THE GOBLIN MARKET: CHICAGO MAY’S STORY

Tickets are now available for THE GOBLIN MARKET: CHICAGO MAY’S STORY, a two-act play written by Megan McGurk and Clara Higgins, running for three performances (12, 13, 14 June) in The Dot Theatre, Dublin.

Get your tickets at Eventbrite

May Duignan left County Longford and emigrated to the States in 1890, where she earned the moniker ‘Chicago May,’ by putting the ‘art’ in her work as a con artist. She proved to be a quick study with the women in The Levee, Chicago’s red-light district. As May later told it, Dickens’s Fagin had nothing on her crime school teachers in The Levee.

May’s underworld exploits were sensationalised by the press, including the daring robbery of the American Express office in Paris, which she conducted with her lover, the notorious bandit, Eddie Guerin. Near the end of a ten-year stretch in Aylesbury Prison, where May was sent for fleecing aristocrats, she met Countess Markievicz, interned there for her role in the Easter Rising. Through their conversations, May developed a political consciousness.

In an era when immigrant women fell through the cracks, disappeared, or toiled away in drudgery, Chicago May and her cronies forged another path.

**Refunds are available if requested up to noon on the day of the performance.

Complimentary wine will be served at the intervals.

Meet the cast:

Grace Keelin plays Chicago May.

Grace is a Dublin-based actor and writer from Maynooth, trained full time at the Gaiety School of Acting and Bow Street Academy, where she studied under Gerry Grennell. Her recent credits include Celtic Exodus at The Complex, directed by Mark Lambert, and two productions in last year’s Scene and Heard festival. She is currently co-writing and developing her short film Pram Duty, set to shoot in summer 2026.

Dympna Heffernan plays Dora Donegan and Bridie.

Dympna is an actress and writer from Kilkenny. Dympna has performed her own work at numerous festivals around Ireland. Her theatre highlights include Edna O’Brien’s Joyce’s Women at The Abbey Theatre and Polonius in a touring production of Hamlet. On screen she has played roles in Ros na Rún on TG4 and Mayfair Witches on Netflix.

Adam O’Shea plays Rodgers, Bob Dalton, Alderman Brooks.

Adam O’ Shea is an Irish actor from Waterford. He won the Sheila O’Neill Award at London Studio Centre, an honour shared by Luke Evans and Elizabeth Hurley. His credits include Mutt in the award-winning Kinky Boots on Broadway, working with director Jerry Mitchell. He has also toured Europe as Max in Cabaret and Mike in Oklahoma!. Adam appeared on The Voice UK 2024 as part of the Celtic Harps, whereafter their debut charity Christmas single gained global radio play and coverage in HotPress magazine.

Sorcha Dawson plays Mary Ann, The Gun and Ruby.

Sorcha Dawson is a female actor from Cork with a strong background in sketch comedy and theatre. She has featured in filming for Enda Walsh’s SAFE HOUSE at the Abbey Theatre, Femme Fatale (voted DICFF’s Best Irish Sketch 2024) and Love Lane United by Jack Thornton due for general release this year. Sorcha’s first solo writing project ‘Sorry that happened to you’ debuted at Scene+Heard 2025 and is currently in development.

Culann McCarthy plays Claude Jenkins, Nick Tonetti, and a Cop.

Culann McCarthy is a Dublin-based actor and a graduate of Bow Street Academy for Screen Acting. With a background in comedy and improv, he has worked across film, voiceover, and stage, with upcoming theatre projects later this year. Goblin Market marks his latest return to the stage.

Oisin Nolan plays Dal Churchill and Harry Mott.

Oisín Nolan is an Irish Actor known for The Lightkeeper (Diff 2026) Cocaine Bear and Themselves Become The Sea (Galway Film Fleadh 2025). He is a graduate of Drama Centre London (UAL) where he received a scholarship.

Saorla Rodger plays Emily Skinner and the Matron.

Saorla is an actor, comedian and writer from Waterford, working in Dublin. She recently played the role of Carson in Roderick Ford’s new play Love At The End of Time in the Project Arts Centre in Dublin. Saorla has been featured in multiple short films, including I Belong which was funded by Screen Ireland and premiered at the 2025 Dublin International Film Festival. She is due to start filming her first feature film appearance in June of this year. As a comedian, Saorla has trained in improv with the Groundlings in Los Angeles and in clowning with Michael Barnfather in London.

Adam Bernard Hume plays Eddie Guerin and Daniel Carver.

Adam, a Kildare native, makes his stage debut in The Goblin Market: Chicago May’s Story. A recent graduate of the Bow Street part-time programme and the Diceplayers Shakespeare and Voice course, he is thrilled to be part of Sass Mouth Dames’ first theatre production.

Linda Ryan plays Countess Markievicz and Salvation Army Woman.

Linda Ryan is an actor working in Theatre, TV and Film. Previous credits include playing Nat in Rabbit Hole at Smock Alley, playing state pathologist in Cra, and playing Aunt Joan in feature film Squad Goals set for release this year.

Meet the production team:

Clara Higgins is a writer, producer, and artistic director of The Goblin Market.

Clara is a multidisciplinary creative from Galway. She is a writer, artist and zinemaker, as well as the sole director of small press Stray Cats Press. The Goblin Market is her first collaborative piece written for the stage.

Thomas O’Mahony is the sound and lighting designer for The Goblin Market.

Thomas is a London-based multimedia producer.

Megan McGurk is a writer, producer, and director of The Goblin Market.

Megan has hosted Sass Mouth Dames Film Club in Dublin since 2017 and Sass Mouth Dames podcast since 2018. She has written and directed 11 podcast plays and a short film, Sex Pirates of 1931.

Casting Call

Chicago May, born in County Longford, was the original sass mouth dame and real-life inspiration for Diamond Lil.

And now her story is coming to the Dublin stage in June!

We are looking for actors (four women and three men, age 20-40) to perform in The Goblin Market: Chicago May’s Story, a two-act play written by Megan McGurk and Clara Higgins.

This is a paid gig.

Please get in touch and send us a showreel if you’re interested:

sassmouthdames@gmail.com

Sass Mouth Dames Film Club series 38

Megan McGurk introduces two gems in Technicolor and Metrocolor in The Brooks Hotel.

Get your tickets at Eventbrite.

Please note that refunds are no problem if requested by noon on the day of the screening.

(Give me a chance to re-sell the ticket, please).

Grab a drink at the bar. Outside food and drinks are not permitted.

Woman’s World (1954)

Screens Wednesday 18 March at 7.00

Clifton Webb plays an automotive titan who intends to promote one of his men, but before he chooses a top executive, he wants to meet their wives, because in the business world, the woman makes the man. Dowdy June Allyson and ambitious Cornel Wilde are the small-town hayseeds with a large brood. Chic Lauren Bacall is ready for divorce since Fred MacMurray is an ailing workaholic. Arlene Dahl is the bombshell social climber who drags her husband, Van Heflin, up the corporate ladder. Which wife wins? Director Jean Negulesco’s shots of historic Manhattan locations, such as the 21 Club, combined with Charles LeMaire’s lavish mid-century wardrobe, produces a magnificent feast in Technicolor.

BUtterfield 8 (1960)

Screens Thursday 26 March at 7.00

Elizabeth Taylor, in a fury over a torn dress, gives a man hell to pay. Instead of reading the plot about a disillusioned call girl, it’s easy to interpret Taylor’s anger at a personal level, directed at a clutch of MGM executives who worked her like a dog since she was a child, not to mention the outrage she felt at being called a homewrecker by the press. Taylor’s brilliant performance as Gloria Wandrous is a highly stylised portrait of rage done in lipstick, mink, and stiletto heels. Even though Taylor considered the script ‘a piece of shit,’ it still netted her an Oscar for Best Actress. Metrocolor and designs by Helen Rose showcase Taylor’s ability to weaponise glamour.

Screenwriter Eve Greene

The following excerpt is taken from Sass Mouth Dames podcast episode 153: Claire Trevor in Born to Kill (1937). You can listen to it here or wherever you get your podcasts.

Deadlier than the Male, written by 21 year-old college student James Gunn, was a critical and commercial success when it was published in 1942. Critics raved about the novel, which gives a fresh take on the hardboiled genre. The novel riffs on the genre without succumbing to the stereotypical cliches.

Unlike novelist Cornell Woolrich, who struggled for years to ink a Hollywood deal, Gunn only wrote one novel, which received a red-carpet welcome by Hollywood. Gunn’s first screenwriting gig was adapting Gypsy Rose Lee’s novel for Barbara Stanwyck in what became Lady of Burlesque. Gunn wrote again for Stanwyck with the script for All I Desire and he wrote the script Harriet Craig for Joan Crawford.

Paramount optioned his book. Director Robert Wise recalled that the studio wanted change the title to Born to Kill, to take advantage of casting bad boy Lawrence Tierney. Wise was never happy about the change. Claire Trevor enjoyed working with Robert Wise, whom she considered to be one of the top directors. In an interview, Claire noted that he was articulate and everything he said was pure gold. The studio assigned Eve Greene and Richard Macaulay to adapt the novel.

I was curious about screenwriter Eve Greene, who had a long career, from 1932 to 1968. I couldn’t find her in the popular books about women writers from the studio era, so I turned to the newspaper archives for something to share. In an interview from 1938, which was printed in Alexander Kahn’s syndicated column, ‘Hollywood Film Shop,’ Greene discussed her origins in the film colony. After leaving Chicago for Hollywood, like thousands of other women in search of a meaningful career, she took a job as a secretary in MGM to get her foot in the door. Greene recalled:

‘I knew that people who wrote scenarios were not picked out of thin air and I made up my mind to learn the business of script writing from the ground up. Every moment I had to spare, I employed it in reading and studying screenplays until I felt I knew the form, at least.’ When a script girl position opened, she got a break and climbed another step on the studio ladder.

Eve learned a lot from working closely with directors on set. She told a reporter that ‘it brought the whole complicated procedure before my eyes. I learned about camera set ups, dolly shots, fades, dissolves, and the rest of the technical knowledge of filmmaking.’

The role as script girl soon led to her dream job writing scripts. She noted, ‘After a time, I began to help on dialogue on the set, and then Zelda Sears took me under her wing, and we worked on a story for Marie Dressler. Miss Sears knew drama and dramatic writing and taught me how to write.’

Zelda Sears mentored Eve Greene through the Dressler hit comedies Prosperity in 1932 and Tugboat Annie in 1933. Dressler was one of the biggest stars in MGM, an Oscar winner and champion at the box office. Eve left Metro in 1935 for a brief stint at Universal, before signing a long-term contract with Paramount studio in 1936. She had an auspicious start in Paramount as the lead writer for Yours For the Asking, starring George Raft, Dolores Costello and Ida Lupino. Eve ended her contract in Paramount with the script for Born to Kill and then switched to writing for television. Her first gig in television was writing four episodes of The Lone Ranger. She worked steadily in TV until 1968, when she wrote one last film script, The Strange Affair, before retiring.

Sass Mouth Dames Film Club series 29

Megan McGurk introduces three classic woman’s pictures from Depression-era Hollywood Thursday nights in the Brooks Hotel cinema.

Tickets are available from Eventbrite

Faithless (1932)

Screens 2 May at 7.00

Tallulah Bankhead plays an heiress who lives on caviar, champagne, and designs by Adrian. She scoffs at the idea of living on the $400 a week her fiancé Robert Montgomery makes in advertising. After the Wall Street Crash, the best laid plans of sables, diamonds, and Monte Carlo go bust, catapulting our heroine into a rapid downward spiral. Tallulah loses everything—her money, possessions, and self-respect. When she hits rock bottom, will Bob Montgomery stick?

The Richest Girl in the World (1934)

Screens 9 May at 7.00

Miriam Hopkins shares a fizzy rapport with Joel McCrea in a picture that made a bundle at the box office and brought the co-stars together for four more pictures. Playing a savvy scion inspired by Woolworth heiress Barbara Hutton, Miriam fends off a shower of fortune hunters who toy with her affections. Since she can’t be sure of any man’s intentions, Miriam switches places with her secretary, played by Fay Wray, to discover if Joel is after her heart or her money.

Stella Dallas (1937)

Screens 16 May

Director King Vidor’s classic three-hankie melodrama captures the way society pressures women to conform within traditional roles. Barbara Stanwyck plays a brassy, fun-loving gal from the wrong side of the tracks who catches the eye of the son from a wealthy small-town family. John Boles falls for her unpolished charm, but as soon as they exchange vows, he tries to smooth her rough edges. Their daughter, played by Anne Shirley, inherits her father’s snobbery, and is mortified by her mother’s loud wardrobe. Barbara Stanwyck’s performance is a belter.