Rick O'Shea opening RTÉ All-Ireland Drama Festival today
Broadcaster Rick O'Shea will officially open the RTÉ All-Ireland Drama Festival in Athlone today (Thursday).
The opening of the popular annual festival will take place in Hodson Bay today, while the first of this year's plays, Balally Players' production of Heaven by Eugene O'Brien, will commence in the Dean Crowe Theatre at 8pm.
Rick O’Shea has been a presenter with RTÉ since 2001 and is the current host of Arena on RTÉ Radio 1. He is also the founder and curator of The Rick O’Shea Book Club, Ireland’s largest online book community with more than 45,000 members.
Alongside his broadcasting work, Rick is a regular interviewer and host at literary festivals nationwide and an experienced curator of live literary events. His previous roles include serving as a book columnist for the Irish Independent and judging for major honours such as the Costa Book Awards, the Dalkey Literary Awards, Dublin Fringe, and the Irish Book Awards.
Rick is the national patron of Epilepsy Ireland and a board member of Fighting Words Northern Ireland.
He is honoured to represent RTÉ and speak at the opening of this year’s RTÉ All Ireland Drama Festival, recognising the vital role the amateur theatre community plays in nurturing creativity, community spirit, and the next generation of performers and storytellers.
Meet the festival adjudicator
The adjudicator this year's RTÉ All-Ireland Drama Festival is Padraic McIntyre, a native of Bailieboro, Cavan, who trained as an actor at The Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama in Cardiff.
He has an MA in Theatre Studies from DCU. Padraic is currently Venues Manager at Ramor Arts Centre, Virginia and Townhall Arts Centre, run by Cavan County Council. He was a founder member of NOMAD Theatre Network and is still an active member.
Padraic was Artistic Director of Livin’ Dred Theatre Company based in The Ramor Theatre in Virginia for who he directed 15 professional shows from 2004 to 2017.
Writing credits include The Little Dance Girl (Livin Dred) Carnival at Glenaduff (Ramor Players) Going and Letting Everyone Down (Caomhnu Literary Festival) The Voice (Roscommon Youth Theatre) A Holy Show (Ramor Players) The King of Ireland’s Son (Aishling Children’s Festival) The Lost Weekend (Ramor Players) The Hero of The Half Acre (Ramor Players.) His radio play Two Little Boys was shortlisted for the PJ O’Connor Award on RTE Radio.
Currently Padraic is acting in The Adventures of Shay Mouse, a theatrical adaptation of Pat McCabe’s novel for children which is on a nationwide tour.
Padraic is the author and director of The Night Joe Dolan’s Car Broke Down which has sold out venues around the country and played The Olympia Theatre, Dublin in February for a record-breaking 15th year.