Forty-first Tipperary Drama Festival programme announced

The 41st prestigious County Tipperary open Drama Festival will be held in the St Michael’s Community Centre Theatre in Holycross on Friday, March 15 to Saturday March 23, at 8.30pm nightly except for final night at 8pm when prizes will be awarded.

The adjudicator will be Mr Michael Poynor of the Association of Drama Adjudicators (ADA) and the inimitable Mr Donal Duggan will be Festival Director and Master of Ceremonies, as he has been for four decades, a feat surely deserving of a special award at this year’s festival?

The awards winning adjudicator, the celebrated Mr Michael Poynor, is from Derry.

And has an impressive curriculum vitae indeed. Nine of Ireland’s Top 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 County Tipperary groups will bid for The Tipperary Star Cup: Holycross Ballycahill DG ,Moyne DG and Rearcross DG.
Festival Programme.

Friday, March 15: (OPEN) Dancing at Lughnasa by Brian Friel (Holycross/Ballycahill DG)

Saturday (March 16:(Confined) Stolen Child by Bairbre Caoimh and Yvonne Quinn(Moyne Drama Group)

Sunday March 17: (Confined) On Raftery’s Hill” by Marina Carr (Wayside Players)

Monday March 18: (Open) The Ferryman by Jez Butterworth(Ballyduff DG)

Tuesday, March 19: (Open) Antigone by Sophocles and adapted by Don Taylor) Bride-view DG)

Wednesday March 20: (Confined) Same Old Moon by Geraldine Aron) Slieve Aughty DG)

Thursday March 21: (Confined) Drama at Inish by Lennox Robinson (Rearcross DG)

Friday March 22: (Open) The Lonesome West by Martin McDonagh (Kilmeen DG.

Saturday, March 23: 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 0862575159.

Meet The Adjudicator

The adjudicator, Mr Michael Poynor, was born in the Falkland Islands, and educated in Argentina and England, and 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 the Ulster Theatre Company.

He was Chief Executive of the Millenium Forum, Derry and Head of Culture and Arts at Queens University, Belfast. He 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 nearly 100 productions.

He has written a string of burlesque pantomimes including Scrooge’s Christmas; Alice! (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 productions he has directed are The UK provincial premieres of Jesus Christ Superstar, Grease, Hello Dolly and Once a Catholic at the Lyric Theatre, Belfast.

For the Ulster Theatre Company he directed Murder in the Cathedral (1998) (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.