Celebrating 20 years at Little Duke Theatre
THIS year has been the 20th Anniversary for The Drogheda School of Performing Arts, at The Little Duke Theatre. Since it opened its doors for the first time in September 1997 much has occurred: young people have spent important formative years coming to classes regularly, learning important life skills and creating long lasting friendships; wonderful shows, produced at The Little Duke and at Droichead Arts Centre by the school, have delighted audiences and broken box office records; teachers with excellent training and experience have taught at the school and sometimes even gone on to become recognised and well-know performers themselves; and some talented students have had opportunities to be cast in popular and successful films and television series, as a result of auditions obtained for them by the acting agency section at the school.
A number of students have gone on to become professional actors, some are presently getting a lot of attention and finding interesting work in theatre and film. Notably amongst these are Evanna Lynch, Andrew Gallagher, Eric O’Brien, Shane Murray Corcoran, Eva Butterly, Leah Rossiter and Sarah Hope Guppy.
Evanna Lynch, well-known for her role as Luna Lovegood in Harry Potter, was a student at The Little Duke for five years before being cast in that life-changing role. When she was chosen from thousands of young hopefuls, she had just completed a four week acting-to- camera course which filmmaker and co-writer of A Date for Mad Mary, Colin Thornton, had been invited to give to her class at The Little Duke. Last year Evanna played the title role in Simon Fitzmaurice’s poignantly beautiful film My Name is Emily. Presently, she is finishing a run at London’s Trafalgar Studios, with actor Colin Campbell, of Enda Walsh’s acclaimed play Disco Pigs for which she has received excellent reviews.
When Andrew Gallagher was just eight years old he was cast in the Martin Scorsese classic Gangs of New York and spent a memorable month in Rome working alongside stars Daniel Day-Lewis, Leonardo DiCaprio, Cameron Diaz and Liam Neeson. As a teenager, he got roles in short films and television commercials. He studied drama at DKIT and is now a professional actor. His work has included The Taming Of The Shrew, King Lear, Romeo & Juliet, Beasts, The Crystal Cage and Pirates Of Enchantasia, and Capitalism: The Musical. He has toured France and Belgium and Italy. His first play as a writer, Sex Drugs & Tinned Ravioli premiered at Theatre Upstairs in 2014. He made his directorial debut at the Smock Alley Scene + Heard Festival 2017 with the self-penned In Search Of The Spring, and has worked as a drama facilitator for Droichead Youth Theatre in Drogheda, and MAD Youth Theatre in Dundalk.
Eric O’Brien joined The Little Duke as a child, and came to classes in drama/dance/singing all the way through his teenage years. He studied drama at DKIT and has been getting a lot of professional work since finishing college. While he was still a student at The
Little Duke he got parts in commercials, and the film
Emily’s Song.
His work since leaving college has included
Stor, ITFolds,
Sure Thing, Romeo & Juliet,
Angel Meadow, and The Boys of Foley Street for theatre,
Centenary -
1916 Celebrations, Ireland’s
Greatest Bank
Robberies, If
Those Lips, and
Love Is The
Drug for television, and the films Nightmare of My Choice and Slan Agus Beannacht. He has also been in commercials for Jameson, Lidl, NUI Maynooth, Irish Rail.
Eva Butterly is much remembered at the school for her role as Dorothy in The Little Duke’s memorable production of The Wizard of Oz, directed by Kevin Robinson at Droichead Arts Centre in 2005. Eva, a multi-talented young performer, went