Celebrating 56 Years of Sligo Drama Circle

IN THE BEGINNING

Sligo Drama Circle made its bow to the public for the first time on Sunday night, November 18th 1956. The Town Hall in Sligo was the venue for their presentation of Gerard Healy’s “Thy Dear Father”.

However, the seeds of the Drama Circle were sown in the existing Sligo Unknown Players, a successful group who had presented plays in Sligo for many years, Charlie and Maggie Hughes being prominent members. Former Unknown Players member Pádraig Foran recalled that the Drama Circle came into being as a result of what in political circles would be known as a ‘heave’. ‘Heaves’ and ‘splits’ had been part of amateur drama for many years. So, in the autumn of 1956, a group of people came together to form what became known as Sligo Drama Circle.

The Sligo Champion, in the week before the opening night, reported that a “really high class performance may be confidently expected” as many of the cast of “Thy Dear Father” had been known to Sligo audiences from previous performances. Admission charges for the first production were 3s (reserved) and 2s. Sunday night, 18th November, was the opening night of a four night run.

A press report in The Sligo Champion afterwards declared that the choice of “Thy Dear Father” as their opening production set the actors and actresses “a stiff test which all passed with colours flying”. The report sparkled especially about the performance of Paddy Dooney, which, it said, was “gripping throughout and the third act was unmistakeably his. Even when the others were speaking and he was silent he held the stage and the attention of the audience”. The report was also complimentary of the performance of Jo Lappin who, it said, played with “moving sincerity and an understanding that could only have been born of study and imagination”. Special mention was also made of the director of the play Walter Mc Donagh who, it said, had “every reason to be delighted with the way in which his work was received”. Profits from the first production were donated to St. Anne’s Church Building Fund.

HISTORY

The Sligo Drama Circle was founded in October 1956 to promote good standards of community theatre and increase the range of plays available to Sligo audiences. The first play was produced in November 1956 and since then, the Circle has produced the works of major Irish, European and American playwrights. The group has won awards all over Ireland including the three “majors” – the Ulster Drama Cup in May 1967 at the Opera House, Belfast with J. M. Synge’s “The Playboy of the Western World”; the All-Ireland Esso Trophy in April 1970 with Tennessee Williams’ “A Streetcar Named Desire”; the All-Ireland One Act Play section in Naas in 1972 with “The Pot of Broth” by W. B. Yeats. The Circle also achieved an excellent second place in the All-Ireland with its first production of “Thy Dear Father”. Apart from the great win in 1970, the Drama Circle has reached the All-Ireland final nine times, has been second on three occasions and third twice. The Circle has also had a long association with the Sligo Yeats Society, performing the plays of W. B. Yeats and other writers of the Irish Literary Renaissance at the Summer School from 1966 to the early 1990’s.

After an early itinerant existence, the Circle rented a small store in the Market Yard in 1966. Sligo people will remember these “sheds” opposite the old Sligo Fire Station in the Markey Yard. This provided a homely atmosphere for rehearsals and storage space. New activities were then introduced – play readings, socials and even an art exhibition. With the help and co-operation of both the North-Western Regional Tourism Organisation and the Sligo Yeats Society the Drama Circle was enabled for some years to present summer theatre in Sligo which typically ran from June to mid-September. The late sixties and seventies were quite productive years in this respect.

A THEATRE FOR SLIGO

It then became quite apparent to the Drama Circle that their work was severely handicapped for want of a permanent theatre. While the available halls in Sligo were adequate for the presentation of plays, the lack of a properly equipped theatre made rehearsal and experimental work very difficult. For this reason, in 1970 the group launched a “Theatre For Sligo” project which sought to provide a properly equipped and professionally run theatre for both players and audiences in Sligo. In February 1974, Bishop Dominic Conway announced his intention to present a site on Temple Street to the Drama Circle for the purpose of building a new theatre. This was a huge step forward for the Drama Circle. Much fund-raising was done and profit from summer seasons went towards this visionary project. This eventually came to a successful conclusion in January 1982 with the opening of the Hawk’s Well Theatre, on a site shared with Donegal – Sligo – Leitrim Tourism. The theatre was named after the play by W. B. Yeats which has been produced many times by the Circle. In the programme notes of our March 1982 show we made the following comment:

“We hope that the Sligo Drama Circle and the Hawk’s Well Theatre will have a long and happy association and that the words of Yeats about his own Hawk’s Well be prophetically true – ‘He who drinks, they say, of that miraculous water lives forever’ “.

from The Sligo Weekender, December 27th, 2012