Ballycogley Players Drama Group

Presenting “Lend Me A Tenor”

by Ken Ludwig

directed by Pat Whelan

8th May 2025

Synopsis of Play

On the biggest night in the history of the Cleveland Grand Opera Company, Tito Merelli, the world-famous Italian tenor, is set to perform the starring role in the opera Pagliacci. However, Tito’s late arrival, a series of hilarious mishaps and mistaken identities leaves Henry Saunders, manager of the opera company, and his nervous assistant Max to navigate the company through one catastrophe after the next.

Group Information
Founded in 1975, Ballycogley Players Drama Group are a close-knit ensemble located in South County Wexford. We currently have over 40 members in our group ranging from the age of 17 up to 75. The group undertake charity performances for local organisations and communities every year as well as performing their 1 act & full-length productions. Ballycogley Players always welcome new members to join our drama family. This year is a very special year for our drama group as we celebrate our 50th anniversary.

Brideview Drama Group

Presenting “The Weir”

by Conor McPherson

directed by Jack Aherne

9th May 2025

Synopsis of Play

In a small bar in a rural Ireland, three local men are settling down for the night, enjoying good beer and company. Their normal routine is shaken up when their friend Finbar enters the bar and introduces them to Valerie, an attractive woman from Dublin who has just moved into an old house in the area. As the night (and the amount of liquor) progresses, each local from the bar starts to tell a tale of ghostly happenings in the town. What starts as innocent braggadocio between the men turns into a real fright when Valerie  reveals a real, haunted tale of her own from the past.
Examining chances of missed opportunity and the loneliness that results in it, The Weir is a haunting play with its roots in Irish folklore.

Group Information

Brideview Drama are based in Tallow Co. Waterford. The group was formed in the late 1980s and began competing in the early 90s, winning the confined 3Act in 2005 with ‘Moonshine’ by Jim Nolan.
They qualified for the Open All-Ireland Finals for the first time in 2018 with ‘Stolen Child’, finishing in second place. They reached the finals again in 2019 with Philadelphia, Here I Come finishing in 3rd place.
In 2024, Brideview Drama achieved 2nd place in the Open All Ireland Final of the One Act competition with ‘Save Me’ written by Mark O’Leary
Annually they stage a very successful Autumn production in their local community, which gives the youth of the area an opportunity to get involved and enjoy drama.

Bradán Players

Presenting “Little Gem”

by Elaine Murphy

Directed by Reidin Dunne

10th May 2025

Synopsis of play

3 generations of Women tell their story of life and death and birth and rebirth against the backdrop of Dublin in the 1990’s. Love and loss, childbirth and childrearing and finding out who you really are is explored through Amber a 19 year old about to discover that she has bigger choices to make than to go out or stay in, her mother Lorraine, stuck in a cycle of cleaning and doing unsure of who she is anymore, will she discover herself through crisis and new love and Kay Kelly mother to Lorraine and grandmother to Amber whose life is turned upside down and she has to learn how to live again when everything has changed. Little Gem explores the story of life, with humour, heart and the wisdom it takes, for all of us to try and fail and then to try again!

Group information

Bradan Players was formed in 2005 in Leixlip but currently draws its members from the North Kildare / West Dublin area. The group was most active on both the one act and full length circuit between 2005 and 2018 where we appeared in eleven one act finals, winning on four occasions and competing on the full length circuit with nine different plays, qualifying on six occasions for the Athlone finals. In 2022, we established the Dublin Drama Festival as a qualifying festival for the one act circuit which we continued in 2024. We are delighted to be back on the circuit and are absolutely thrilled to have qualified for Athlone.

Corofin Drama Society

Presenting “The Weir”

by Conor McPherson

directed by John Clancy

11th May 2025

Synopsis of Play

On a windy dark March evening, in a small rural Irish bar, the normal routine of three local men is shaken up when an old-time friend, Finbar, enters the bar and introduces Valerie, an attractive woman from Dublin who has just moved into a nearby old house. As the night (and the amount of liquor) progresses, each local starts to tell a tale of ghostly happenings. What starts as innocent braggadocio between the men turns into stark reality when Valerie reveals a real, haunted tale of her own. Examining missed opportunity, loneliness, loss and the human need to be accepted and  understood, The Weir is a haunting play with its roots in Irish folklore.

Group Information

Corofin Dramatic Society, Co. Clare, has been in existence since the 1950s and has competed on the full length and one-act drama festival circuit regularly since then. We were crowned All-Ireland one-act champions in 1993 and 2011 in the confined section. In 2008 we won the full length All-Ireland Confined Final in Strabane with our production of The Beauty Queen of Leenane by Martin McDonagh. A long-time ambition was achieved in 2012 when we thread the boards of the Dean Crowe stage in Athlone with The Subject was Roses by Frank D. Gilroy. We were placed 3rd that year (no mean achievement for our first appearance). We have contested the final on numerous occasions since but have failed to scoop the top prize. To this end we continue to strive.

Ballyduff Drama Group

Presenting “The Blackwater Lightship”

by Colm Tóibín, Adapted by David Horan

directed by Ger Canning

12th May 2025

Play Synopsis

“When I was young, lying in bed, I used to believe that Tuskar was a man and the Blackwater Lightship was a woman and they were both sending signals to each other and to other lighthouses, like mating calls.”
It’s 90s Ireland and HIV/AIDS is still a terminal diagnosis. A sister, a mother and a grandmother, along with two friends, have come together to tend to 29-year-old Declan, who has the disease.
Can this makeshift family unit face up to the illness and each other?

Group Information

Ballyduff Drama Group has been performing on the Three-Act Circuit for over forty years. In that time they have won the RTE All Ireland Finals in Athlone on three occasions, in 2004, 2022 & 2024. Their repertoire is extensive and has included work across the whole spectrum of dramatic endeavour. Productions like All-Ireland second-placed “The Welkin” (2023), “Of Mice and Men” (2010) and “Caught in the Net” (2008) and the All-Ireland winning “On Raftery’s Hill” (2004), “Rabbit Hole” (2022) and “The Ferryman” (2024) represent just some of its array of
achievements. Our group promotes the ethos that is Ballyduff Drama Group – one of inclusion, determination, cooperation and pride.

Wexford Drama Group

Presenting “Skylight”

by David Hare

Directed by Paul Walsh

13th May 2025

Play Synopsis

SKYLIGHT by David Hare is a beautiful modern love story set in 1990s London.
Kyra is an enthusiastic teacher living on the outer boarders of East London. One night she is visited by two men, student Edward Seargant and then his father, Tom Seargant, who tries to rekindle their previous love affair.
Can they leave aside personal and political differences to reunite?

Group Information

Wexford Drama Group was founded in 1966 in the Dun Mhuire Theatre in Wexford Town. WDG performs three full length plays per year, a summer production, an October production to coincide with the Wexford Festival Opera and a Drama Circuit entry in March.
We have happily qualified for the All Ireland Drama Finals for the last three years consecutively.

Balally Players

Presenting “Ulster American”

by David Ireland

Directed by Declan Rudden

14th May 2025

Synopsis of Play

‘Ulster American’ by David Ireland is a contemporary black comedy that features an Oscar-winning Hollywood actor, an English west-end theatre director and an up-and-coming female playwright who meet up on the eve of rehearsals of her new, career-transforming ‘Irish’ play, due to premiere in London’s West End.  But when it turns out that they’re not on the same page, the night threatens to spiral out of control.

Group Information

Based in Balally, a suburb in the Dun Laoghaire-Rathdown area of Dublin city between the villages of Dundrum and Sandyford, the Balally Players Theatre Company has been part of the amateur theatre movement in Ireland since its first performance in 1983.
Balally Players started competing on the Drama Festival circuit in Ireland in the late 1980s.
The group has enjoyed considerable success on the One-Act Festival Circuit. Members have taken plays to France, Denmark, Canada and the USA.

Bridge Drama

Presenting “The Curious Incident of the Dog in Night-Time”

by Mark Haddon and
adapted by Simons Stephens

directed by Susan Somers

15th May 2025

Synopsis of Play

Christopher Francis Boone is fifteen years old. He stands beside Mrs Shears’ dead dog, which has been speared with a garden fork, it is seven minutes past midnight and Christopher is under suspicion. He embarks on his own investigation to find the killer but the truth turns his world upside down…..

Group Information

Bridge Drama is based in Castlebridge, Co. Wexford, The group aims to produce two productions per year, performed in the National Opera House. Bridge Drama have been performing on the Open circuit since 2010 reaching the finals on many occasions. The group won with Neil Simon’s Lost in Yonkers in 2016.

Newpoint Players

Presenting “Ghetto”

by Joshua Sobol

directed by Sean Treanor

16th May 2025

Synopsis of Play

For the Festival Season 2025, Newpoint Players present Sean Treanor’s adaptation of Joshua Sobol’s 1984 play “Ghetto”. In his play, Sobol dramatises the recorded experiences of the Jews of the Vilnius Ghetto.  Names of characters, songs performed and events portrayed are historically correct. In the years from 1941 to 1944, four fifths of the inhabitants of the Ghetto lost their lives, many executed at the nearby Ponar camp;  others died resisting their treatment. German officers, such as Kittel, who directed the life of the Ghetto, showed unmitigated cruelty. Some Jewish leaders tried to appease and/or manipulate their oppressors in an attempt to maximise the numbers who might survive. Mending uniforms, recording the details of endangered libraries, playing music, acting in plays, all counted as a means of getting the work permits and these increased chances of survival.  For some prominent Jews, such as Gens, the head of the Jewish Police, there was a dilemma as to how far collaboration should go.  He also asks  if there is no music, no theatre, no creativity, will the Jews become as brutish as their oppressors.  For others, such as the librarian Kruk, or for the partisans, any form of art or collaboration with the Nazis is unacceptable.
It is our hope that the essence of Sobol’s play has been entirely respected. However, this adaptation is much shorter than the original and there is no interval.  Some violent scenes are taken offstage in the hope that they may be more striking as played in the minds of the audience. Some songs and musical underscoring are added and other songs left out.

Group Information

Newpoint Players [Newry and Warrenpoint] were formed in 1946 shortly after the war. For most of those years since, the drama group has produced at least one full-length play a year The number of actors and actresses of stage and screen who owe their first chance to Newpoint is legion. The group wins awards for every production.