Castleblaney Players (Open)

present

“The Salvage Shop”

by Jim Nolan

The grace notes are silent at Garristown Brass Band but alcoholic bandmaster and opera buff, Sylvester Tansey is haunted by personal betrayal and the memory of a glorious past and won’t let go of the baton. As the band moves to replace him, Sylvie clings to the lifeline of the Annual Regatta. Meanwhile his son Eddie, euphonium player in exile, invokes the intervention of the great Luciano Pavarotti as he struggles to forge a reconciliation with his father.

Prices – €15/€12

Congratulations to Rachel O’Connor on winning the Best Performer trophy for ‘Kate’ in the Open category at Shercock Drama Festival last night. There is only one Best Performer award per category. ‘Old Times’ came second, with Kilmeen taking first place. That leaves Ballyshannom Drama Society with 29 points after 3 shows (2 firsts, one second), out of a possible maximum of 36. Tonight we await results from 4 festivals: Newry, Carrickmore, Strabane and Newtonabbey. 

Lifford Players (Open)

present

“A Crucial Week in the Life of a Grocer’s Assistant”

byTom Murphy

A Crucial Week in the Life of a Grocer’s Assistant is one of Tom Murphy’s earlier plays. Set in a rural town in Ireland in the Spring of 1958, it was first produced by the Abbey Theatre on the 11th of November 1969.

The play tells the story of John Joe Moran, the shopkeeper’s assistant, as he wrestles with his personal dilemmas. Should he emigrate to England or America, like so many of his contemporaries and friends? Should he stay in his job as a grocer’s assistant? Should he marry his very young girlfriend who works above in the bank? We follow John Joe through what turns out to be A Crucial Week in the Life of a Grocer’s Assistant.

The play can be seen as a metaphor for the Ireland of the late Fifties while still speaking to us in the 21st Century. It deals with the perennial Irish themes of unemployment, emigration, church influence and small town life, themes that resonate through the ages.

Prices – €15/€12

Prosperous Drama Society (Open)

present

“One Man, Two Guv’nors”

by Richard Bean

In 1960s Brighton, a socially naive Francis Henshall becomes separately employed by two men – Roscoe Crabbe, a local gangster and Stanley Stubbers, an upper class criminal. Francis tries to keep the two from meeting, in order to avoid each of them learning that Francis is also working for someone else. However, it turns out that Roscoe is really Rachel Crabbe in disguise, her twin brother Roscoe having been killed by her lover, who is none other than Stanley Stubbers. Mixed in with these chaotic events is Pauline Clench who was originally meant to marry Roscoe but is now set to elope with over-the-top amateur actor Alan Dangle. The play includes two extended passages of improvisation where audience members are recruited into the play.

Prices – €15/€12

Phoenix Players, Tubbercurry (Confined)

present

“The Sunshine Boys”

by Neil Simon

Al and Willie as “Lewis and Clark” were top-billed vaudevillians for over forty years. Now they aren’t even speaking. When CBS requests them for a “History of Comedy” retrospective, a grudging reunion brings the two back together, along with a flood of memories, miseries and laughs.

Prices – €15/€12

‘The Factory Girls’ tells the story of five women facing the threat of redundancy, who stage a lock-in in a shirt factory in Co. Donegal. As their protest continues the woman learn more about each other and themselves as they explore their anger, courage and compassion.

Prices – €15/€12

Pomeroy Players (Confined)

present

‘Da’

 by

Hugh Leonard

“Da” is a tightly constructed, one-set memory play, a traditional theatrical form, made popular by Tenessee William’s “The Glass Menagerie”, in which adult narrators look back on their younger selves in a life-changing moment.

The action takes place in the small claustrophobic house, in the Dublin suburb of Dalkey, where Charlie grew up. Charlie has come home from London to bury his foster father. While clearing away some papers and junk, Da butts into Charlie’s mind with unasked for advice and truisms, with offers of nice cups of tea and with biased recollections of events that are still painful to the middle-aged Charlie.

When Da isn’t rewriting history to his own advantage, he settles back in his easy chair and offers the kind of platitudes that earlier helped to drive Charlie from Ireland. “If the old heart hadn’t given out on me the evening before last”, Da observes with his usual cheery sagacity, “I’d still be alive today.”

A dark comedy set in a dystopian future of post-nationalist misery and moral degeneration, where an unlikely group of characters, housed together in a system defined by the violence of a brutal political regime, discover that their horrific personal histories might tie them together more tightly than the ever-constraining grip of the all-powerful President C and his minion, Jonas. A new play by Charles Mc Guinness of Corn Mill Theatre Group, who also directs.