The Butt Drama Circle’s (BDS) powerful, and original, play made an almost clean sweep at last night’s Ballyshannon Drama Festival awards ceremony.
Darkness Echoing is a play written, starred in and directed by BDS member, Shaun Byrne. It also stars Mairead McMenamin and JC Bonar.
The Ballybofey-based club took home awards for: First place in the Open Section; Blue Riband (overall winner); Best Producer for Shaun Byrne; Best Actor for JC Bonar; Best Set (JC Bonar); Best Lighting; Best Stage Manager (Brenda Duffy) and the Audience Award.
The Butt Drama Circle will participate in this week’s Strabane Drama Festival, on Wednesday night, in the hope of securing at least a second placing in order to qualify for the All Ireland finals in Athlone.
Shaun Byrne collecting some of the awards last night.
The Ballyshannon Drama Society has already qualified for the finals with their fantastic production, A Delicate Balance.
The play is directed by Rachel O’Connor, who also performs in the show as Claire, and she is assisted by Carl Duggan.
The cast also includes Trish Keane and Richard Hurst as Agnes and Tobias, last year’s newcomers Deirdre Ferguson and Troy Devaney as Julia and Harry, and Kay O’Dea as Edna.
Meanwhile, Damien Gallagher (pictured below), The Mall, Ballyshannon, was inducted into the Ballyshannon Drama Festival’s Hall of Fame – a hugely popular and well deserved honour for Damien which went down a treat with last night’s audience.
It was also a special festival for usher, Gordon Walsh, who celebrated his 89th birthday during the week.
Ballyshannon Drama Festival Hall of Fame inductee, Damian Gallagher.