Most years Newpoint Players run a free six week long summer youth programme where a play is chosen, a director comes on board, works with the group and by end of the scheme the play is performed on stage for an audience.
This year turned out to be slightly different as the director was forced to pull out at the last minute.
“They had a professional commitment, which is the way the theatre works, so we decided to go for a three-week summer skills programme instead,” explained Newpoint Players Chairman Donal O'Hanlon who, along with Mark Hughes is running the programme.
“We've got in the best of the best. You've just been talking to Caolan [Byrne],” he said as we spoke to both in Newry Town Hall during the second week of the programme, with the young actors hard at work in the background.
“We've had Ryan McParland, who is a film star now [currently treading the red carpet with Johnny Depp for 'Modi: Three Days on the Wing of Madness']. We've had David Pearse who is also a film star and a great stage actor. We have Oisin Kearney who has written many, many plays and stimulated the writing that they're doing. Still to come we have Ben McAteer an opera singer who is going to teach them how to breathe and use their voices. We've got Aimee Yates who is the stage manager at the Lyric theatre and she's going to go through all that end of the industry. There are loads of degree courses that she will hopefully talk about. We had Anne-marie McAleenan in who discussed taking text to stage set and had them making maquettes of stage sets, and we had Mary Ellen McCartan who is an actual casting director. She gets scripts and invites actors to submit with a self tape.
“So, the main focus, putting all those people together has been writing a piece for themselves and to make a self tape of it, which will be part of their portfolio – as if they were submitting for a part. They're also going to perform this for invited friends, family - and strangers of the streets hopefully - and they have considered set, props, costume, all the intricate parts of it. I think we've brought together a great deal of realism about what the world of theatre and film offers and we have made people fairly realistic about what they're getting into.”
Newpoint is about far more than that however.
“ Above all, we want to give our youngsters who will never be actors or actresses the opportunity to be taught how to hold a room and to be listened to,” said Donal.
“Those skills are tranferrable to anything. We have solicitors, barristers, radio presenters who all say they learned how to hold the room through Newpoint and that's always what we've been about – enabling youngsters and sustaining continuity.”
From stage to screen and giving back to Newry
Caolan Byrne is back. “Just helping out the future stars of Newpoint,” said the established Newry actor who himself cut his teeth with Newpoint Players Youth and co-directed one of their shows a few years ago.
“They're brilliant, there's so much potential in the group. I was only supposed to do a day to help out but they're such a nice group I decided to keep going with them.
“They're bravely writing their own monologues and they're working with past Newpoint pupils like Oisin Kearney who is now a professional writer. So, who knows, some of these people here might be gracing our television screens in a few years with what they've written or performed or produced,”
“What they are producing themselves is really good and they actually work really well as a group. Even though a monologue is an individual thing, they all support each other. It's all original work. We've been doing other work with them like Shakespeare. Stories are universal and timeless, so it all helps them to learn.”
Newpoint stands alone in terms of the way the summer programme is led by those who started there and went on to forge careers in the arts. It's all about giving back and passing on skills.
“I think Newpoint is unique in Britain or Ireland as in it's a free resource for teenagers to come and perform all summer. So many times the cost is prohibitive to people – especially in this day and age – but Newpoint, for 40 odd years has been doing this for free. I benefitted from it, so why would I not come back to help here,” said Byrne who graduated from the prestigious Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, then spent three years with the Royal Shakespeare company and has worked consistently on stage and screen ever since, most recently in television series 'Sherlock and Daughter' (2025) and video game 'Star Wars Outlaws' (2024). Byrne also acted alongside movie star Florence Pugh in 'The Wonder' (2022).
“That's another unique Newpoint thing, so many people took off from here,” he said.
“Oisin Kearney has written shows for BBC and he has shows in the Dublin Theatre Festival now. Anything is possible, For example, I was telling the kids the other day, I was watching 'Batman Begins' and you had Gerard Murphy, who's from Newry in it. These are big Hollywood productions and he started off on the same Town Hall stage that they're on now. They all start in the same spot with Newpoint Youth and who knows... the possibilities are endless. “
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