In Dialogue with Deevy: Little Theatres of the 1950s

This chapter considers Deevy’s involvement with studio theatre practice and her interest and admiration of amateur theatre during the 1950s. Deevy’s correspondence with her friend and fellow playwright Jim Cheasty, analysed here, reveals her interactions with and admiration of small independent studio theatres and amateur dramatic companies during the 1950 adding to existing scholarship on the place and role of amateur and studio and theatre clubs of the 1950s and ‘60s. The chapter contributes analysis of archival material hitherto unavailable to researchers casting a new light on the role of non-commercial studio theatres as producing work that offered theatre makers and audiences alternatives to the artistic programmes of the larger Dublin theatres.