ISDA 2007 -Queen's University Belfast

ISDA stands for the Irish Student Drama Association which is a committee made up of representatives from the Drama societies of third level institutions around Ireland. ISDA is primarily concerned with providing a national platform through which student drama may be promoted and encouraged, providing a forum through which students from the drama societies of different third level institutions may come together and interact on a creative and social level, and hosting an annual theatre festival and award ceremony in which all member third level institution drama societies may display their shows and compete.

This year, The ISDA  festival will be hosted by Queen's University Belfast and will run from the 10th to the 17th of March. During that week, Colleges and ITs from around Ireland will put on roughly 21 performances of the best productions they have produced during the year and at the end of the week, winners in each category will be announced at the ISDA awards ceremony. Last year, UCC hosted the extremely successful 2005 ISDA awards, displaying a multitude of excellent plays in The Granary, CIT theatre and Half Moon theatre. The ISDA Fringe proved very popular as well, with further plays, gigs and a pole dancing Competition.

The success of the festival was mirrored at the awards ceremony when UCC student Muireann MacSweeney O'Rourke won the judges discretionary award for Best Comedic Performance for her role in The Bald Prima Donna. We also received three nominations in the form of Best Lighting (Lisa Hayes), Best Set (Adam McElderry) and Best Original Script (Dara Gilroy and Donnachadh O'Conaill). We hope to improve further this year with a varied, contemporary season of productions.

See you in Belfast!