The O’Dwyer Show
A tribute to The Clancy Brothers & Tommy Makem
The O’Dwyer Show is award-winning actor Gerard O’Dwyer’s personal tribute to his Irish roots through the music and story of one of the most influential Irish folk music groups from the 1960s. It is an original new work, co-written with writer/director Anne-Louise Rentell and performed with musician/actors Gerard Carroll and Elliott Weston.
We are all familiar with the structure of a tribute show – they are one of the most common and popular forms of touring entertainments. The O’Dwyer Show will reimagine this particular show format, to explore themes of identity, freedom and life as a man with Downs Syndrome through song and story.
The depth of emotional feeling which this music incites in Gerard is a wonder to behold. It is not every day audiences get to see a man with Downs Syndrome singing Irish folk songs at the top of his lungs and with all his heart. Music has the power to connect us to ourselves, each other, our family, and our culture. It is a powerful expression of the life force. It is also what make this work accessible. The shared experience of music opens up a space in which a personal experience of disability can be shared through a familiar and popular mode of creative expression.
It is important for Gerard to break down barriers and to smash stereotypes when it comes to making theatre - this project will give a man with disability access to space, time, and other artists to create a unique theatre work.
ABOUT GERARD O’DWYER
Irish born, Gerard O’Dwyer has a career spanning, onscreen and stage acting as well as advocacy work for inclusion.
He is a longtime Bus Stop Films student and ambassador. His on screen acting began in the short film, Be My Brother, which won Best Film and earned him Best Male Actor at the 2009 Tropfest Film Festival. Following this in 2013 Gerard starred in the short film, The Interviewer, which won several awards in Australia and internationally with Gerard being awarded Best Actor at the ReelheART International Film Festival in Canada.
In 2016 he shot his first feature length film, Red Christmas, alongside Scream Queen Dee Wallace of E.T and The Howling fame. He was also a cast member for seven episodes on the ABC’s Everyone’s A Critic, appeared in commercials for Multicultural Care and Medibank, and was an advocate for the 2011 Care Careers campaign with the commercial airing for four years across major networks. In 2018, Gerard’s acting took him to Tokyo with his role in the short film Shakespeare in Tokyo followed by a voice over project in Los Angeles for a children’s eBook I Didn’t Like Hubert.
He has been touring the country in 2024 supporting screenings of his latest film What About Sal written and directed by John Jarrett and in which Gerard plays the lead.
Gerard’s advocacy work has seen him on Nine Network’s TODAY, Seven Network’s The Morning Show and Network Ten’s, Studio 10. He was also ambassador for the DontDisMyAbility campaign in 2010/11. In 2012, he was awarded the Emerging Leader Award at the National Disability Awards due to his disability led advocacy.
In 2010 he was a co-founding member of Ruckus, a disability led, contemporary performance ensemble. His first foray into opera was in the production of Menotti-The Medium where he played a mute character, on stage for almost the opera’s entirety.