Friday 4th March 2022

Group - Skibbereen Theatre Society

Play - Brighton

Author - Jim Nolan

Synopsis of Play
Dave, a care assistant with a complicated love life, Jack a professional actor who has suffered a life changing accident, and Lily, a retired Irish born civil servant, cross paths in the Sisters of Calvary Nursing Home on the Hammersmith Road, London in this bittersweet comedy about friendship, determination and survival.


Saturday 5th March 2022

Group - Kilmuckridge Drama Group

Play - Playboy of the Western World

Author - JM Synge

Synopsis of Play
The Playboy of the Western World is a three-act play written by Irish playwright John Millington Synge and first performed at the Abbey Theatre, Dublin, on 26 January 1907. It is set in Michael James Flaherty's public house in County Mayo during the early 1900s. It tells the story of Christy Mahon, a young man running away from his farm, claiming he killed his father. The play is best known for its use of the poetic, evocative language of Hiberno-English, heavily influenced by the Irish language


Sunday 6th March 2022

Group - Kilmeen Drama Group

Play - Conversations on a Home Coming

Author - Tom Murphy

Synopsis of Play
The homecoming of the title is that of Michael to his home town in Ireland. Set entirely in a pub where he and his friends used to drink the play unfolds in real time, Murphy showing an extraordinary stage sense for the rhythms of drinking as an evening wears on. Michael is an actor who has returned to Ireland after emigrating to America to try to make a career. He has returned to see his old friends, Tom, a contemporary of his, and JJ, an inspirational figure from their youth who, in the time of Kennedy's period in the White House, came to the town and became a sort of subversive guru, challenging the Church and urging the young men of the town to aspire to bigger things. As the play unfolds it emerges that no-one has fulfilled his potential. Michael has failed as an actor and has tried to set himself on fire while in America, JJ is seriously ill and Tom's youthful idealism and intelligence has given way to the savage indignation of a man who feels he has been deserted by his mentor (JJ), his best friend (Michael) his dreams and his life. As everyone gets progressively drunker truths are told and souls are bared. Michael is shocked by Tom's negativity but when he challenges him to leave Tom makes an excuse for remaining in the town. It emerges that Michael's leaving was the thing which broke Tom's heart the most. At the end of the play Michael leaves the pub and the town, telling JJ's daughter, who seems to represent a kind of hope in the play, to pass on his love to JJ.


Monday 7th March 2022

Group - Brideview Drama Group

Play - The Beauty Queen of Leenane

Author - Martin McDonagh

Synopsis of Play
“The Beauty Queen of Leenane” (1996) is Martin McDonagh’s first play, it is part of The Galway Trilogy together with “A Skull in Connemara” and “The Lonesome West”. All three plays are set in the small village of Leenane, County Galway, and depict three villagers’ closely interwoven stories. Set in the kitchen of a cottage in the west of Ireland, the play centers on the life of Maureen, a forty-year-old, and her brutal relationship with her mother Mag, a seventy-year-old. “The Beauty Queen of Leenane” is one of those plays which, through theatrical innovation, represent a critique of modern life. McDonagh explains the impact of isolation with different literary elements by the interaction between Maureen and Mag, how they are isolated with themselves, and with society.


Tuesday 8th March 2022

Group - Palace Players

Play - Chapatti

Author - Christian O Reilly

Synopsis of Play
But it's just one of those days. One of those days where I feel like I'm wearing myself on the outside. My heart, my soul, all my soft bits. Romance is a distant memory for two lonely animal lovers living in Dublin. When forlorn Dan and his dog Chapatti cross paths with the amiable Betty and her nineteen cats, an unexpected spark begins a warm and gentle story about two people re-discovering the importance of human companionship.


Wednesday 9th March 2022

Group - Kilworth Drama Group

Play - The Quiet Moment

Author - Mike Finn

Synopsis of Play
Peter works in California where he buys memory for a large computer corporation. However his father is rapidly losing his own. Peter comes home for a brief visit and the Conway family examine relationships and memories of their own.


Thursday 10th March 2022

Group - Ballyduff Drama Group

Play - Rabbit Hole

Author - David Lindsay- Abaire

Synopsis of Play
Rabbit Hole Summary Rabbit Hole is a Pulitzer Prize–winning play about a couple navigating the aftermath of their child's death. Becca and Howie, a young, suburban married couple, are grieving the loss of their four-year-old son, Danny, who was hit by a car. Their relationship has become strained.


Friday 11th March 2022

Group - Wexford Drama Group

Play - A Lie of the Mind

Author - Sam Shepherd

Synopsis of Play
A LIE OF THE MIND involves two desperate families connected by the marriage of the son of one (Jake) to the daughter of the other (Beth). As the play begins Beth, brain-damaged from a savage beating that Jake has given her, is being tended by her parents, Baylor and Meg. Jake sends his brother, Frankie, to Montana to see if she is dead or alive, but Beth’s father, mistaking Frankie for a poacher, shoots him in the leg and takes him prisoner. Thereafter the tensions and enmities that motivate the two families grow increasingly disturbing and dangerous. Frankie falls in love with Beth, but her brother, Mike, is bitterly determined that she no longer have anything to do with her husband or his loathsome family. Meanwhile the distraught, hysterical Jake, back home in California, is nursed by his possessive mother, Lorraine, and his sister, Sally, to whom Lorraine is openly hostile. Having gotten Jake back from Beth, Lorraine is determined to keep him with her forever, but Jake soon recovers and sets out to regain his wife. In the end, however, his will fails, and he allows Beth to stay with Frankie; Lorraine burns down her house and departs for Ireland with Sally; and Jake, bereft and alone, seeks communication with his dead father by gently dispersing his ashes into the moonlight—hoping to find order and meaning in the present by coming to terms with the haunting spectres of the past.


Saturday 12th March 2022

Group - Kilrush Drama Group

Play - Class

Author - Iseult Golden & David Horan

Synopsis of Play
As you may have guessed, the setting for this play is a classroom. It is after school and Ray is correcting homework at his desk when he hears someone at the door. It is Brian, the father of one of his pupils. Ray has requested Brian and his wife Donna to come to the school to talk about their son. The two men have an awkward conversation while they wait for Brian’s wife to arrive. Ray seems to be a good teacher and takes a keen interest in his pupils. When Donna arrives the three sit and Ray delivers some difficult news to the parents

41st West Waterford Drama Festival
3rd March to 11th March 2023

Bookings: On 058 60456 from 22nd February 2023 - 2pm - 8pm

If using Sat Nav, be careful when inputting. There are at least three Ballyduffs in County Waterford. In particular, there is a village called Ballyduff about five miles from Waterford City. This is not us! Coordinates 52° 08' 51" N, 8° 03' 06" W will get you pretty near the correct Ballyduff! more

 

Since 1981, West Waterford Drama Festival is held in Ballyduff during March. Over three decades of dramatic excitement, community endeavour, investment in friendship and sheer good fun. All driven by an ethos of volunteerism, community and good humour. more

Supported by Waterford City &
County Council's Arts Festivals Grants