Cork's Everyman Palace Theatre was bursting at the seams on Wednesday evening for the world première of Mammy's Boy, a play about the great writer Frank O'Connor's Cork childhood.
Co-written and co-directed by O'Connor's biographer Jim McKeon and Peter Dineen, the play coincides nicely with next month's celebrations marking the centenary of O'Connor's birth.
Michael White, chairman of the Everyman Palace, accompanied by his wife Jo, paid tribute to the work of artistic director Pat Talbot for a strong summer season. Meanwhile, actor Barry O'Reilly, who has just finished starring in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf at the Palace, welcomed the chance to sit and watch other people work for a change.
Others enjoying the occasion included ballet master David Gordon, Cliff Wedgebury, who has recently published a book of poetry titled Beautiful Guitars and Other Poems, and Eileen Nolan of the Montfort College of Performing Arts.
A host of new local theatre talent was in attendance, including Julie Sharkey, who starred in Asylum Theatre Company's recent successful national tour of Enda Walsh's Bedbound, and Tom Creed and Hillary Shaughnessy, co-founders of Playgroup Theatre Company, who are taking Soap, one of the hits of the recent Woodford Bourne Cork Midsummer Festival, to the Dublin Fringe Festival.
Asylum's Donal Gallagher was at the opening, as was Shane Byrne, accompanied by Fin Flynn, the new company manager of Corcadorca theatre company. Corcadorca's next production, Snap, will be performed in the disused IAWS warehouse in Cork's docklands.
Anne Boddaert, exhibitions officer with the Crawford Municipal Art Gallery, said she was gearing up for the August 30th opening of the first showing of Robert Ballagh portraits in 20 years in an Irish gallery.