story.

The play is in the Stack Auditorium at the Cork School of Music and runs from 9 - 13 February, nightly at 8pm. Tickets are €15/12 and are available at the Triskel Box Office on 021- 4272022 or by logging onto www.triskelartscentre.ie.

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