Am-Dram takes centre stage on TV
Simply Am-Dram was filmed over nine months in the run up to the 2012 RTÉ All Ireland Drama Finals in Athlone which take place in May every year. It’s fiercely competitive, on a par with the fervour associated with a GAA All Ireland Final and attracts people from every walk of life.
Filmed in an observational documentary style, seven drama groups are followed as they attempt to be crowned All Ireland Champions. The groups are reigning champions Kilmeen Drama Group from West Cork, Ballyshannon Drama Group, Brádan Players from Leixlip, Cornmill Theatre Company from Leitrim, Brideview Drama Group from Waterford, Prosperous Dramatic Society from Kildare and Nenagh Players from Tipperary.
Seán Corcoran is head of the Amateur Drama Council of Ireland (ADCI) which is the federation of amateur drama festivals for Ireland, both north and south. “There has always been a great storytelling tradition in Ireland. Anew McMaster was probably the first guy who travelled around the towns and villages of Ireland as an actor/manager staging Shakespeare with Micheál MacLiammóir and Hilton Edwards.”
Part of Corcoran’s remit is to see the 37 drama festivals around the country under the ADCI. Ten of them take place in Northern Ireland. In all, there are about 340 performances. “Most halls would hold between 150 to 300 people, so between 50,000 and 75,000 come to see the shows. In all, there are nine groups competing in the finals. It’s a massive event for the amateur drama movement.”
The winning group gets to perform its play at the Peacock Theatre at the end of May. “The difference between professional groups and amateurs at this level is non-existent. The Peacock performance is a celebration of the amateur theatrical community.”
Corcoran, whose day job is in IT, is involved with the Rush Drama Group in County Dublin. He reckons that there could be up to a million people involved in amateur drama, from audiences to ticket sellers and performers.
“It’s a social outlet that’s badly needed in these times. People are so strapped for cash that good quality low-priced entertainment is welcome.”
Nora Scannell, from Rossmore in Clonakilty, has been a member of the Kilmeen Drama Group for over 25 years. She features in the RTÉ series. An amateur actress who also teaches drama in schools around West Cork, she says that “people would kill to be part of the Kilmeen group. This year, we’re hoping for a three-in-a-row win. To qualify for Athlone again this year is incredible. We were absolutely delighted. We had a tragedy when our director, Tim Coffey, died recently. It spurred us on even more.”
The group is competing with its production of The Playboy of the Western World in which Scannell plays the Widow Quinn. The play will be staged at the Cork Opera House at the end of the month.
Scannell says that becoming a professional actress “was probably never on my radar. I’m quite happy to act at a local level. For anything professional, you would have to be very committed. I have young children so that wouldn’t be possible for me. I never felt I missed out on a career in acting. The amount I do locally every year satisfies my needs. I think there’s an actor in every one of us. If you can instil it in children, it will stand to them for life.”
Scannell says the “glamour of being an actress is just part of my involvement in drama. Real life means that when we’re on tour with a play, everyone has to get involved and help with the set. We have an incredible crew and often, we’ll do painting work or whatever is needed.”
Having won two ‘best actress’ awards at Athlone, Scannell says her favourite role to date is the Widow Quinn and she would love to play Blanche Dubois in A Streetcar Named Desire.
Robert Massey, who has been involved in amateur drama for 15 years, is a member of Prosperous Dramatic Society. He is the managing director of an adhesives firm and is pragmatic enough to know that the reality of a full-time job in theatre would be difficult. He has written a number of plays, three of which have been professionally produced by Lane Productions and Fishamble Theatre Company. He currently has a play, Rank, being staged in the Odyssey Theatre in Los Angeles. But this hasn’t turned his head.
“I like performing but the life of an actor is very tough. You’d want to have a real vocation to do it full-time. What I do allows me to have great access to theatre, to dip in and out of it. I have the best of both worlds.”
Writing full-time wouldn’t appeal to Massey. “It’s a very precarious profession. I have great admiration for people who work at it all the time. I have children to feed. I love my career and I don’t think that it and my hobby are mutually exclusive. For some reason, I get asked all the time whether I’d like to go professional. But it’s just like anyone who has an interest in sport.”
Massey says that amateur drama requires a lot of effort but he finds it very rewarding. And there is a good social life attached to it. “You meet a lot of great people and there’s a real team spirit. A good bit happens in the pub as well. We work hard and play hard,” says Massey.
* Simply Am-Dram starts on RTÉ One tomorrow night at 7pm.
