Athea Drama Group set to raise funds for local family with brand new show

A FEW last minute scares aside, it’s been a very exciting and productive few weeks for all involved with Athea Drama Group as they ready to present ‘Turning Mammy’ by John McDwyer on stage at the Con Colbert Hall in Athea.

The show will run on March 16, 17, 18, 21, 23 and 24 at 8pm and it will tell the tale of sisters Martha and Mary who live together on the family farm. Mary is involved in a long term search for her baby adopted at birth, while Martha is involved in a long term wait for neighbour, Ambrose’s Mammy to die so that she can finally marry the love of her life.

Bringing the play to life will be the three cast members of Mary Ellen Tierney, Julie Moloney and Johnny Corkery. All proceeds from the show’s opening night on March 16 will go towards the Carol Liston O’Connor & Family Benefit

Fund.

Speaking to The Kerryman ahead of the curtain raiser, Damien Ahern from the Athea group had this to say:

“Rehearsals are going fantastic. We’re all very excited to get on the stage. We’ve done two other plays by the same writer and they were ‘Unforgiven’ and ‘Lovely Leitrim’ and what we’ve learned is that it’s a different type of comedy. It’s kind of a quick-wit comedy and it goes down very well around here so yeah, preparation is all going very well and we’re excited to get going.”

On the Carol Liston O’Connor & Family Benefit Fun as their chosen charity, Damien added:

“Carol, she would originally be from Athea, and she was diagnosed with Motor Neurone Disease over a year ago now there’s a huge fundraising effort going on at the moment. She has five young children and her husband is self-employed as a plumber so the fundraising is just to give them one less thing to worry about.”

“There’s a huge community effort between Athea and she’s living in Broadford now, so between the two communities, there’s something like €190k raised so far,” Damien continued.

Bookings for the show can made by text/Whatsapp 087 692 6746 and please note this play is not suitable for Under 12s.

The GoFundMe page for the Carol Liston O’Connor can be found on Facebook.