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The Arts Council Playography Na Gaeilge

Companies

Northern Drama League

OVERVIEW

  • Description

    A Belfast-based company from 1923-1939 which staged a mix of classics and periodic new work.

  • History

    The Northern Drama League was founded in 1923 as a non-profit organisation, to promote "good plays as are unlikely to be produced in the theatres of the city". It endured until 1939, staging plays principally at the Central Hall, Rosemary Street, Belfast and operating as a subscription society. Over some 16 years, it staged classics by Euripides and Shakespeare, and drama by more recent authors such as Chekov, Ibsen, Synge, Shaw, Marlowe, Gogol, Strindberg and Tolstoi. It also periodically premiered work by local writers. A number of the actors associated with the company would go on to work with the Group Theatre.