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Listen to a banjo-playing County Longford lass and revisit Brian Friel’s sisterhood play, Dancing at Lughnasa (there’s nothing Ya-Ya about it).

She’s cute as a set of pearl buttons on a twinset, and Angelina Carberry can play the heck out of a tenor banjo. She joins her accordionist husband, Martin Quinn, on center stage on Saturday, July 7, at the Coatesville Cultural Society, 143 E. Lincoln Highway in Coatesville. Like many traditional Irish musicians, Carberry and Quinn come by it naturally: Angelina’s father, Peter, and grandfather, Kevin, were both musicians; Quinn comes from a long line of Irish musicians and storytellers. (If you’ve been to a trad concert, you know that most musicians, whatever their instrument, almost always have a way with words too. Be prepared to grin. And expect a good toe-tapping time.)

The concert begins at 8 PM and is part of Frank Dalton’s superlative Irish music series.

Perhaps memories of Meryl Streep’s Irish accent will dance through your head –she played stern Mundy sister, Kate, in the 1998 film version of “Dancing at Lughnasa.” But Brian Friel’s play was meant to be seen live, and it’s playing for only 5 more performances at The Barn Playhouse, Christopher Lane and Rittenhouse Boulevard in Jeffersonville, not far from King of Prussia. This 1991 Olivier Award-winning play tells the story of the five Mundy sisters, seen largely through the eyes of Michael, the illegitimate son of Chris, the youngest Mundy. Set in 1936, the action revolves around the Mundy’s first wireless radio, whose broadcasts release previously unarticulated emotions in the five women, who spontaneously break into song and dance–itself a fine Irish tradition.

You can see the various ways in which sisterhood is powerful on Friday, July 6 and 13, starting at 8 PM; Saturday, July 7 and 14, also at 8 PM. There’s also a matinee on Sunday, July 8, at 2 PM.

Coatesville Cultural Society
143 E. Lincoln Highway, Coatesville, PA
(610) 384-1790
http://www.coatesvilleculturalsociety.org/

The Barn Playhouse
Christopher Lane and Rittenhouse Boulevard, Jeffersonville, PA
(610) 539-BARN
http://www.barnplayhouse.org/