More than 30,000 people have passed through the doors of Letterkenny's new theatre, An Grianan, in the five months since it opened, and audiences have averaged 70 per cent.
For the director of An Grianan, Patricia McBride, this proves just how badly the town needed a theatre. "There is a hard core of people I see here at nearly every event, and they say they don't know what they did before the theatre opened. Some of the productions wouldn't have come to Donegal at all otherwise," she said.
Over the past five months An Grianan has brought to Donegal some of the best drama to be seen in Ireland, including shows from the North and Britain. The most popular was An Grianan's own production of Brian Friel's Translations.
The Abbey recently launched its tour of Living Quarters from An Grianan, and next week sees a run of the Royal Court/Druid production of The Beauty Queen of Leenane, which is completely sold out. Several shows staged by local groups were also sell-outs.
The theatre does not receive Arts Council funding, relying on box-office receipts and a grant of £70,000 from the local authorities. Members of the Arts Council visited An Grianan on Sunday, when Ms McBride was able to make the case for financial support.
"We are committed to providing a quality programme, to stage new drama and dance, but it can be hard work getting audiences. There is no point in having a beautiful facility if that quality is not reflected in the programme," she said.
Donegal County Council had been particularly supportive, but she believed An Grianan could make a special case for Arts Council funding because it was acting as a catalyst for arts development in an area which, in the past, was not as well served as many other counties.
The theatre's website can be reached on www.angrianan.com
John B. Keane's Sive is currently being staged at the Glens Centre in Manorhamilton. The Glens Players are ambitiously producing it in both English and Irish. The Irish version runs until tomorrow and the English version will follow from March 22nd to 25th.
They then move for two nights to An Taibhdhearc in Galway, on March 30th and 31st.