Siamsa Renovations

From Frances Black to Cinderella via Niall Tobin, Mick Lally and Rebecca Storm, Siamsa Tire, The National Folk Theatre of Ireland, has played host to many stars, bringing well known International acts to the stage while also offering an outlet for local talent from Tralee and Kerry.

Now Siamsa Tire is closing its doors for two weeks from Monday, January 8, to Wednesday, January 24 for a renovation of its main auditorium.

"The box office and gallery remain open, from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m, Monday through Friday and from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Saturdays," says Marianne Kennedy, Chief Executive Officer, Siamsa Tire, "and the auditorium will be unveiled to the public on the 25th."

The auditorium is being stripped of its current seating, the carpet is being ripped out and the walls are being painted.

"The ambiance of Siamsa will be preserved but the comfort of our audience will be vastly improved," says Marianne. "We're going to raise the front three rows of seats to give everyone a better view, we're putting in a gorgeous new carpet and have found some wonderfully comfortable new seating."

"The seats are coming all the way from France," added Catriona Fallon, Marketing Manager, Siamsa Tire. "Our technical manager, Jummy McDonnell, actually looked all over Ireland for seats, he went to a Trade Fair in the UK before settling on a company in Paris to provide the seats."

"Testing seats all over Europe, talk about sitting down on the job," laughed Marianne.

While the seats are French, all work is being done by local contractors including PJ Hayes who put in the original carpet in 1991 and is also laying the new carpet, the Lacey Brothers are responsible for painting and Freeman's Electrical are putting in the new safety lighting.

The work is possible thanks to a grant of 200,000 from the Department of Arts, Sport & Tourism and is on schedule for its grand reopening on January 25th with a presentation of Last Apache Reunion by Mercy Secondary School, Tralee.

The old seats at Siamsa were a little creaky, the paint a little flaky and the carpet a little ragged and while the new auditorium will be much more sumptuous the most important thing about any theatre is its personality and, thankfully, Siamsa has always had bags of that! If only the walls could talk...

For more info on Siamsa please call the box office on 066 712 3055 or log onto http://www.siamsatire.com/