The 2023 RT All-Ireland Drama Festival
Launches at Dublin's Abbey Theatre
Drama groups from around the country gathered today at the Abbey Theatre, Dublin, for the launch of the 2023 RT All Ireland Drama Festival, under the auspices of the Amateur Drama Council of Ireland.
Starting on Thursday, 27 April, and running until Friday 5 May, drama festivals from across the island of Ireland will compete in the All-Ireland deciders, with the presentation of the final awards on Saturday May 6.
Festival Director, Regina Bushell, said: This is a very special year for the festival as the ADCI, founded in Athlone in 1953, is celebrating its 70th Anniversary. Fittingly, the standard of the plays this year is truly very high, and expectation is building as our groups prepare to perform under the watchful eye of this year's adjudicator Paula Dempsey. And this year we have the premiere of a brand-new Irish play written by one of the group members, as well as two amateur premieres.
Dee Forbes, Director-General, RT , said: With the RT All Ireland Drama Festival, RT is proud to foster creativity and acting talent through drama, and to bring the excitement and tension of this unique festival to audiences all over Ireland, through the partnership with RT lyric fm, through RT .ie and our social channels, and through RT Radio 1. We are delighted this year to produce yet another ambitious radio and television campaign that gets to the heart of what make this festival so enduring: the power of drama, of the individual, and of the collective, and the resilience to start again. The spotlight is on Athlone during May, and we will be there .
The festival also revealed a revamped website at http://www.dramafestival.ie. The official draw for the line-up for the 2023 RT All Ireland Drama Festival took place on Monday 10 April.
The 2023 festival sees the return of last year's winners, Ballyduff Drama Group, presenting an exciting Irish premiere of The Welkin' by Lucy Kirkwood, while former winners Newpoint Players will present Happy Days' by Samuel Beckett. Dundalk Theatre Workshop will perform Brian Friel's masterpiece Faith Healer', and Thurles Drama Group will present Conor MacPherson's play, 'The Seafarer'. Former winners Dalkey Players are presenting By the Bog of Cats', Marina Carr's play. And the festival will also welcome back former double winners, Prosperous Dramatic Society. Prosperous are performing the amateur premiere of Oleanna by David Mamet. Back too are Wexford Drama Group with the amateur premiere of the winner of the 2014 Moli re Award for Best Play, Florian Zeller's The Father , alongside Ballyshannon Drama Society with their production of the Pulitzer Prize winning, A Delicate Balance' by Edward Albee. Butt Drama Circle will return with another premiere, a new three hander Irish play Darkness Echoing' written by Butt Drama member Shaun Byrne, following on from the success of last year's An Incident with Dave Cotter'.
This year's adjudicator Paula Dempsey, is an actor, director and drama adjudicator and holds an MA in Modern Drama Studies from University College Dublin. She has been adjudicating since 2007 and is a member of the Association of Theatre Adjudicators.
Tickets are now on sale and can be booked through the Dean Crowe website at http://www.deancrowetheatre.com/ or at the theatre box office, phone (090) 6492129. Admission 20 (includes a 1 Booking Fee). Concessions are available.
The Athlone Festival will also have a packed programme of fringe events, including fringe highlights the Annual Schools Playwright competition and the Athlone Film Festival. Now in its 10th year the playwright competition attracted entries from TY students from 12 counties. Sponsored again by Athlone Credit Union the awards ceremony takes place on 25 April. Further details are available on our website and social media.
Most recent headlines
05/01/2027
Worlds first 802.15.4ab-UWB chip verified by Calterah and Rohde & Schwarz to be ...
04/08/2026
Dalet, a leading technology and service provider for media-rich organizations, t...
04/07/2026
April 7 2026, 19:00 (PDT) Detective Conan: Fallen Angel of the Highway Opens in...
01/06/2026
January 6 2026, 05:30 (PST) Dolby Sets the New Standard for Premium Entertainment at CES 2026
Throughout the week, Dolby brings to life the latest innovatio...
13/05/2026
New Adobe Premiere Color Grading Mode Accelerated on NVIDIA GPUs
Joel Pennington May 13, 2026
0 Comments
New NVIDIA RTX-accelerated features streamlin...
13/05/2026
Grass Valley announced that dB Broadcast has delivered new IP-based outside broadcast (OB) trucks for Cloudbass, featuring Grass Valley LDX 100 Series cameras a...
13/05/2026
Ikegami will exhibit the latest additions to its wide range of broadcast production cameras, control units, viewfinders and monitors on stand 5D3-1 at Broadcast...
13/05/2026
FISE, working with the founding members of the XR Sports Alliance (XRSA), Accedo, Qualcomm Technologies, Inc. and HBS, have collaborated to develop an immersive...
13/05/2026
Canon Unveils New EOS R6 V Full-Frame EOS Camera and RF20-50mm F4 L IS USM PZ Bu...
13/05/2026
Boston Conservatory at Berklee Honors Beth Morrison and Moses Pendleton at Comme...
13/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
13/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
13/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
13/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
13/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
13/05/2026
Creative software developer Foundry today announced the latest developments on Nuke Stage. A purpose-built application for end-to-end virtual production and in-...
13/05/2026
A definitive portrait of one of Ireland's most influential musicians
New TV documentary airs Monday 18 May on RT One and RT Player at 9.35pm
Watch the...
13/05/2026
Agentic AI is changing the way users get work done. Following the success of OpenClaw, the community is embracing new open source agentic frameworks. The latest...
13/05/2026
Reinforcement-learning agents - AI systems that learn by trial and error - can c...
12/05/2026
Beyond the Hype: A Strategic Post-Hoc Analysis of NAB 2026 If NAB Show 2026 had an underlying theme, it was a quiet, industry-wide pivot from the high-energy sp...
12/05/2026
Guntermann and Drunck (G&D), a Panoptec Technologies Group company, and CT Square, led by Chandresh Shah, have announced a joint venture to distribute G&D and V...
12/05/2026
With 30 days until the start of the FIFA World Cup 2026, Telemundo, the exclusive Spanish-language home of the tournament in the United States, has announced th...
12/05/2026
The NHL has announced the return of Stanley Pup for its third consecutive year, a 90-minute special featuring adoptable rescue dogs competing on a miniature rin...
12/05/2026
NBCUniversal presented its 2026 Upfront to advertisers at Radio City Music Hall, detailing upcoming programming across NBC, Peacock, Bravo, and Versant properti...
12/05/2026
FOX Sports has announced funding for the Fandom and Social Connection Initiative at Harvard Kennedy School's Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics, and Publ...
12/05/2026
TNDV and Live Media, both divisions of Live Media Group, supported live broadcast coverage around NCAA Final Four weekend in Indianapolis, including the March M...
12/05/2026
The European Football Alliance (EFA) has announced a content distribution agreement with Fubo Sports Network, the free ad-supported streaming TV (FAST) channel ...
12/05/2026
For the first time, Spanish-speaking fans in the U.S. will have two separate tel...
12/05/2026
CP Communications led a comprehensive spectrum management initiative on behalf of Churchill Downs during Kentucky Derby week, coordinating RF assets across the ...
12/05/2026
LiveU has announced a strategic partnership with DRONERESPONDERS, a 501(c)3 non-...
12/05/2026
Open Broadcast Systems has announced that BMC TV, a specialist in IP transport of broadcast content, has selected the Open Broadcast Systems 5G Flyaway solution...
12/05/2026
NEP Europe, part of NEP Group, has announced it will deliver broadcast solutions...
12/05/2026
Grass Valley has announced continued collaboration with Ravensbourne University ...
12/05/2026
Stats Perform has announced the launch of Opta Pulse, an AI-assisted video creation and distribution platform for leagues, rights holders, and broadcasters. The...
12/05/2026
FOX Sports has announced a collaboration with Sesame Workshop to integrate Sesame Street characters into FOX Sports' FIFA World Cup 2026 programming. Conten...
12/05/2026
To date, NHL Productions has produced 19 broadcasts with commentary in American Sign Language
NHL in ASL (American Sign Language) may be just one show, but the...
12/05/2026
Google's Brian Albert: creators, athletes, highlights, nostalgia, second-scr...
12/05/2026
A still from Past Lives by Celine Song, an official selection of the Premieres program at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival. (Courtesy of Sundance Institute | p...
12/05/2026
Spotify is where fans and artists come together, turning discovery into somethin...
12/05/2026
Features patented Marco-MMC clocking technology
Black Lion Audio's latest release combines the company's expertise in clocking with their renowned p...
12/05/2026
New Track Panel, sequencer upgrades & more
Following their recent public beta release, Reason Studios have announced the full release of Reason 14. With the...
12/05/2026
One month to go! SBS reveals expansive FIFA World Cup 2026 lineup beyond the pi...
12/05/2026
Rohde & Schwarz presents its advanced solutions for power electronics testing at...
12/05/2026
aconnic AG (ISIN: DE000A0LBKW6), Munich, has developed a modified fund raising p...
12/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
12/05/2026
Tyrell Corporation, specialists in high-end live sports and entertainment broadcasts, was tasked with delivering compelling broadcast coverage of premier equest...
12/05/2026
Registration is now open for IBC2026 as the global media, entertainment and technology community prepares to converge on the RAI Amsterdam from 11 14 September ...
12/05/2026
Ross Video, a global leader in live video production technology, will present its latest innovations and integrated production workflows at BroadcastAsia 2026, ...
12/05/2026
500 selected leaders from around the world across start-ups, corporates, and venture capital. Over 50bn in assets under management among attending investors, a...
The 2023 RT All-Ireland Drama Festival
