How making her own work led Jody O’Neill to a co-production with The Abbey

Sometimes as an actor it can feel as though our fate lies in the hands of others, with a lot of us still buying into this notion that we have to wait for the phone to ring in order to work. One way to take back control of your career is to make your own work.  Actor, writer, and voiceover artist Jody O’Neill has done an amazing job of making her own work right from the very beginning of her acting career. And in February 2020 Jody had a play co-produced by The Abbey which she wrote and performed in.  There’s no doubt that making your own work can be an incredibly rewarding process, but it is also a huge amount of...well, work. It often requires that you take on a multitude of roles such as writer, producer and marketing person as well as actor.  “When I think about making my own work, on all of them I have this memory of getting to a point where I don’t have time to walk anymore, so I just run everywhere because that’s how you can maximise your time” If you decide to make your own work you will probably want to avoid maxing out your mother’s credit card or having your apartment burgled like Jody did, but there are also loads of positive insights here to be gleaned from Jody’s experiences. Earlier this year Jody wrote and performed in ‘What I (Don’t) Know About Autism’ which was co-produced with the Abbey Theatre in association with The Everyman and Mermaid County Wicklow Arts Centre and you can learn more about the play on www.aboutautism.ie. Jody has also written a web series, called ‘Cocooned’ which is being produced by Graffiti Theatre Company and performed by Amaya Gillespie, you can check out episode 1 on their YouTube channel. Please remember to subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you normally listen, and if you enjoyed this episode please share it.  And if you’d like to connect with me I’m on Twitter as Frankiep. Thanks for listening!