‘Jersey Dreams’ – TY Musical
The transition year students of 2023/2024 took to the stage to put on a stellar performance of the superb combination of the catchy 1960s musical ‘Jersey Boys’ and the soulful classic ‘Dream Girls’. An electrifying performance with an impeccable cast, incredible production team and killer choreography!
Step into the dazzling world of ‘Jersey Dreams’, where the iconic sounds of Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons (Jersey Boys) collided with the powerhouse vibes of The Supremes (Dream Girls). In a night brimming with music, dance and the 60s throwbacks, we followed the journey of Deena, Effie, and Lorell – three determined girls in a male-dominated industry with soulful singer Jimmy Joe Dixon adding his own Flair – and Frankie, Tommy, Nicky and Massi, four boys aiming for stardom while dodging the shadows of New Jersey’s mobsters.
As these worlds collide, sparks fly between Deena and Frankie, setting the stage for an entrancing tale of ambition and love. ‘Jersey Dreams’ unveils the high cost of fame, pushing these young artists to the brink. Will their dreams be jeopardized, or will they triumph over the challenges of the tumultuous 60s music scene? ‘Jersey Dreams’ took us on a captivating musical experience that was all about passion, ambition, and the untold stories behind their rise to stardom! ‘Oh What A Night’ it was!
The reception of this musical has been nothing short of extraordinary over its five-night run and this couldn’t have been achieved without the hard work and dedication put into this production by the staff & students of Kinsale Community School. The cast, listed below, were nothing short of amazing and we are immensely proud of every single one of them.
Cast:
Dreamgirls;
Deena – Caitlin McNamara
Effie – Aoife Martin
Lorell – Ann-Marie Moloney
Jimmy Joe Dixon – Matthew Murphy
L-R; Matthew Murphy, Caitlin McNamara, Ann-Marie Moloney, Aoife Martin
Jersey Boys;
Frankie – David Tobin
Tommy – Jacob Hayes
Massi – Christian Crowley / Robert Hughes
Nicky – Liam Matthews
L-R; Liam Matthews, David Tobin, Jacob Hayes, Christian Crowley
Mary – Nina Wirsam
Curtis – Eoin Dillon
Martha – Chloe Bollard
Sammy - Croíona Murphy
Dawn – Eimear Ní Chearnaigh
DeCarlo – Callum Walsh
Norm – Shaun McCarthy / Conor Looney
Officer Mike – Eoin Brown
MC Jenny – Megan Cunningham
Eva the Producer – Hannah MacCarthy
Antonio (Frankie’s Dad) - Darragh Merwick
Frankie’s Mother – Aine Cahalane
Mrs Ross – Maeve Causer
Trulio - Ruairí O’Daltuin
CHORUS/DANCING; Danielle McCarthy, Emma Jones, Alison Dennehy, Sadhbh Napier, Catherine Murphy, Sarah Galvin, Kacey Healy, Romy Dolfen, Farrah Keenaghan, Aisling Collins, Aoife Moloney, Mia Barrett, Grace Barlow, Sarah O’Sullivan, Avril Lucey, Emily Grey, Megan O’Sullivan, Aimee Toal, Amy Hayes, Chloe Bollard, Harry O’Leary, Ben Long, Cillian Fitzpatrick, James Brugger, Liam Kirwan, Aaron Keane, Fionn O’Keeffe, Darragh O’Callaghan, Cathal Dinneen, Domhnall O’Grady, Ethan Griffin, Niall Corrigan, Cal O’Brien, Andrei Moretto, Reuben O’Riordan, Roman O’Driscoll, Isla Monkhouse, Shaun McCarthy, Lauren Crowley, Liadh Galvin, Evie Finucane, Racheal Nyhan, Ava Phelan, Ciara Kate Deasy, Sarah Lynch, Shannon Murphy, Suzie Kelly, Kokie Plant, Emma Quinn, Claire Nolan, Karla Bertoletti, Clodagh Morgan, Sarah Thuillier, Lydia O’Sullivan, Lauren Balaur, Ava McCarthy, Diane Myzika, Ali Robinson Kingston, Mia Rust, Orla O’Donovan, Ellie Sheedy, Holly Murphy, Eva Coughlan, Shea O’Connor, Tara O’Farrell, Laura Casey, Amy Winters, Aishling Mulcair, Adam Ryle, Billy Cronin, Nisa Hofmann, Liam McCarthy, Aaron McCarthy, Fionan Smith, Vanessa Kierczek, Kate Carmody, Roisin Long, Marlene Marquardt, Anica Vanhauer, Monica de Anta, Fia Callanan.
Cast of ‘Jersey Dreams’
Principal, Mr Fergal McCarthy and deputy principal Ms Claire Sheehan addressed the cast and the audience at the end of each production and congratulated the students on their incredible performances night after night saying “I congratulate this wonderful group of people for entertaining us night after night and have wowed audiences in our school and received justifiable standing ovations every night. You have represented yourselves and the school so positively and so energetically over the last week, it has been amazing to watch ye improve night after night, and even change the script as much as ye did.”
This show would not have been possible without the hard work and dedication of our Producers; Ms. Brid Kearney, Ms. Sinead Brennan, Ms. Hollie Archer and Ms. Niamh Hay. The staff and students are astonished by the amazing production these fine teachers put together and the cast are eternally grateful to them both. Fergal McCarthy spoke very highly of these teachers, showing his utmost gratitude and respect for all they have done for the students of this school. “I want to thank Hollie Archer. There was a time when we had to bring in expertise into our school around dancing and choreography, and then Hollie Archer came along to our school, and the dance routines that you have seen over the last number of nights have been choreographed by Hollie and Matthew Murphy.” One of the fantastic elements of our school musical is that it is a team effort to get this production from page to stage, and that collaborative effort includes input from our fantastic and creative students. “One of the features of this show actually was the student participation and student engagement around the production as well, and Matthew you added no ends to that and we are really really grateful to you for it, you showed great student leadership in it, and I thank you.” - Mr.Fergal McCarthy
Mr. McCarthy acknowledged the hard work and dedication put into this production by Director, Sinead Brennan, demonstrating the incredible uniqueness of this musical, having combined two stellar productions together into one . “This musical is an amalgamation of two different musicals; it’s an amalgamation of Jersey Boys and Dreamgirls, and the fusing together of those two scripts and the putting together of the production was Sinead Brennan’s idea. Sinead you’ve been incredible and your creativity and the manner in which you brought all of this together was phenomenal and I thank you.”
This show could not have been possible without the collective efforts of the staff, students and parents of Kinsale Community School, putting together the set design, the props, the costumes, the choreography and so on.
Producers: Ms. Brid Kearney, Ms. Sinead Brennan, Ms. Hollie Archer & Ms. Niamh Hay
Director: Ms. Sinead Brennan
Musical Director: Ms. Brid Kearney
Choreographer: Ms. Hollie Archer, assisted by Matthew Murphy
Script Writer & Editor: Ms. Sinead Brennan, assisted by Mr. Joshua MacCarthy
Set Design: Ms. Melanie Duggan
Artist set design team: TY Students Nina Wirsam, Fia Callanan, Kendre Toxopeus, Oscar Mueller, Hafiz Israfil Zakri, Sandra Samolienko, Róisín O’Riordan, Cáit O’Higgins, Martin Hickey, overseen by Ms. Melaine Duggan & Ms. Emele Polley.
Costume Co-ordinators: Ms. Niamh Hay & Ms. Lauryn Kiely
Acting Rehearsal Assistants: Mr. Joshua McCarthy & Ms. Janet Forrest
Stage & Set Construction: Mr. Brendan Barry, Mr. Eric Lynch, Mr. Owen Wright (car), Mr. Daniel Milner and Mr. Colin Walsh
Publicity & PR: Ms. Maria Brosnan, Ms. Chloe O’Regan and the members of the PR Team.
Prompt: Ms. Janet Forrest
Sound: Peter Lane Sound and Lighting
Makeup & Hair: Ms. Hollie Archer, Ms. Mary O’Sullivan, Ms. Joanne McCarthy, Ms. Amy Harrington, and the TY team.
Photography / Videography: Ger Timmons & Mr. Joshua MacCarthy
Ticket Sales: Ms. Bev Scanlon & Footloose Kinsale
Backstage Manager: Eve Casey assisted by Skye Sheedy
Backstage: Skye Sheedy, Eve Casey, Jerry O’Riordan, Kieran Carroll, Diarmuid Warren.
Lighting: Ronan Humphreys, Matis Wunder, PJ Crowe, Reuben Coleman
Raffle: Ms. Diane O’Shea and Ms. Maebh Delahunty
Shop: Ms. Tracey Fleming & TY team
Live Band:
Piano & Conductor – Ms. Brid Kearney
Piano – Damien Magee (5th Year)
Electric Guitar – Shay Ahern (5th Year)
Drums – Torin O’Kennedy (TY)
Bass Guitar – Marcos Galdeano (5th Year)
Mr. Fergal McCarthy brought to light the work and dedication to this musical by our TY Co-Ordinator, Ms. Niamh Hay, saying “The costumes were organized by our transition year coordinator, Niamh Hay, and it’s really important for me to acknowledge that Niamh is, I would say, without fear of contradiction, the best transition year coordinator in the country, she brings so much fun, so many opportunities, so many educationally enriching opportunities and we can never thank her enough.”
Year in, year out, Kinsale Community school receives great support from Peter Lane Sound & Lighting. He is dedicated many years of sound technology to our school musicals and has been a valued member of our musical team for many years now, and we are so grateful to him for coming back and supporting us every year. “I want to thank Peter, our sound engineer, he brings great calm, he brings great ideas and he also, in the past, we would have been told that you can only have so many headsets, Peter would always push out the boat for us in that regard and we are very appreciative of it.” The set was painted and designed by a team of our very talented TY students, led by our staff member Ms. Melanie Duggan and Ms. Emele Polley. “Melaine Duggan and Emele Polley did a lot of the artwork, again, with transition year students' assistance which needs to be acknowledged because the whole set was fit for purpose and so well done.”
These shows would not have been successful without the work of our incredible backstage crew and this team was led by Eve Casey, assisted very professionally by Skye Sheedy. Mr. Joshua MacCarthy has taken fantastic photographs throughout the run of the production which can be seen featured in this article, memories that will last our students a lifetime. Ms. Janet Forrest attended every show night after night as the Prompt, and the students conducted themselves so well that they made her job a lot easier. They presented themselves with such professionalism and showcased their incredible acting talents of improv where needed, although very seldom. Both of these teachers assisted with directing over the course of the last couple of months and Joshua MacCarthy was a great help with putting the script together. It is this kind of dedication to these productions that allows these shows to go ahead every year.
The wholehearted support and friendships these students made over putting this musical together is extraordinary and they have made friends for life. A special thank you to all of the staff members who featured in video that were created by Niamh Hay for the Marianne scene that was projected onto our amazing new projector screen with our new, state of the art projector. A special thank you to deputy principal, Claire Sheehan, and staff members Mr. Damien Sweeney, Mr. Micheal O’Shea, Mr. Daniel Milner, Mr. Jamie Thorpy and Mr. Kevin Madigan who have up their time to participate in a thrilling horse race for the occasion.
We would also like to extend our thanks and appreciation to all of our staff and students who volunteered their time over the course of the five nights to supervise the corridors, greet our audiences, deal with ticket admissions, run the shop, for selling programmes and posters and many more. These things would not be possible without the generosity our staff and students give to events like this. “The amazing support of all of our staff night after night, whether it was the raffle, the box office, we have a motto in our school that we are ‘All Together in Learning’ and this show certainly demonstrated that piece about ‘All Together in Learning.’” - Fergal McCarthy.
The cast of ‘Jersey Dreams’ showed their appreciation to everyone involved in producing this show by gifting the staff bocas of flowers and chocolates. Jacob Hayes, who played the role of Tommy DeVito, took to the mic to speak on behalf of the cast of their profound thanks and appreciation that they have to all of the parents and staff that helped them along this journey over the past couple of months. “I think everybody up on this stage would love to give a massive thank you to everybody for giving up their time and effort to come in here on the weekends, coming after school, really putting this together, and you can’t say that without talking about Ms. Captain Kearney herself. Alongside her, we have the brilliant Ms. Archer who has been doing all the singing, dancing and makeup, the whole shebang. And then her right-hand man, Ms. Brennan, who’s put so many hours into putting two scripts together, casting everybody, being the main man for the whole show, putting up with us. And then finally, we have the best TY coordinator in the entire country, Ms. Niamh Hay.” They also recognized the band and their extraordinary efforts over the last number of weeks. “We can’t go without saying, everybody on the lights, backstage, everybody who has been putting in the time every night, teachers who have been up top making sure everybody is being quiet and looking after everything, thank you very much.” The students also acknowledged and thanked Mr. MacCarthy and Ms. Forrest for all of their help that they provided over the course of the musical.
Mr Fergal McCarthy addressed the cast and the valuable life skills that they have learned from taking part in this school musical, no matter what aspect of the show they were involved in. “I want to acknowledge the learning that you have had, the enjoyment that you have brought, but the learning that you have had, the interdependency that you have developed, the distance that you have moved from your own comfort zone, and that distance that you have moved from your own comfort zone is the development of a resilience, and we have found that those students who participate as you have had in a musical, and shown such leadership in a musical, that the resilience that you have learned, you carry it through when you are now moving into the business end of fifth year and sixth year as leaving cert students. You can now handle stress, you can now handle difficult situations, you’ve acted as a team, you have developed 21st century skills of team work, critical thinking, problem solving, all of the skills that we value, you have brought them to the musical, and as well as that you have brought us great joy, you have brought us immense, immense satisfaction every night that you have been here performing for us and I really, really appreciate it, and I want to congratulate you.”
Traditionally, we would have hired in a choreographer, as well as the band, but our music department has grown in leaps and bounds over the years that our musical band now comprises of our own students and head of the Music Department, Ms. Brid Kearney. “and here we are with our own students with that level of giftedness, that level of talent and that level of generosity to come and perform night after night in support of your colleagues and we are really grateful to you.” Our band comprised of fifth year students Damien Magee, Shay Ahern and Marcos Galdeano and TY student Torin O’Kennedy.
Finally, Mr. Fergal McCarthy addressed the outstanding work that Ms. Brid Kearney has done in preparation for the phenomenal musical production of this show. “In the first instance Brid, can I thank you for being such an amazing colleague to all of us, to enriching the corridors of our school with music, to enriching every event that we have with music, whether it is the beginning of the year’s mass, whether it is the arrival of guests, whether it is the Christmas Carol’s, or whether it’s the putting together of a musical you enrich our lives with music so much and you do it so effortlessly, so kindly and so generously, and we can never thank you enough.”
Mr Fergal McCarthy extended his gratitude to the audience and the parents of our school community. “Finally, can I thank you, the audience, who have come out here night after night, sold out night after night, clapped with us, sang with us and enjoyed the production that these wonderful stars of the future have provided. Míle buíochas go léir go raibh maith agaibh, thank you.”
Ms. Sinead Brennan closed the evening by stating “I just want to say a big thank you, once again, to management and all the teachers that helped for everything that you have done for these kids up here, guys, we are so so proud of you, from the very minute you auditioned to be up on stage, there is barely room for any more, as you can see, there’s over 100 cast. They have been here every night, the parents have dropped them here, like we are just so so proud of you all and we really hope that you did enjoy yourselves, you brought this script to life, it came out of nowhere and you just made it your own, you gave it that ‘Jimmy Joe Dixon Flair’, so on behalf of Ms. Kearney, myself, Ms. Hollie Archer, Ms. Niamh Hay and all the other teachers involved, Mr. Josh MacCarthy helped with the script as well, he edited it when I wasn’t sure it was working, he really gave it the push to say that it was fine, it will work, and ye brought that to life, so we’re just so so proud of you all, and really, thank you again to everyone for coming out, this really was their ‘Jersey Dream’.
Cast of ‘Jersey Dreams’
The Transition Year School Musical is always one of the highlights of the entire school year. Previous transition year students always reminisce on their experience participating in the musical and note it as being one of the best experiences of transition year, and this group are exactly the same. We love seeing this young group of people build friendships and blossom into mature young adults through this incredible experience. We hope they cherish the memories of ‘Jersey Dreams’ for years to come.
