Playing up in Louth

DETAILS for Dundalk's International are emerging: Geraldine Flood has the overseas entries in place and is awaiting Dundalk's…

DETAILS for Dundalk's International are emerging: Geraldine Flood has the overseas entries in place and is awaiting Dundalk's playspotters' selection from the ADCI festival circuit to complete her programme. Dundalk's lively event takes place from Saturday May 24th to Sunday June 1st. First visitors come from up the road - Holywood Players with Chekhov's The Cherry Orchard. The company's interpretation of a family bewailing its extravagance as its prize possession must be sold to pay off creditors will be Worth seeing on Sunday, May 25th. Bertold Brecht's The Threepenny Opera with Kurt Weill's music, a difficult piece of theatre based on Johnny Gay's Beggars' Opera, will be performed by a German group on Tuesday, May 27th, while Jest from Tel Aviv presents the thriller, The Woman in Black on the Wednesday, May 28th.

Dundalk Community Theatre (from Maryland!) will perform I Do, I Do on Thursday, May 29th: The work is written by Tom Jones with music by Harvey Schmidt. Tara Players from Ottawa has chosen Frank McGuinness's Someone Who'll Watch Over Me (Friday, May 30th). Next evening, Bournemouth Little Theatre offers A Lie Of The Mind, Sam Shepard's fourhander that reflects on two spiritually impoverished and internally alienated American families. To windup the festival on Sunday, June 1st, Delta Centre Stage from Mississippi will present Haiku, by Katherine Snodgrass. From the home circuit, come Slemish Players, Ballymena with Steinbeck's Of Mice And Men and Estuary, Dublin in Bernard Farrell's All In Favour Said No.

In Dundalk, of course, drama is not confined to evening performances at the Tain Theatre for the Harp Lager Awards. The Brendan Watters Lunchtime Theatre has a considerable following as has the Guinness Late Night Theatre.