The Drogheda School of Performing Arts has been in existence since 1997. From very small beginnings, a class of less than ten held on Thursday evenings in Drogheda , the school now has over four hundred students with classes held every day of the week.

In 1998 Louth Leader, the EU funded company for rural development, gave the school grant aid which made it possible to restore The Little Duke Theatre. Restoring the theatre and therefore giving the school a space specifically for training and the performance of student shows, has been instrumental in the rapid development of the school. The theatre has also been used as a venue for some professional productions, poetry readings and music recitals.

A well established administration and highly trained teachers, all of whom are themselves performers, directors or choreographers in professional theatre, are part of the infrastructure of The Drogheda School of Performing Arts. The purpose of the school of Drama is and has from the outset been:

1. To provide a social outlet for children and young people.
2. To provide a space where children and young people can find an expression for imaginative form.
3. To help students discover and build upon life skills.
4. To provide training of excellence for students with special talents for the performing arts.

Part of our agenda has been in finding recognition for our students by the well-known casting directors in Dublin. We have achieved some success in this area and some of our students have been lucky and talented enough to be chosen from auditions for some important work. Films such as Angela Ashes, Gangs of New York, theatre productions such as Medea at The Abbey Theatre and some familiar advertising have all featured our talented young performers.

Brenda Gogan Harrington

The Drogheda School of Performing Arts was founded by Brenda Gogan Harrington, who is the Director and Principal Teacher for the school. Besides holding a Licentiate Diploma to teach Speech and Drama, she has also worked in theatre as an actor and director. During the late sixties and seventies she worked in every theatre in Dublin, in repertory theatre in Ireland and England and in television and film in London. Her work for television included “The Sinners Series”, for Granada Television, which starred Ray McNally and Sinead Cusack, “Budgie”, for London Weekend, which starred Adam Faith and “Stephen D”, a play of the month for the BBC about the life of James Joyce, which starred Donal McCann and many other well known Irish actors.

In 1976 she married and spent the next ten years travelling extensively, living in East Africa, Central America, the US and the Middle East. In 1987, with her husband and two children, she moved to Copenhagen, Denmark and spent the next eight years living and working there. During her time in Denmark she studied at the Theatre Institute at the University of Copenhagen, taking courses in theatre history, the history of theatre conventions and play analysis. She also continued to work in theatre. Her work included playing Annie in Alan Ayckbourns “Table Manners”, directing Samuel Becketts “Play” and directing “Green Forest Children”, a Christmas play for children. For most of her time in Copenhagen she also worked at Rygaards International School as a Drama teacher and produced annual shows and plays with children of diverse nationalities and cultures.

Upon returning to Ireland in 1995 she launched a branch of “Stagecoach”, the London Based theatre school, in Dublin which she ran until 1999. But Brenda, whose family have for many years lived in Co. Meath, always had aspirations to create a drama school in Drogheda. In 1997, in a building that had been the home for a theatre called The Little Duke but had been disused for ten years, she realised that ambition.

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