RTÉ All Ireland Drama Festival 2024
May 2nd – May 10th 2024, Dean Crowe Theatre
Awards on May 11th, Radisson Hotel Athlone
Lights, action, drama!
RTÉ All Ireland Drama Festival
Thursday, May 2nd to Friday, May 10th
Planning is well underway for the 2024 RTÉ All Ireland Drama Festival, under the stewardship of Festival Director, Regina Bushell and the Festival Committee. The festival, which is held under the auspices of the Amateur Drama Council of Ireland, celebrated a number of significant anniversaries in recent years and this year is no different as it marks the 20th year of partnership between RTÉ and the All Ireland Drama Festival.
The drama circuit is already underway and drama groups, who are competing to perform in the open section in the RTÉ All Ireland Drama Festival in Athlone, will travel the length and breadth of the country to participate in drama festivals nationwide. A number of groups have already qualified (see the ADCI website for further information).
The dates for the RTÉ All Ireland Drama Festival have been set from Thursday, May 2nd to Friday, May 10th. The festival will conclude with a grand Gala Awards night on Saturday, May 11th. Another key date for the finalists, is for the draw for the nights when the plays will be performed. This is scheduled for Sunday, April 14th. Our Fringe Festival opens with two anchor events, the Athlone Film Festival on 27 April followed by our Schools Playwright Award Ceremony on 29 April.
We are looking forward to welcoming the nine finalists and the audiences to Athlone in May. We set the bar high in 2023 and we aim to continue to entertain audiences at the Dean Crowe Theatre as well as audiences at our Fringe events creating a buzzing atmosphere in Athlone in May 2024!
Page updated on 15th April 2024.
The Finalists
After the Draw on 14th April 2024, this is the list of finalists and plays in the order they will perform at the Festival:
Accommodation
If you would like to take a look at some accommodation options, you can download our brochure using the button below.
2024 Events
Please bookmark this page as we add more information about 2024 events.
The Draw
14th April 2024
Schools Playwright
29th April 2024
Shop Window Display
1st may 2024
Fringe Festival
from 27th April 2024
The Abbey
25th April 2024
Gala Awards Night
11th May 2024
Director
Regina Bushell
As the director of the RTÉ All Ireland Drama Festival It was an absolute pleasure again this year to visit a number of the ADCI festivals around the country and meet up with the hard working committees and get to see many of the plays that have made it to the All Ireland finals here in Athlone. It was so positive to hear that most festivals reported that their audience numbers were recovering well after Covid and that there were many nights where they had full houses. I wish to thank all festivals for their amazing voluntary work year after year. Without the groups and Festivals we would not be gathering together in Athlone to celebrate the cream of amateur drama in Ireland.
The 2023 All Ireland Drama Festival was a very special year as the Amateur Drama Council Of Ireland founded in Athlone in 1953, celebrating its 70th Anniversary. It is an amazing success story and one I am so proud to be part of it for the last 40 years. All around the country festivals have taken place and the nine best plays, all of them multi award winners, will arrive in Dean Crowe Theatre in Athlone on a level playing pitch to battle it out for the RTÉ All Ireland Title.
The plays will bring up many emotions and will, excite, delight, surprise and shock the Athlone audience. For 70 years the people of Athlone have supported the committee and this year is no different. Plans are in place for decoration of the town, the retailers are getting behind the Shop Window Display and many more activities.
The Adjudicator
Tom Byrne ADA
Tom is a native of Celbridge, Co Kildare but lives in nearby Leixlip.
He has over 45 years involvement with amateur drama and competed in his first festival in 1979.
He started his drama life with the Leixlip Theatre Group and saw stints with the Dublin Youth Theatre and Dublin Shakespeare Society among others. He went on to establish Bradān Players Leixlip and more recently Red Embers Theatre Company. Over the years Tom has directed over 120 different productions.
He has won numerous awards as a director and he competed in the RTE All Ireland Finals in Athlone in 2009 and 2010.
He holds the unique record of qualifying productions to six successive All Ireland Open One Act Finals – directing winning productions in 2005,2009 and 2010.In the finals of 2005, he not alone won with his production of “Small Box Psychosis” but also directed “Babels In Arms” which finished in third place.
Tom has written several works including a radio play “Howzee” surrounding his experiences as a football referee. Other recent works include, “The Other Land”(Red Embers),”Searching for Baggio”(Gap Arts),”Hand Bag”(Claremorris Fringe),”Gear”(Theatre Express, Cork), “Borussia Monchengladbach”(Amigo Productions, Wexford) and a one man play entitled “Being Robbie Keane”
Since taking up adjudicating in 2011 he has adjudicated at ADCI qualifying festivals throughout the four provinces of Ireland.
In addition, he has adjudicated the Macra na Feirme national finals on two occasions, the 2016 All Ireland One Act Finals (Dundrum) and the 2018 All Ireland Confined Finals (South Wicklow – Carnew).
Tom is a member of the Association of Drama Adjudicators.
THE COMMITTEE
Meet the team that work extremely hard behind the scenes to make this a success.