The 41st prestigious Co. Tipperary Open Drama Festival will take place in the St. Michael’s Community Centre Theatre, in Holycross, Thurles from Friday, March 15th until Saturday March 23rd, commencing at 8:30pm nightly, except for the final night, when prizes will be awarded and starting time will commence at 8:00pm.
The adjudicator for this year’s event will be Mr Michael Poynor [Association of Drama Adjudicators (ADA)] with the inimitable Mr Donal Duggan as Festival Director and Master of Ceremonies, (as he has been for four decades, latter a feat surely deserving of a special award at this year’s festival).
Nine of Ireland’s top drama groups will be on stage for the festival’s duration and they will be bidding for the “Tipperary Star Cup” in the Confined section and the “Tipp FM Trophy” in the open category.
Three Co. Tipperary groups will bid for The “Tipperary Star Cup”, namely Holycross Ballycahill DG; Moyne DG, and Rearcross DG.
Holycross Upcoming Festival Programme
Friday, March 15th, (Open) “Dancing at Lughnasa” by Brian Friel. (Holycross/Ballycahill DG).
Saturday March 16th, (Confined) “Stolen Child” by Bairbre Caoimh and Yvonne Quinn. (Moyne Drama Group).
Sunday March 17th, (Confined) ”On Raftery’s Hill” by Marina Carr. (Wayside Players).
Monday March 18th, (Open) ”The Ferryman” by Jez Butterworth. (Ballyduff DG).
Tuesday March 19th, (Open) ”Antigone” by Sophocles and adapted by Don Taylor. (Bride-view DG).
Wednesday March 20th, (Confined) ”Same Old Moon“ by Geraldine Aron. (Slieve Aughty DG).
Thursday March 21st, (Confined) ”Drama at Inish“ by Lennox Robinson. (Rearcross DG).
Friday March 22nd, (Open) “The Lonesome West” by Martin McDonagh. (Kilmeen DG)
Saturday March 23rd, (Confined) “Now and Then” by Sean Graham and adapted by John Corless (Harvest Moon DG).
(The Festival is held under the auspices of the Amateur Drama Council of Ireland ADCI).
Season tickets are €70 and concessions are €12.
For further information you may contact Mobile Tel. No. 0862575159
Meet The Adjudicator.
This year’s adjudicator, Mr Michael Poynor, (pictured above) hails from Derry, and holds an impressive curriculum vitae.
Born in the Falkland Islands and educated in Argentina and England, he trained for theatre at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art (L.A.M.D.A.), London.
He has been Artistic Director for the Lyric Theatre, Belfast; Harrogate Theatre, Yorkshire; Stage ’80 Theatre company, Belfast; Ulster Youth Theatre; The National Youth Theatre Of Wales; and currently Artistic Director at the Ulster Theatre Company. He was Chief Executive of the Millenium Forum, Derry, and Head of Culture and Arts at Queens University, in Belfast.
Mr Poynor is an award winning Director and Lighting Designer having directed over 150 productions, Designed Sets for 120 and Lighting for over 250, as well as Fight Directing for some 100 productions.
He has written a string of burlesque pantomimes including ‘Scrooge’s Christmas‘; ‘Alice!’ (latter a musical adaptation of Lewis Carroll’s most famous books); a new version of Gilbert and Sullivan’s best known operetta: ‘Rockin’ Mikado‘ which was nominated ‘Best Visiting Production’ in the 1998 Manchester Theatre Awards; ‘Comedy of Errors: The Musical’ (2013) and ‘Jonathan Harker and Dracula’ (2014).
Amongst the many productions he has directed are: The UK provincial premiere of ‘Jesus Christ Superstar’; ‘‘Grease’‘; ‘Hello Dolly’, and ‘Once a Catholic’ (at the Lyric Theatre, Belfast); ‘Interview’, and ‘The Bald Prima Donna’ (at the Ashcroft Theatre, Croydon); ‘Indians’, ‘Schweyk in the Second World War’; ‘What the Butler Saw’, and ‘Noises Off’ (at the Lyric Theatre, Belfast); ‘The Glass Menagerie’; ‘Relatively Speaking’, and ‘The Happiest of the Three’, (at the Overground Theatre, Kingston-upon-Thames), ‘Alphabetical Order’; ‘Equus’, ‘Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat’, and ‘Candida’, (at Harrogate Theatre); ‘The Snoopy Show’; ‘Hello and Goodbye’; ‘Ashes’; ‘Kelly’s Book’, and ‘Crack-Up’ (for Stage ’80), ‘How the Other Half Loves’; ‘Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?’, and ‘The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie’, (for Theatre Ulster); ‘Can’t Pay? Won’t Pay!’; ‘The Mating Season’; ‘The Boyfriend’, and ‘Leave Him to Heaven’, (for the Arts Theatre, Belfast), ‘Oh, What A Lovely War’ and ‘The War of the Worlds’ (for the Ulster Youth Theatre), ‘La Belle Helene’, (for Castle Ward Opera Co.) and ‘West Side Story’, (with the Ulster Orchestra at the Klondike in Belfast for Opera Northern Ireland).
For the Ulster Theatre Company, he directed ‘Murder in the Cathedral’ (1998), (latter a sell-out production for Belfast Festival at Queen’s at St Anne’s Cathedral, Belfast); ‘West Side Story’; ‘A Chorus Line’; ‘Oklahoma’, and the RSC’s version of ‘The Wizard of Oz’, (all of which toured the UK and Ireland).
In 2019 he directed and designed the world premiere of Hennessy Award winner, Sam Burnside’s ‘The Long Now’, (for the Seamus Heaney Home Place Theatre).
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