Skibbereen Arts Festival takes place this year between
with Music, Theatre, Film, Poetry, Visual Arts Trail, Sound Art, Walks, Talks and much much more.
The detailed programme of events will be up on the festival website skibbereenartsfestival.com on 13th June… but you can check their Facebook and Twitter between now and then for updates so ……. stay tuned!
Backstage is based at St. Josephs National School in Skibbereen and it runs every Friday from 6pm-8.30pm.It is open to 7-18 year olds, grouped by age, and subjects range from Drama, Mime and Musical Theatre to Stand-Up Comedy, Dance and Performance.
Backstage, nationally recognised for its Performing Arts work with young people over the past fifteen years, teaches performing and production skills and a number of their students have now gone on to be recognisable faces in Film, TV and Stage but that is only part of what they do. The Academy also uses these performance skills to develop self-confidence, communication skills and critical thinking.
OPEN DAY
FRIDAY, 5TH and 12th SEPTEMBER
6PM-8.30PM
Entry to Open Day is free of charge but you must arrive in time for a 6pm start and be prepared to stay for the full session.
Further information from Backstage-Ireland on 091-590706 or e-mail backstageireland@eircom.net.
On Tuesday 29th July, the Skibbereen Arts Festival is presenting a selection of performances at four landmark locations in ‘4 Plays in a Day’.
To start the day, Wild Productions will wake us up with their comedic play ‘Mrs. Shakespeare’. Performing at the stately Liss Ard House, Irene Kelleher will play a female patient in a mental hospital, who thinks she is the reincarnation of writer, William Shakespeare. Back to set right her mistitled ‘Hamlet’, she is set on a rewrite for a new play with a more feminine perspective called ‘Ophelia’.
Following on from there, Karen Minihan of Playacting Theatre will present her one-woman play, ‘Eileen’ at West Cork Arts Centre. The story of a middle-aged country woman facing the divorce from her farmer husband. The play deals with the stigma of being a divorcee in a traditional, rural town.
Schull Drama Group will present five revue sketched by Harold Pinter. Written in the late 1950s, these are all early works by Pinter. They all focus on an aspect of an incident which may or may not have happened. The five sketches are ‘Special Offer’, ‘Request Stop’, ‘Last to Go’, ‘The Black and White’ and ‘Trouble in the Works’.
To finish off this rather dramatic day, the award-winning Kilmeen Drama Group will present their production of JM Synge’s ‘The Playboy of the Western World’. Winner of the 2013 RTE All-Ireland Drama Finals, and performed at the Abbey Theatre, Kilmeen are now bound for America where they will tread the boards in October. Make sure you see it here first!
Each performance is individually priced but for the hardcore theatre buff there is a special day ticket for all of the performances at €20.
For more information and booking please check out the Skibbereen Arts Festival website at www.skibbereenartsfesitival.com , or phone the box office at 087 126 0327 for ticket information.