RTE All Ireland Drama Awards 2022

Athlone is an ‘all-or-nothing’ kind of place: it’s either a matter of nothing ever happening, or everything happening at once. May, for example, is a month when absolutely everything happens in Athlone, in the heart of Ireland, often at exactly the same time on the same day.

This, in many ways, reminds me of my home town, Trieste, in the North East of Italy, another ‘all-or-nothing’ place. Trieste, by the way and in case you didn’t know is near Venice, in Italy, and is also the place James Joyce chose to live in for 15 years between 1904 and 1920 with his wife Nora Barnacle, as well as the place where he wrote parts of ‘Ulysses’.

Now, let’s travel back to Athlone, shall we? Athlone sits firmly on the arts map thanks to the RTE All Ireland Drama Festival, happening every year at the Dean Crowe Theatre for a week in May under the auspices of Amateur Drama Council of Ireland. It showcases new productions and culminates in a glamorous gala dinner at the Radisson Blu Hotel overlooking the River Shannon.

‘Rabbit Hole’ scooped the majority of the awards. Awards for ‘Rabbit Hole’ by Pulitzer award winner David Lindsay-Abaire included best stage management collected by Noel Hayes for the Ballyduff Drama Group, which were crowned the overall winners and best director for Ger Canning, who was praised for her work to highlight the more…