We reluctantly lowered the curtain on ‘Guys and Dolls’ on Saturday, November 26th and said farewell to Nathan, Miss Adelaide, Sister Sarah, Sky, Rusty Charlie, Harry the Horse, Niecly-Nicely, Agatha, Big Jule, Lieutenant Brannigan, Benny, General Matilda, Arvide and all the other characters. It was great having all of you in town.
It has been three long years since we were able to stage a musical in Boyle and it was with some apprehension that we embarked on presenting this one. However, with capacity houses and standing ovations, the 1500+ audience members that came out to see the show over four cold November nights, told us that this show was a massive success.
We, the Committee of Boyle Musical Society would like to extend a very sincere thanks to everybody from Boyle and beyond, who attended ‘Guys and Dolls’ in such large numbers and a special thanks to the business people and community of Boyle for responding so generously yet again, by subscribing to the funding of our show, through our GoFundMe page and by sponsoring great prizes. Thanks also to those who contributed either financially or otherwise and were too late for inclusion in our programme.
We urge everybody to love where they live, shop local and support all our local businesses over the Festive season and throughout the coming year.
We would of course like to thank our very talented cast of 31, especially all those who travelled to join us this year.
Thanks to Vivienne and Anne in our Production team for their brilliant talents and endless energy, not forgetting to mention the stage crew, set builders, our light and sound teams, our costume, make-up, hair and props teams, front of house team, ticket and programme sellers, the orchestra, ushers, shop staff, tea ladies and those who donated props. We are also indebted to the St. Joseph’s Hall committee and Abbey Community College for rehearsal facilities. We are also grateful to the staff and management of Únabhán Tourism, for allowing us to use their premises as our booking office once again.
Publicity is vital for any production and we thank all the local publications, Roscommon Herald, Roscommon People, Leitrim Observer, Sligo Champion, Boyle Parish Newsletter and all who made room for our posters and signs. We would also like to thank realboyle.com, Boyletoday.com, Joe Bambrick at Ros FM, Charlie McGettigan at Shannonside FM and Áedín Gormley at RTÉ Lyric FM. We are very grateful to Benny Morgan for the beautiful photographs he took and also to Pat Gannon for managing our billboards.
From backstage to front of house, we have a powerful machine that starts up in preparation for rehearsals in September and operates to full capacity in the run up to and during the show, every November.
We have a fantastic team behind us, ensuring that the show runs smoothly every year. Apart from the cast of 31 and committee of 13, there were over 50 voluntary, talented and generous people, who helped out in every way possible this year.
Boyle Musical Society is your Musical Society and it is heart-warming to see that the community spirit in Boyle is still alive and well.
We are a voluntary organisation and it has always been our intention to showcase the abundance of talent that we have here and to bring a little love, light, magic and music to everybody during the winter.
As always, early in the new year, we will be looking at ideas for our next show. By May, we will be awaiting the results of the AIMS Award nominations and by September, rehearsals will once again be underway. In November, Boyle Musical Society will be ready to raise the curtain on their 38th annual production.
Wishing everybody a Peaceful Christmas and a New Year filled with health and happiness.
Brendan McGee
PRO
Boyle Musical Society.
Photo by Benny Morgan.
