It would be a daunting prospect for the most experienced actors, but Waterford's young thespians are taking their forthcoming appearance at the 1,100-seat Olivier Theatre in London in their stride.
The members of Waterford Youth Drama have seen off intense competition from Britain and Ireland to earn an invitation to perform next month at one of London's most prestigious venues. It will not only be the biggest night of their young lives, but also a striking endorsement of the work being done by Waterford Youth Drama, which was founded in 1985 and has developed into one of the premier youth theatre groups in the State.
The Pilgrimage, a new play by Liverpool writer Paul Goetzee, is the group's biggest success to date. To get to London with its production of the play, the group had to overcome a number of hurdles. First, it was one of 150 youth theatre groups in Britain and Ireland invited to take part in this year's BT National Connections scheme, a project organised by the Royal National Theatre in London and sponsored by British Telecom.
Under the scheme, established writers including, in the current project, the likes of Alan Ayckbourn and Dario Fo, are commissioned to write new plays for young performers. The Pilgrimage was one of 10 such plays written for this year's event and was first performed by the group at Waterford's Garter Lane Arts Centre in March, where it earned a glowing report from a British assessor, Sheila Mander.
The group was assessed a second time in April when it performed at a regional showcase at the Lyric Theatre in Belfast. That was as far as Waterford Youth Drama expected to get. After all, 40 of the 150 groups involved had chosen to stage The Pilgrim- age from the 10 new plays on offer, and only one production of each play would make the final selection.
However, it was Waterfod Youth Drama's production of The Pilgrimage which most impressed the assessors. The group's administrator, Cathy Hanrahan, received the good news in a telephone call from the Royal National Theatre.
"We got the call on a Wednesday afternoon," she said, in a manner suggesting the occasion will be forever etched in the memory. "They said `we like the production, we like the values you bring to it and we want you to come to the Olivier' ".
Waterford Youth Drama is the only group from the Republic to make the final list and, in yet another coup, has been offered the final night, July 13th, of the ultimate showcase.
"There was much excitement and the reaction of the young people was brilliant. To them it is the most significant thing that has happened in their lives."
So while the Olivier Theatre beckons, this week the 15 to 18-year-old actors have been rehearsing in the more Spartan surroundings of St John's Parish Hall in Waterford. Putting them through their paces is Dublin-based professional actor and director Deirdre Molloy, who says her involvement with the group has been an "absolute pleasure from start to finish".
The cast quickly return the compliment. The play, set in a fictitious, probably eastern European country, concerns a war between shepherds and goat-herders who, says Deirdre, "hate each other but have forgotten why they do". The actors found it a difficult work to grasp until Deirdre became involved as director.
"The play is different to what we thought it would turn out be," said Ana Rosa de Eizaguirre, from Madrid, who has lived in Waterford for five years. "Deirdre brought things to it that we didn't know were there."
The Waterford public has a final chance to see the play this week when two performances are staged, tomorrow and Friday at the Garter Lane Arts Centre. Tomorrow's performance is a special fund-raising event to defray the cost of taking the production to London.
