John Carty

John trained at the Samuel Beckett Centre, Trinity College, Dublin, The International School of Corporeal Mime, London, Saratoga International Theatre Institute, New York and The Roy Hart International Voice Centre, France. He has worked in professional theatre since 1988. He worked as an actor with Co-Motion Theatre Company, Dublin, and Graffiti Theatre-in-Education Company, Cork, before returning to Sligo to become a founder member of Blue Raincoat Theatre Company in 1991.

He has acted in most of the company productions to date including Alan Strang in Equus, Christy Mahon in Playboy of the Western World, Lysander in A Mid-Summer Nights Dream, Gath in A Brief Taste Of Lightning, Mr. Martin in The Bald Soprano, McCruiskeen in The Third Policeman, Clov in Endgame & most recently as Yuri Gagarin in First Cosmonaut by Joselyn Clarke. He has directed a number of plays for Blue Raincoat including Krapp’s Last tape, Rough for theatre II and Play by Samuel Beckett. He has also directed theatrical productions for County Sligo Youth Theatre, Bealtine Festival and Cairde Festival, Sligo. John has facilitated numerous workshops for Blue Raincoat in the areas of Voice, Text analysis and Stagecraft with Drama students of Queen’s University, Belfast, NUIG, Drama League of Ireland & El Submarino, Madrid.

Prior to his professional career, John was actively involved in amateur drama in Sligo. He was introduced to Sligo Drama Circle through his drama teacher, Walter McDonagh in 1980 and participated in many productions with them, including the works of J.M.Synge, W.B.Yeats, T.C. Murray, Brendan Behan, and Hugh Leonard & J.B. Keane. He has also worked with Coolera Dramatic Society & Everyman Theatre.

He has been a member of Guild of Irish Drama Adjudicators (GIDA) since 2010.

Details of all the plays taking part in the 63rd Ballyshannon Drama Festival which opens on Saturday, March 14th, have been updated on the website, under the ‘Drama Festival’ and ‘Events’ links at the top of the page.

Ballyshannon Drama Society’s production of ‘The God of Carnage’ is on hiatus (as playwright Yasmina Reza would put it) for a few days before assaulting the circuit again on Friday night.

The show has participated in four out of its eight festivals, and achieved fantastic results.

On February 28th, ‘Carnage’ made its circuit premier in Newtownstewart with great success, winning First Place, the Best Actor award for Richard Hurst, Best Director for Ann Mc Hugh and Best Set. A week later, Saturday the 7th of March, we closed the Castleblayney festival and took home the trophy for Second Place, with Patricia Keane winning Best Actress. The next day, Sunday, we headed to the Western Drama Festival,  Tubbercurry, and completed the run of three nights in the Ardhowen Theatre, Enniskillen, on Monday the 9th.

With one hectic weekend behind us, we have another big weekend ahead. On Friday (the 13th – may it be lucky for some!) we are in the Kiltyclogher Drama Festival, and then on Saturday night we hold tight and await the results from Tubbercurry, Enniskillen and Kiltyclogher. At the minute, with results in from only four festivals nationwide, we are in first place on the ADCI.ie leaderboard with 17 points (12 points for first place, 5 points for second)…of course that may all change as more results come in this weekend, but it’s a wonderful place to be until then!

If that’s not exciting enough, Saturday the 14th is also the opening night of the 63rd Ballyshannon Drama Festival. The festival opens with ‘Same Old Moon’ by Geraldine Aron, presented by St. Dympna’s, Dromore in the Confined category.