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Page 1

The Play

The Plough and the Stars is named after the

banner of the Irish Citizen Army, of which Sen
O Casey was a member for a while. The story is
set in the Dublin tenements in the year 1916. It
centres on a young married couple called Jack
and Nora Clitheroe. Jack is a member of the Irish
Citizen Army. Nora is ambitious to move out of
the tenements and to prevent her husband from
involving himself further in politics. The action
of the play concerns the events of Easter Week
and their repercussions on Dublin tenement
dwellers, who represent a cross section of
political and religious opinion. The Plough and
the Stars, with its unsympathetic treatment of the
participants in the Easter Rebellion, touched off
a riot in the theatre when first performed in 1926,
and after this event O'Casey left Ireland for
England, never to return. The play was made into
a film in 1936, directed by the legendary John
Ford. It starred Barbara Stanwyck as Nora
Clitheroe and Preston Foster as Jack, with Barry
Fitzgerald as Fluther Good.

Sligo Drama Circle

presents

The Plough
& The
Stars
by Sen OCasey
Tuesday 24th Saturday 28th
April, 2007

SPECIAL THANKS

Hawks
Well
Theatre

Sligo Drama Circle wishes to express its

thanks to the following for their help
and co-operation with this production:
Eamon Dowdican
Brooks, Finisklin
Nick Mc Call
Staff of the Hawks Well Theatre

For more information, history, photographs

and memorabilia about Sligo Drama
Circle, visit our website at

www.sligodramacircle.ie

ERSARY
50TH ANNIV

PRODUCTION

plough prog.

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Page 3

THE CAST
in order of appearance

Mrs. Gogan:
Fluther Good:
Peter Flynn:
The Covey:
Nora Clitheroe:
Bessie Burgess:
Jack Clitheroe:
Capt. Brennan:
Mollser:
Barman:
Rosie Redmond:
Figure in the Window:
Lieut. Langon:
Woman:
Corporal Stoddard:
Sergeant Tinley:
Morrow

Mire Hynes
Gerry Ryan
Ultan Burke
Dermot Ryan
Averyl Dooher
Siobhn Dooney
Barry Deignan
Kevin Boyle
Elaine Burke
Gerry Norman
Muireann Tibn
Michael Leyden
Vinnie Holland
Risn Kilcoyne
Adrian O Neill
Chewey Mc

THE SETTING

THE CREW
Director:
Stage Manager:
Stage Crew:
Set Design:
Set Construction:

Costumes:

Soldiers Costumes:
Poster/Programme:
Printing:
Publicity:

Lighting Design:
Lighting Operation:
Props:
Sound:

Ursula Smullen
Frances Ryan
Aoife Rooney,
Rummy Mc Cullagh
Mire Hynes
Francis Heraughty,
Morgan Kerins
and the cast
Mire Hynes,
Eileen Higgins,
Pat Sweeny
Angels, UK
Damien Quinn
Tiger Print & Design
Fintan Whelan,
Damien Quinn,
Averyl Dooher,
Pat Sweeny
Ray Duffy
Niall Burke
The Cast
Damien Quinn

Act One:

The living room of the Clitheroe

flat in a Dublin tenement

Act Two:

A public house, outside of which a

meeting is being held

Act Three:

The street outside the Clitheroe tenement

Act Four:

The attic room of Bessie Burgess

THE TIME
Acts one and two:
Acts three and four:

November 1915
Easter Week 1916

A few days elapse between acts three and four

There will be an interval of fifteen minutes
be tween act s two and three.

THE PLAYWRIGHT

Sen O Casey (1884 1964)

had a grim childhood of
poverty, poor eyesight, and ill
health. Although a chronic eye
disease forced him to stay
away from school because of
his eye treatments, his passion
for learning stayed with him.
He became active in various
socialist movements in the
early part of the twentieth century. During the 1916
Easter Rebellion, O'Casey was arrested as a suspected
instigator of the violence. He was released when the
conflict was over. He had several poetry collections
and pamphlets published before finally having a play
accepted on his fourth attempt for production by the
Abbey Theatre. Shadow of a Gunman (1923) marked
his entry into the world of drama. Together with Juno
and the Paycock (1924) and The Plough and the Stars
(1926) these plays became known as his Dublin trilogy
and are widely recognised as being his best work.