Our Spring Plays, presented in May 2006, was another of Garry Watson's "Glenshoogle" comedies. This time he gave us "Square Dancers", a mix up over the Guild meeting to discuss Scottish Country Dancing where the speaker was an expert on American Line Dancing. With country and western to the fore Scotland's own Sydney Devine also got a mention. Garry assures us that the characterisation of the minister in the production was not based on any minister he knows!! Photographs taken by the cast of the cast can be seen in our on-line album, watch out for the "Dance Champion!" Our Cabaret 2005, "Movie Magic" featured songs chosen from the official 100 Best Songs in the Movies and involved all of our members, young and old and not so young and not so old. We all had a great time as did (so we were told) our appreciative audiences. Re-live the experience by checking out more of our on-line album. They say that bad news travels fast, well good news therefore travels really really slowly. That's certainly true about our latest piece of news (December 2005) about St Mark's Drama Group's President and Playwright, Garry Watson. Reproduced below is an article from "Farming Life" an Irish Agricultural Newspaper. Garry of course wrote "The Church Meeting" which had its world premiere in St Mark's in 2001. Farming Life Lisnamurrican YFC Wednesday 5th May 2004 FOR the second successive year Lisnamurrican Young Farmers Club have been crowned the winners of the "Best One Act Play in Northern Ireland." The results were announced at the recent Drama Dinner held in Tullyglass House Hotel, Ballymena. Lisnamurrican YFC performed the play entitled "The Church Meeting" at the Drama Festival which was held last month in the Group Theatre, Belfast. Competing against very strong opposition from six other clubs adjudicator Richard Mills had the task of accessing each club on their acting ability, production, stage presentation, endeavour, originality and attainment. Lisnamurrican certainly rose to the challenge with the award winning cast consisting of William Fleck, Catherine Fleck, Melissa Knox, John Watt, Nigel McClintock, Rachael McBurney, Thoburn McCaughey, Ruth Smyth and Louise Houston. Not content with taking first place in the "Best One Act Play" category, Lisnamurrican were also delighted when producer Lynda Esler scooped the coverted accolade of "Top Producer in Northern Ireland". Lynda contributed a considerable amount of time and effort into directing the play and her professionalism, experience and vision were invaluable to its success. Thanks are extended not only to Lynda but to the stage crew and all those who helped behind the scenes with preparation. This years win of Best One Act Play now secures the club with a record of three first places and a third in the One Act Play competition and is an excellent achievement for a club that only has been competing in the Drama Festival in the past five years. There will be one last chance to see the award winning play as Lisnamurrican will stage "The Church Meeting" once more on Saturday 15 May in Magerally Church Hall at 8pm. Farming Life 2004 A new group has grown out (maybe that should be "up") from "The Players". The younger members of the company have formed their own group under the name "STAGE DOOR". Drama Club President Garry Watson's specially written musical for them called "Fairy Tale" was performed on Friday and Saturday 10 & 11 June 2005. Stage Door now have their own web page. The less younger members performed our annual Spring Plays with a Farmhouse Tea on 6 & 7 May 2005 and once again Garry was busy with his pen having returned to our favourite village of "Glenshoogle" to write two plays, The Highlight Zone, set in the local hairdressing salon and Rough Justice, all about the local goings on in legal circles. A previous performance The St Mark's Players performed "Sleeping Beauty" on 13, 14 and 15 January 2005. This production was very well received by large audiences at each performance. "Best ever performance" was a comment made by several people and the Drama Club are delighted this show, which we all thoroughly enjoyed was so well received. The final performance on Saturday saw a real life drama unfold as John was suddenly called away for family reasons to Glasgow and daughter-in-law Lynne stepped in to play the part of King Wally. She performed wonderfully and other than the cast change announcement made at the start of the show and the cast list in the programme the audience would have been unaware of any change. Photographs of the performance, cast & crew can be seen here on our on line album pages. Previous Stories about "The Players" The Church drama group has its very own "official" playwright in the shape of St. Mark's Players' President, Garry Watson who is a published author, twice over. Garry's comedy play "The Church Meeting" was published shortly after we gave its world premiere in 2001 and has since been performed by the Granton Players from Edinburgh and by the Largs Players from Ayrshire. This group entered the play in the Scottish Community Drama Association's 2004 Festival and it was performed at the Magnum Theatre, Irvine in February. Spring 2002 saw another world premiere when we did Garry's "Bloomin' Disgrace". Set again in the village of Glenshoogle this two act comedy told the tale of gardening skulduggery and scones with a secret ingredient. This play is now a published work and available for performance by other groups. Our 2004 Spring Plays and Farmhouse teas took place on 7-9 May and photographs of the results are now available in our on-line album. Both performances were well attended by appreciative audiences. Once again we performed a brand-new play by Garry when we presented "The Royal Visit". Set again in Glenshoogle, we told the story of plans for a VIP opening of a new community centre in the village and an unexpected 'Royal' visit. We also performed "The Mistress of Greenbyres" by Joe Corrie which told the story of a young wife battling her new sister-in-laws to modernise both the farmhouse and their attitudes. She of course succeeded in both tasks. "Break a leg". Back to Drama Club Home Messenger Grouping Healing Twinning
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