A Mullingar twist on ‘Little Women'

There are professional theatre companies that would be left exhausted by the rate of output by the Mullingar Student Players, who are in the throes of final rehearsals for their latest production, ‘Little Women’.

“This is about our 30th production,” says Sean Lynch of Mullingar Arts Centre, director of the Mullingar Student Players, which was formed in 2004.

“Actually,” he corrects himself, “this is our 16th play, and we do a musical every year as well.”

Like every good democrat, he lets the students choose their play – but he admits he strongly suggested they consider Little Women and he was delighted when they opted for that work, a riveting adaptation by playwright Emma Reeves of the Louisa M Alcott novel first published in the 1860s.

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Sean Lynch. (More photos of the cast below.)

Once they made the announcement that Little Women was to be the choice, Sean was amazed to find lots of people in arts centre circles revealing that it was actually one of their favourite books.

The story is going down well with the young actors too, says Student Players member Lucy Holmes, who plays the adult version of ‘Jo’, one of the lead characters in the play.

Quite a serious play, it is set in the US during a tough time in that country’s history.

“It’s about four sisters, and how they go through life,” explains Lucy.

The March sisters’ father is away at war, and the everyday life of the family is written through Jo’s eyes.

The company has taken some liberties with Reeves’ play, explains Sean.

“Lucy is playing Jo 20 years on, and it’s as she is rummaging through the attic and finding things that she starts remembering.”

It’s those memories that are then acted out on stage, with the action starting in the year 1862.

“The nice thing about it is that parts are set in Bern, in Paris, in London and in New York,” says Sean, going on to explain that to set the scene for each location, the actors are relying more on the words and carefully-selected props rather than elaborate stage sets.

There is a large cast involved in the play, which runs for just over two hours.

The lead male role, that of Laurie, is played by Jack Foran, while Caolan Moriarty plays the role of the Marsh sisters’ father.

Lucy Holmes plays Jo as an adult, while the younger Jo is played by Mary Egan.

The three other sisters, Meg, Beth and Amy are played by Caoilfhinn Nic Choiligh, Kerry Moody and Katie Ennis respectively.

Fionnuala Maher plays the mother while the roles of the aunts are played by Niamh Mullarkey and Ava Devaney.

Sallie is played by Chloe Baker and Belle by Robyn Hope; John Brooke is played by Josh Griffin; Ned Moffatt by Jack Hand; Fred Vaughan by Eimhin FitzGerald-Doherty and Professor Bhaer by Eoin O’Keeffe.

A lot of the young Thespians involved in the Student Players receive their introduction to the company through their participation in drama as part of their Transition Year experiences, but the main route in is through the auditions the group holds ahead of each production.

Auditions for Little Women were held in May, and rehearsals began in August, hotting up to the current level of “almost every day”, and around November, auditions will be held for the next musical.

The play will be staged on September 20-22 at Mullingar Arts Centre; tickets are €15, €12 for concessions.

To coincide with Culture Night, September 21, there will be a free performance at 10.30am.

• mullingarartscentre.ie, 04493 47777.