Thursday 17th to Saturday 19th November 2016 at 8pm.

The annual festival of One Act plays organised by the Western Drama Festival runs in St Brigid’s Hall Theatre at 8pm from Thursday 17th to Saturday 19th November. Our Season ticket is available to purchase in Killorans and is especially good value at €25, it would be a really special gift for a friend!  Please see the list of plays and synopsis below.

This is a fantastic event on the festival circuit, much loved by audiences. We have an amazing mix of plays being performed in the festival; so much to look forward to. This year we will also have a treat in store when we run an additional matinee performance on the Saturday at 3pm. This promises to be an excellent afternoon of theatre when Ballina Dramatic Society will perform ‘Lone Star’ and Parke Drama Group will perform the Galway Girl. Booking in Killorans, Teeling St. Tubbercurry or phone 071 9185679.

Festival Adjudicator, Mr Walker Ewart G.I.D.A.

WDF are delighted to announce the superb Mr Walker Ewart will adjudicate our 1 Act Festival this November. Walker has adjudicated throughout Ireland and in Scotland, including the All-Ireland Full-length Finals. Walker is a founding member of the Guild of Irish Drama Adjudicators (GIDA). His involvement with amateur drama is impressive, including the drama circuit for over thirty years as a director and actor, as well as an administrator, at local level as the secretary and then chairman of a drama festival, and at national level. This promises to be a great festival we are looking forward to meeting you there.

 

Thursday 17th November
Play 1 – Confined
Cilleo Yew Tree Players, Longford, Presents:
“Brenton versus Brenton” by David Tristram
Directed by Damien Bennett

Synopsis:  What is the dark secret which inflames the Brenton family?  Who is the mysterious Eddie?  Why are Lana’s shoulder pads wider than the door?  What was Deke Brenton doin down on the farm?  All this and more is revealed in this outrageous spoof of American soaps, set in the manic world of Chicago’s biggest advertising agency.

Play 2  -  Open
Breffni Players, Carrick on Shannon, presents:
“Lucy in the Sky”  by Tony Leyton
Directed by Valerie Traynor

Synopsis : Three women seek shelter in an inner city hostel for the homeless.  On this cold winter night, each has a different reason for being there.  Alexia is pregnant following a rape, Meg has wrecked revenge on a brutal husband and is in self imposed exile, and with Wendy we see that all it takes to become an outcast is a sudden impulsive act – one that you regret forever.  This play doesn’t pull any punches – its life on the edge, and in the raw.

Play 3 -  Confined
Seamus O’Kelly Players, Loughrea,  presents:
“The Wooden Pear” by Gillian Plowman
Directed by Christina McKeogh

Synopsis : Madeleine Peters arranges to meet Daniel, the man who has served ten years in prison for her attempted murder.  The spot she has chosen for their meeting should be very familiar to him.  The Madeline here today is a very different Madeline to the lady who took a stroll in the park all those years ago.  Will she be able to leave her demons behind when she faces her assailant?


Friday 18th November
Play 1 – Confined
Glenamaddy Players, Galway, presents:
“The Problem” by A R Gurney
Directed by Ann C Molloy

Synopsis: “The Problem” is a comedy of great wit where the wife reveals a shocking secret to her husband only to find that he has secrets of his own.  In a very funny dialogue, the couple’s inability to communicate with each other properly keeps bringing them back again and again to ‘the problem’.  The story has some imaginative swerves along the way with a twist at the end.

Play 2 – Open
Athlone Little Theatre, presents:
“War Stories” by Rob Johnston & Emma Gibson
Directed by Oliver Hegarty

Synopsis :  This play was written by two writers on different sides of the globe.  Australian, Emma Gibson collaborated via email and skype with Rob Johnston in the UK to create this sometimes intense, compassionate and emotionally engaging sweet little gem of a play.  Essentially it is a play about storytelling and memory.  Through the storytelling we are given strong images of the minutia of life as well as the bleak descriptions of the Western Front.  The play reminds us of how we use stories to guide us through our lives, however mundane or tragic.  Australian nurse, Elsie, is both narrator and character, setting scenes and opening brief windows on the world outside of shell-shocked patient, Bernard’s slow recovery.  As the two characters share their stories, the enormity of the world’s first modern war is slowly revealed.  Although all war material is invariably tragic, the play contains many beautiful moments of lightness as the relationship between the two characters unfolds.

Play 3 – Confined
Amphitheatre Company, Kilkee, Co Clare, presents:
Directed by Martin Gleeson

Synopsis :    Aunt Sally lies dead and the three children she helped rear when their parents effectively abandoned them gather to wake her.  All now adults they remember her differently and during the course of the night family secrets are revealed through letters from beyond the grave leading to a process of healing and regeneration.


Saturday 19th November  -  Afternoon @ 2pm
Play 1 – Confined
Parke Drama Group, Castlebar, presents:
“A Galway Girl” by Geraldine Aron
Directed by Brid Quinn / Emily Connor

Synopsis : A galway Girl traces the joys and sorrows of Masie’s and Dermot’s shared life from small town Ireland to a life in London.

Play 2 – Confined
Ballina Dramatic Society presents:
“Lone Star” by James McLyre
Directed by Hilary Lyons

Synopsis :   The play takes part in the backyard of a small-town Texas bar in the 1970’s.  Roy, brawny macho type, is back from Vietnam and boasts of his military and amorous exploits to his brother Ray, a simple small-town boy who adores his brother.  Roy loves three things: his country, his young wife and his 1959 pink Thunderbird convertible.  With the arrival of Cletis, a gormless store-owner in the town who also hero-worships Roy, the underpinnings of Roy’s world and inflates sense of himself begin to unravel as both Cletis and Ray have secrets that leave Roy stunned and suitably chastened.


Saturday 19th November @ 8pm
Play 1 – Open
Cornmill Thratre, Carrigallen, presents:
“Tom Clarke’s One True Love” by Killian McGuinness
Directed by Gus Hanley

The play ‘Tom Clarke’s One True Love’, written by Killian McGuinness and performed by the Corn Mill Theatre Group, dramatizes the life of Tom Clarke, the public and private man.

It covers the time span from 1830 when his father James was born to Clarke’s execution in 1916.

During the course of the performance we meet Clarke, his wife Kathleen, Winifred Carney James Connolly’s secretary, McKenzie-Booth a British medical officer and Patrick Pearse.

It is betimes heartbreakingly sad but is peppered with comedy.

Play 2 – Confined
Clann Machua Drama Group, Kiltimagh, presents:
“The Shadow of the Glen” by J M Synge
Directed by Adrian Lavan

Synopsis :  It’s 1902 and as Nora Burke prepares a wake after the sudden death of her aged husband Dan, a tramp comes calling seeking shelter for the night.  An unhappy marriage is revealed as Nora tells of a black curse Dan put on her or anyone apart from his sister who’d touch his body after his death.  When Nora leaved to seek the company of a young neighbour, Michael Dara, it becomes apparent dark dealings are afoot.

Play 3 – Open
Prosperous Dramatic Society, Co Kildare, presents:
“Bull” by Mike Barlett
Directed by T J Duggan

Synopsis:  A razor sharp play about the fine line between office politics and playground bullying, this play offers a ringside seat as three employees fight for their jobs.