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According to band manager Stuart Ongley: “Mechanical royalties accumulated and were never paid by Green Linnet, and L_nasa has still not received any publishing royalties.”

February 16, 2011

By Staff Reporter

Dublin-born Padraic Moyles, 12 years old at the time, and playing O?Casey as a boy, remembered the moment well. ?It was a twenty dollar note,? he said.
The unflappable Flanagan simply tucked the money into the lad?s pocket and proceeded as though nothing untoward had happened.
Moyles recently turned 24, and for nearly the last six years, he?s been part of the National Company of ?Riverdance,? dancing the leading role, recently, on an average of once or twice each week.
On a recent Saturday matinee performance at the New Jersey Performing Arts Center in the heart of Newark, the compact, energetic performer took the lead on an afternoon show for which his parents, who live in the Woodlawn section of the Bronx, had chartered a bus large enough to transport the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, or so it seemed.
The week in New Jersey, which concluded with the following day?s matinee, would be the closest booking to New York the show would have on its current schedule.
After ending its stand at NJPAC, ?Riverdance? moved on to Montreal, where it closed on Sunday, and then journeyed to Wolftrap, in Vienna, Va., near Washington, where it will play through this coming weekend.
After Wolftrap, the company will lay off for a few weeks and then reassemble for further touring. Moyles doesn?t yet have a solid sense of where the next series of playdates will take him, but whatever the schedule turns out to be, he?ll be ready.
What he does know, or at least what he?s heard, is that, after a down period of perhaps six weeks, the first date on the new leg will be in New Haven, Conn., and that they?ll be in West Palm Beach, Fl., at some point.
Before that, the company will regroup and rehearse in Dublin, which isn?t as odd as it may sound, since, after all, there are always replacements to be hired, and where better to locate them than in one or another of the Irish dancing schools that flourish in the nation?s capital?
?That?s great for me because I?ll be there anyway, visiting my sister, Julie, her husband Michael and their baby, Nia. I?m the godfather,? Moyles said.
Padraic Moyles is one of four children of a couple who made the move from Ireland to New York 16 years ago. Julie, who returned to the country of her birth to be married, is 27. She and her family live in Foxford, Co. Mayo.
His brothers, Sean and Ciaran, both students at Iona College in New Rochelle, are 19 and 21, respectively.
Moyles?s mother, Christine, a nurse, said that he was just two when he began dancing. Padraic Moyles remembered going to school with Julie, watching her lessons and then joining in, which seems to be a pattern followed by most male dancers.
?I?d follow Julie around the room and try to do what she was doing. And my parents would have these dancing parties at the house in Dublin,? he said. ?They?d have a guy called Dancin? Jack come over and teach them set dances. I?d follow Julie around when I was hardly able to walk right. And my mom said ?We?ll throw him into it and see how he does.??
Moyles ended up in ?Grandchild of Kings,? as far as he can recall, because Ciaran O?Reilly and Charlotte Moore, who run the Irish Repertory Theatre, saw him in a dance concert at about the time they were looking for a young actor to play the part of Sean O?Casey as a young boy.
He was taken into Manhattan from the Moyles? family home in the Woodlawn section of the Bronx, auditioned and got the job.
Pauline Flanagan remembered with great fondness the 97 performances and 20 previews in which she played young Moyles? mother.
?Working with Padraic was one of the greatest experiences of my life,? she said, which is a fairly substantial comment, considering that the Sligo-born actress has been working professionally for half a century.
?He was open to everything and willing to try anything, in addition to which he could adjust to whatever happened during a performance,? she recalled, possibly referring to that twenty-dollar bill that floated down between them one evening.
Moyles, too, regards working in ?Grandchild of Kings? as a particularly happy time in his life.
His subsequent relationship with ?Riverdance? began almost by accident. A girl he knew was going to Boston to try out for the National Company,and he went along, feeling slightly ambivalent about actually auditioning.
?I didn?t think I?d get it,? he admitted, and he certainly couldn?t have predicted that, nearly six years later, he?d still be with the show and about to face another contract round.
?Every year, you?re asked to sign up for another season. At first, there would be two down periods a year. To begin with they?d be about three weeks, and then you?d start up again,? he said. ?Now, it?s more like six weeks each time.?
Moyles seems to take to touring naturally but not everyone does, as he well knows.
?With Irish dancing, some people come in at the age of eighteen and some of them realize that the road isn?t for them. They miss home too much,? he said. ?Not only that, but they come from Ireland to America, which is a completely different culture to them. Some people enjoy it, love it and can?t get enough of it, but then there are the others that would be upset most of the time, thinking to themselves that they needed to be home. They?re the ones that usually head off.?
Moyles has seen plenty of change in the ?Riverdance? company in the years he?s been part of it.
?Twelve boys started with me six years ago, and out of that 12, there?s me and one other boy left, and that?s it,? he said. ?And out of the maybe 24 girls that started with me, there are maybe six or seven left.?
Despite all the changes, Moyles maintains that the ?Riverdance? company is a compatible troupe. ?You always hear horror stories about other shows, so maybe it?s surprising that we all go out together and party together, he said.
?I?ve never seen any kind of physical altercation or even a serious argument. Coming from where we all started, which is the world of competition dancing, there are no prima donnas, or people thinking they should get something over somebody else. We?re all in the same boat,? he added.
The voyage of the sturdy vessel which is the National Company of ?Riverdance? will last, Moyles has heard, two more years. Whether he goes the distance, or disembarks before the final port, remains to be seen.
He may go to college, majoring in business with a minor in sports management, or he may try to find out if there?s a future for him as an actor or a dancer.
Just now, he?s thinking about endings, even with regard to the current portion of the ?Riverdance? touring schedule.
?When things end, you?re upset about them,? he said. ?Even the ending of this leg of the tour, you?re kind of upset about it, eager as you may be to be home for a while. But this is different, because there?s a comeback point.?
That wasn?t the case, however, with ?Grandchild of Kings? and the Irish Rep, an experience Moyles remembered with clarity and with a particular fondness.
?With ?Grandchild of Kings,? it was different. I was happy to be seeing my friends again when it closed and being home, and have a regular life again, but after a while, I really began to miss it, and, especially, to miss the people. I realize now that not everybody has an experience like that their first time out, with people who are so talented and who help you so much with what you?re trying to do.?
With his blend of energy and optimism, Padraic Moyles would do brilliantly, whatever he opts to do in the future.

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