Over three days An Grianán will host some of the best amateur theatre companies from around the country. The plays will last from 30 mins to 50 mins max.
Become a Friend of the Festival for €15 individual or €30 for a couple and get free admission for all three nights. Call the box office on 0749120777 to book – opening hours are 9.30am to 3.30pm Monday to Friday.
Friday 7.30pm
A Little something for the Ducks – Theatre 3, Newtownabbey
Two ‘strangers’ meet close to a duck pond in the grounds of a senior citizens’ housing complex – Irma and Samuel discover that there is still much to enjoy about life. This is a story of a bittersweet, youthful courtship. She is 78 and he is 79. They put their moves on each other in a minuet that is a joy to behold.
Deadline Dawn – Phoenix Players, Tubbercurry
The action takes place in a room of a tenement building in a Middle East City in the early 1980s as a group of terrorists wait to see if the Government will pay the ransom to rescue the Israeli girl they have kidnapped.
Saturday 7.30pm
The Bride To Be – Moira Players, Co Down
Angela is about to get married for the third time. Her brother Toby is on hand to escort her to the church when she gets a serious case of cold feet. On top of this, he must contend with spilt coffee, a ripped dress and a thunderstorm which ruins her hairdo. With some ingenuity Toby manages to overcome these “bad omens” and persuades Angela to take a chance on Husband Number Three.
Poof! – Coolgreany Drama Group, Wexford
Lynn Nottage wrote this short comedy in response to some emotional photographs of women entering a refuge for the first time. She was compelled to clear her desk at Amnesty International and commit to paper the conflicting emotions which follow the magic moment when a woman says, “Enough is Enough.” Using the backdrop of a tight female friendship, she points us at a solution instead of the customary problem. Lynn Nottage is the only woman playwright to have won the Pulitzer Prize for drama twice
A Bench at the Edge – Gunpowder Productions. Cork
A Bench At The Edge is an in depth look at the trials of the mind over the body. The two people involved are desperate to get to the abyss, one seems to live at the edge, but the other person can make a choice. The play premiered in off Broadway in 1981 and the content was as relevant then as it is today.
Sunday 4pm
Journey’s End – Rosemary Drama Group, Belfast
Mother is at an age when she relies on the care and attention of others, among them her cleaner, her daughter and her carers. She is not a lady, who accepts help with good grace and indeed thinks with the benefit of age, she has a right to say what she likes. The play deals with the strained relationship, existing between herself and her daughter, and during the play we begin to find the reason for the tension.
All Over the Shop – Clann Machua, Co Mayo
Husband and wife, Jim and Joan live over their shop, but the question is asked: is this shop real or imaginary? They have a long-time questionable friendship with another couple, Patrick and Matilda. Patrick and Joan are members of a choir but Jim suspects they share more than singing. Patrick doesn’t like his flamboyant wife and plans to kill her, and she doesn’t like him much either – a
matter he discusses with, Them, his therapist. The matter is further compounded by Patrick admitting to having feelings for Joan. Patrick and Them are played by Patrick. What’s real and what’s not real hangs in the air throughout the play.
With All My Love I Hate You – Wilde River Drama Group, Co Mayo
With All My Love I Hate You is a tense play for two women. Julia is surprised to receive a visit from her one-time friend Clare – and a little apprehensive too, because for some years she has been mistress to Jerry, Clare’s husband, and has even borne him a son. Clare, in a pathetic state of misery following the death of her own small child and Jerry’s hatred of her, seems just to want to talk to and be comforted by Julia, but as time passes it becomes clear that she is deliberately goading the other woman for some purpose of her own. What starts as a quiet and uncomfortable talk erupts into violence and tragedy, with an ironic twist at the end.
