Big Maggie helps Druid to turn a profit

The box-office success of John B Keane's Big Maggie was one of the factors behind the Druid theatre company recording a turnaround in its fortunes last year. New figures show that the award-winning Galway-based company recorded a profit of almost €192,190 in 2011.

It made a loss of €251,962 in 2010.The swing came as Druid's income increased by €300,000, or 14 per cent, from €2.1m to €2.4m in the 12 months to the end of December 2011. The successful Druid year arose from sell-out shows of John B Keane's Big Maggie and Martin McDonagh's The Cripple of Inishmaan. A Druid spokeswoman said: "In the challenging conditions of a continued deterioration in our Arts Council funding, we are glad that we performed well enough at the box office and were able to raise sufficient funding from other sources, including Culture Ireland, to make good on our commitment to produce the huge international theatre project, DruidMurphy."