Butt Drama Circle continue in their winning ways

‘An Incident with Dave Cotter’, the Butt Drama Circle’s festival play, took first and second place in the Newtownstewart and Kildare Festivals on Friday and Saturday night, winning another six awards to bring their tally to over 20.

Although already qualified for the Ulster finals in Ballymena and the All Ireland in Athlone next month the Ballybofey group fulfilled their schedule with two impressive performances receiving two standing ovations from the audiences.

At Newtownstewart the play also scooped the best producer award for Byrne along with the best actor and best moment of theatre. In Kildare Christopher Quinn picked up the best supporting actor prize.

Kildare adjudicator Tony McClean Doherty highlighted Quinn for his strong and intelligent reading of character while the Best Moment Award again went to the placing of the shoes.

He felt the sound was used very cleverly in the play and that "as soon as we came into the auditorium we were ensconced in the world of the play". He called it a challenging piece to perform not least because as a two-hander there is literally nowhere to hide on stage if anything goes wrong.

He thought Byrne caught Dave’s "aggressiveness, ignorance, and racism well in Act 1 before showing us a more sympathetic Dave in Act 2 with his slower and deeper voice adding to the effective make up as his character ages considerably".

Quinn he too thought caught "Fiachra’s initial innocence excellently playing the subtext of his actual motives for being there very well before showing us his grief and anger at his loss".

He added: "The relationship between both men was well-paced and revealed slowly before the break. He thought the use of silences exceptional with some lovely echoes of earlier moments and lines repeated in Act 2."

Overall he felt it was "a very theatrical piece of theatre that showed a balanced two sides to a very difficult but important aspect of our recent history".

Director, Shaun Byrne, was delighted with the results, especially the wins.

"I felt both shows went really well given that we had a two-week layoff due to illness and had to pull out of the Carrickmore Festival.

"Apart from a few short zoom rehearsals we didn’t meet up until the morning of the show so to come away with a win was a testament to the effort we had put in beforehand over the Spring and Winter back in the Balor in rehearsals. Again a great team effort with the technical crew coming in as well to provide cover."

Christopher Quinn spoke of the need to keep the show fresh and pacy.

"Plans are underway at the moment to stage the show in the Balor before our two finals as demand from the public is high. Until then it’s back to the rehearsal floor to work on things. We are always trying out new ideas and exploring things in our characters so it will be good to get stuck into that again and get a break from the travelling."

The play returns to the Balor Arts Centre in Ballybofey in the first week of May.