Mountmellick Macra club was placed second in the Capers competition which took place last month.
Capers is a variety show with Banteer from Cork coming first overall and Kilmeen Macra, also from Cork, taking third place.
Fourteen team members from Mountmellick Macra travelled to Ovens in Cork at the beginning of February to sing, dance and entertain judges and the audience alike in the All Ireland Capers final.
Following on from their semi final appearance in Cavan the cast, backstage crew, their lighting and sound technicians, their choreographer as well as their producer all headed with hope to Ovens on February 3.
Capers is a twenty minute variety show and it is jam packed with short, snappy acts that keep the audience engaged until the curtain closes.
“There are so many things to factor in” said the teams producer A.C. Reynolds.
“Set up time and emptying the stage after the performance are all part of the competition and the presiding officer is literally standing side stage with a stop watch monitoring everything.
“Any breech of the time rules can incur a penalty and doc marks from the judges. So thankfully our time keeping was excellent on the night.”
Taking second place at this national competition was a huge honour for the club and they also picked up two of the four individual awards on the night, Andrew Dunne for best male and A.C. Reynolds for best producer.
The show was titled Therapy Vibes. The group had been in rehearsals since October 2023 and are already planning next years show.
A.C said: “Having won the competition in 2022 and going on the Macra prize winners group trip to Edinburgh was a real highlight for our club.
“Capers is something that if you do once, you get hooked on, the team spirit and fun involved builds with every trip away and every time we step onto the stage. We are already looking forward to 2025.”
The team were as follows: Colette Cashin, Aaron Kane, Amy Strong, Andrew Dunne, Aoife Mallon, Aoife Oxley, Alanah Conroy, Nathan Flanagan, Conan Kirwan, Kellie Fox, Jade Feeney, Michéal Kilheeney, Joanne Teehan, Sophie Ahern
Choreographer was Louise Ahern and Sound/lighting was Maryse Lennon.
Backstage was Larry Ryan, Chris Joyce and Kevin Scott.
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