Scariff Bay Community Radio (SBCR) has partnered with The Clare Drama Festival for the Inaugural Clare Drama Radio Play Festival (CDRPF).
With the cancellation of all amateur drama festivals for 2020 and 2021, Scariff Bay Community Radio have decided to give one of Ireland’s longest running drama festivals an opportunity to stage their 2021 festival, albeit on FM and online, on this innovative community station based in Scariff, Co. Clare.
The amateur drama circuit like so many other cultural activities has been in hibernation since March this year. Several festivals had been up and running and with the lockdown were forced to suspend and then cancel their programmes. This has led to every drama group in the country being starved of an outlet for their craft. The audiences countrywide. have also missed their chance to see some of the best amateur drama available, in their local hall or theatre.
The Clare Drama Radio Play Festival will give these drama groups a chance to try something new. Scariff Bay Community Radio will broadcast this Radio Play festival which will feature groups and plays in a one act format. The festival, as is normal, will run during Lent with the final broadcast and awards night on Easter Sunday, April 4th 2021.
Scariff Bay Community Radio would like to sincerely thank the committee of The Clare Drama Festival for agreeing to take their 2021 festival onto the airwaves. It will mean so much to both the actors and directors involved in each group but also to the audiences starved of drama, of all sorts, since the start of the Covid 19 lockdown.
With professional adjudication by Paul Brennan A.D.A each play will receive marks for Acting, Direction and Sound Design/Technical Production. As the plays will be adapted for radio broadcast, both Scariff Bay Community Radio and The Clare Drama Festival are looking forward to hearing plays written for this different format.
Clare Drama Festival PRO Tom Hanley will accept applications to the festival, from Amateur Drama Groups only, until January 8th next.
*The closing date for accepted plays to the festival will be February 26th with broadcasting of the festival during March 2021 culminating with the final awards on Sunday 4th April. Please email Tom via cdradioplay@gmail.com for a complete list of rules and technical requirements.
Scariff Bay Community Radio earlier this year broadcast a radio play rehearsed, recorded and edited using social distancing, by the Sliabh Aughty Drama Group: Mr McGuffin’s Plot Device and Writer Unblocking Emporium was written by Tara Sparling, directed by Ruth O’Hagan with sound design and technical production by Eoin O’Hagan. This play was subsequently broadcast on several other Community stations in Ireland. This successful broadcast was the foundation for the idea of a Festival on the radio and the genesis of the Clare Drama Radio Play Festival.
Meanwhile, a separate radio play competition will be hosted by Scariff Bay Community Radio for the National Schools in the East Clare area. SBCR invites the schools to record and enter a 10 minute play on, for example, a historical figure, event or place in East Clare.
There will be awards for Best Play, Best Sound Effects and also Acting awards. We encourage the children of the national schools to play with sound effects to add to the soundscape of their play. These plays can be entered on .mp3 by email to info@scariffbayradio.com .
All the National School plays will be broadcast on a special programme on Scariff bay Community Radio each Saturday in March.
The winning play in the National Schools Competition will then be re-broadcast on the awards night of the adult festival on Easter Sunday April 4th 2021.
SBCR chair Jim Collins said: “The Board of Scariff Bay Community is delighted to partner with the Clare Drama Festival to bring amateur drama to the airwaves of East Clare when, due to Covid 19, congregating in large groups isn’t possible.
This Radio Play Festival will enable the drama groups around the country to get back, to a degree at least, to what they do best. We also look forward to showcasing the creativity of our primary school children and think that this competition will foster an interest in and love of drama.
The listeners to our community radio station are in for a feast of drama as The inaugural Clare Drama Radio Play Festival takes to the airwaves next March and we consider this to be the pinnacle of #ConnectingCommunities”.