Shane O’Riordan.
Centre Stage School past pupil Shane O’Riordan, son of legendary administrator Mags O’Riordan announced his professional debut in Les Miserables recently. Shane has just begun rehearsals to play the part of Feuilly (and first understudy for Marius) in the longest running musical in the West End when it tours in 2018/2019. He will travel and perform with the company for a year, and will play in the Bord Gais, Dublin, for six weeks over Christmas (which will be attended by very proud members of Centre Stage School, staff and pupils). For all those young performers at Centre Stage who dream of a professional career in musical theatre, acting or dance, Shane and all our other past pupils who work professionally are living proof that it can happen! Shane never set foot on a stage until he was 15 years of age – he simply took up a class at Centre Stage during Transition Year as part of his Gaisce Award, and his passion for theatre grew from there. He worked extremely diligently to get a place in ArtsEd in London (easily one of the best musical theatre and acting for film and TV training programmes in the business), and continued to do so during his four year degree. In 2015, he was awarded the Andrew Lloyd Wedder Foundation Scholarship and all the hard work has now paid off as he graduated last month and will make his professional debut in Les Miserables very shortly. We are all incredibly proud of Shane (and all past pupils who go on to professional lives in musical theatre) – so, break a leg, Shane! If you want to book tickets to see Shane in Les Miserables in the Bord Gais Theatre, you had better hurry – many dates are already sold out!