Curtain set to rise on popular annual drama festival in Strabane

THE prestigious 39th annual Strabane Drama Festival will open next week at the The Alley Theatre.

Beginning on Friday, March 14, the festival will feature nine of the top drama groups from throughout the country coming with exciting and mainly entirely new productions for Tyrone audiences.

Speaking to the ‘Herald, festival director, Ciara McCay said that the event promises to be a ‘great success all-round’.

“The standard of productions will be extremely high,” Ciara said. “But most importantly it will be very entertaining.

“So please support this festival which is the longest running arts event in the entire City of Derry and Strabane council area.”

Opening night

The festival opens on Friday, March 14 with the highly-acclaimed Conor Mc Phearson’s ‘The Weir” – with characters relating stories bordering on the supernatural in a play that is funny, eerie and, also, hopeful.

On Saturday, March 15. Balally Players from Dublin will present a very recent black, heady comedy by David Ireland, ‘Ulster American’.

The festival director describes this play as a ‘must-see’.

“Its satire is as timely as it is riotous,” she said “It is a play that will making you laugh while doubting the wisdom of your laughter at the same time.”

Sunday, March 16 brings the Pomeroy Players to the Alley Theatre with ‘The Dry House’, another play with dark humour but exploring grief and rehabilitation as it delves deeper than traditional narratives of addiction.

Such is the tremendous variety in Strabane’s premier cultural event, Monday, March 17 sees Bart Players from Belfast staging the much-loved comedy by Lennox Robinson, ‘The Whiteheaded Boy’.

This play first delighted audiences in 1916 but remains eerily relevant today.

The festival continues on Tuesday, March 18 through to Saturday 22 with more variety including ‘Can You Ever Forgive Me?’ described as ‘hilarious, ourtrageous and tru-ish’.

Wednesday, March 18 brings ‘The Cemetry Club’ from Theatre 3 – a group that has appeared in Strabane’s festival in nearly all its 38 previous festivals – bringing the style of ‘Golden Girls’ to the Alley stage.

The final two nights will see the staging of ‘The Woodsman’ and ending on Saturday, March 22 with a play that will make laugh and cry, ‘Little Gem’.

Ciara commented that happily council funding has been achieved for this 39th festival and thanked Strabane and Castlederg DCSDC councillors for their enormous help and support in securing this vital funding needed to present such a highly-prestigious event in Strabane.

“It is devastating, therefore to report that, once again, funding has been refused for next year’s 40th anniversary of the drama festival,” she said.

This year the festival will be operating some new initiatives – especially to attract younger adults to participate and to attract locals who have yet to sample the delights of watching the entertainment on offer

If you have not ever experienced the delight of a drama festival, then please visit the Strabane Drama Festival Facebook page and private message the admin with your enquiry and you will be contacted by return with your personal invitation. Tickets are available through the Alley Theatre reception and online.