Rush Drama Festival 2023 Tickets
It’s back for it’s 19th year – Rush Drama Festival runs from 3rd to 11th March. This year features adjudicator Sarah Purcell. Sarah Purcell currently teaches acting technique at Michael Chekhov Studio, Berlin, is a Freelance Acting Coach, and teaches weekly acting classes at Tanzraum, Berlin. Some seasoned Festival patrons may remember Sarah from a production of Proof by Estuary players several years ago at The Millbank Theatre.
She is a qualified Primary School teacher and holds a Diploma of Associate to teach Speech and Drama (A.L.C.M.) from the London College of Music at Thames Valley University. She has also picked up the occasional Best Actor award on the ADCI Drama Circuit having acted in over 30 productions primarily with Estuary Players, Bradán Players and Next Stage Productions but is delighted to be on this side of the flood lights this time 
We look forward to welcoming her to our Theatre for the Festival run.
For details on the line up see below, our seasons tickets are now fully booked and the remainder of the tickets are available for each night. Each performance begins nightly at 8pm
So what’s the line up at this year’s festival?
| Date | Group | Play | Link to Purchase Tickets |
| Friday 3 March 2023 | Holycross Ballycahill Drama Group from Co. Tipperary | A Skull in Connemara by Martin McDonagh For one week each autumn, Mick Dowd is hired to disinter the bones in certain sections of his local cemetery, to make way for the new arrivals, As the time approaches for him to dig up those of his own late wife, strange rumours regarding his involvement in her sudden death sever years ago gradually begin to resurface. | Click Here to Purchase Tickets SOLD OUT |
| Saturday 4 March 2023 | Butt Drama Group from Co. Donegal | Darkness Echoing by Shaun Byrne Joe returns home to Donegal from London under a cloud to find his father seriously ill. He is forced to deal with issues concerning his own young son’s passing some years earlier helped by Marie, his father’s home help. It deals with loss, addition, illness – serious issues but like An Incident with Dave Cotter last year humour appears in unexpected places. | Click Here to Purchase Tickets SOLD OUT |
| Sunday 5 March 2023 | Ballyduff Drama Group from Co. Waterford | The Welkin by Lucy Kirkwood One life in the hands of 12 women.1759.As the country waits for Halley’s comet, Sally Poppy is sentenced to hang for a heinous murder. When she claims to be pregnant, a jury of 12 matrons are taken from their housework to decide whether she’s telling the truth, or simply trying to escape the noose. With only midwife Lizzy Luke prepared to defend the girl, and a mob baying for blood outside, the matrons wrestle with their new authority, and the devil in their midst. | Click Here to Purchase Tickets SOLD OUT |
| Monday 6 March 2023 | Clontarf Players from Co. Dublin | The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde The Importance of Being Earnest is a theatrical rollercoaster packed with shade, wit and plenty of gags as Oscar Wilde’s ingenious humour succeeds in debunking social pretentions.Two bachelor friends, Algernon Moncrieff and John (Jack) Worthing lead double lives to court the attentions of the desirable Gwendolen Fairfax and Cecily Cardew.They must contend with the uproarious consequences of their subterfuge and with the redoubtable Lady Bracknell. | Click Here to Purchase Tickets SOLD OUT |
| Tuesday 7 March 2023 | Dundalk Theatre Workshop from Co. Louth | Faith Healer by Brian Friel Throughout the remote and forgotten corners of the British Isles, Frank Hardy offers the promise of redemption to the sick and the suffering.But his is an unreliable gift, a dangerous calling that brings him into conflict with his wife, Grace, and his manager, Teddy.Their competing accounts of past events reveal the fragility of memory and the necessity of stories as a means of survival. | Click Here to Purchase Tickets SOLD OUT |
| Thursday 9 March 2023 | Salmon Eile from Co. Kildare | The Pitchfork Disney by Philip Ridley (Adult Themed) Presley and Haley, two siblings, live in a squalid flat in a ruined world.Their parents seem to have died years ago, and now they wile away a schizophrenic existence by feeding off chocolate and “Mum and Dad’s medicine”. One day, however, an interloper appears, and things start to go very wrong. | Click Here to Purchase Tickets SOLD OUT |
| Friday 10 March 2023 | Lifford Players from Co. Donegal | When Elephants Collide by Edward Flanagan A tale of inheritance. A family in crisis. A father who doesn’t know which child to trust with his legacy. This fast paced play is interwoven with sibling rivalry, jealousy and greed set in a 21st Century Ireland still anchored to 19th century traditions. | Click Here to Purchase Tickets SOLD OUT |
| Saturday 11 March 2023 | Prosperous Dramatic Society from Co. Kildare | Oleanna by David Mamet Oleanna is a 1992 two character play about the power struggle between a university professor and one of his female students, who accuses him of sexual harassment and, by doing so, spoils his chances of being accorded tenure.The play’s title, taken from a folk song, refers to a 19th century escapist vision of utopia. | Click Here to Purchase Tickets SOLD OUT |
Update: For the results of Rush Drama Festival 2023 click here