IRISH REP ANNOUNCES NEW FALL SEASON
When it comes to online theater, which basically began with the COVID-19 shutdown, no other company in the States has offered more compelling evidence for the new medium than Irish Rep. Their production of The Weir was more effective for me than the Original Broadway outing, and spending an evening with Noël Coward songs and letters was a sheer delight. Now comes the exciting Fall Season shows, each of which is filmed and edited. I implore you to see these offerings. Just go to Irish Rep ticket and info page (remember that show times are EST), and have faith in theater. Creideamh.
BELFAST BLUES
WRITTEN & PERFORMED BY GERALDINE HUGHES
STAGE PRODUCTION DIRECTED BY EMMY AWARD WINNER CAROL KANE
FILMED AT LYRIC THEATRE, BELFAST (2019)
SEPTEMBER 22 – 27, 2020
Passionate, riveting and often humorous, Belfast Blues is a tapestry of autobiographical stories told from Geraldine Hughes’s perspective as a little girl coming of age in the war-torn Belfast of the 1980s. These stories bear insightful witness to the many faces of “trying to live a normal life” amidst the violence born of the longstanding conflict between Catholics and Protestants. At thirteen, Hughes temporarily left “The Troubles” to star in a TV movie, “Children in the Crossfire,” directed by George Schaefer, only to return home to a different kind of confusion and pain.
GIVE ME YOUR HAND
A POETICAL STROLL THROUGH THE NATIONAL GALLERY OF LONDON
BY PAUL DURCAN
STARRING DERMOT CROWLEY & DEARBHLA MOLLOY
DIRECTED BY JAMIE BEAMISH
OCTOBER 13 – 18, 2020
In this special virtual reimagining of Give Me Your Hand, two of Ireland’s finest actors, Dermot Crowley and Dearbhla Molloy, take audiences on a virtual stroll through London’s National Gallery, discovering afresh the Museum’s masterpieces from Van Gogh and Van Eyck, to Rubens and Gainsborough. With humor and grace, Crowley and Molloy breathe fresh life into each painting’s subjects with poetic stories from renowned Irish poet Paul Durcan.
A TOUCH OF THE POET
WRITTEN BY EUGENE O’NEILL
DIRECTED BY CIARÁN O’REILLY
FEATURING
BELLE AYKROYD, CIARAN BYRNE, ROBERT CUCCIOLI, KATE FORBES,
MARY McCANN, ANDY MURRAY, DAVID O’HARA, TIM RUDDY,
DAVID SITLER & JOHN C. VENNEMA
OCTOBER 27 – NOVEMBER 1, 2020
In A Touch of the Poet, proud and tempestuous Cornelius Melody (Con) owns a run-down inn and tavern near Boston in 1828. Laden with debt, Con clings to his tenuous identity as a landed gentleman and war hero and chastises his wife and daughter for actions that expose the family’s humble Irish origins. When his daughter Sara falls in love with a wealthy American guest at their inn, Con’s pride drives him to an explosive reckoning with his true place in the New World.
ON BECKETT / IN SCREEN
AN EXPLORATION OF THE WORKS OF SAMUEL BECKETT
CONCEIVED & PERFORMED BY TONY AWARD WINNER BILL IRWIN
NOVEMBER 17 – 22, 2020
Bill Irwin can’t escape Samuel Beckett. The pandemic hasn’t changed this. Two years ago, Irwin took the Irish Rep stage to premiere On Beckett, his award-winning meditation on Samuel Beckett’s works and language. Since then, COVID-19 has upended daily life worldwide and live theatre is on hold as venues stand empty. In this time of anxiety and loss, Irwin revisits the words of Samuel Beckett and returns alone to the Irish Rep virtual stage to bring us On Beckett / In Screen, a new meditation filmed for our current times.
A CHILD’S CHRISTMAS IN WALES IN CONCERT
BY DYLAN THOMAS
ADAPTED & DIRECTED BY CHARLOTTE MOORE
MUSIC DIRECTION BY JOHN BELL
DECEMBER 2020
This holiday season experience a new concert version of Irish Rep’s favorite holiday tradition, a joyous musical celebration of Dylan Thomas’s iconic story, A Child’s Christmas in Wales. Join the Rep for a “never to be forgotten day,” when songs are sung, cakes and sweets are abundant, and the frozen city parks are laden with mysteries and adventures for wild children to explore.
PLUS SPECIAL EVENTS
GREGORY HARRINGTON:
A CONCERT FROM THE IRISH REP STAGE
THURSDAY SEPTEMBER 17, 2020
Every year acclaimed Irish violinist Gregory Harrington takes over the Irish Rep stage to present an eclectic and intimate musical evening of unique interpretations of traditional and contemporary songs. These annually sold-out events are a highlight every spring at Irish Rep, but this year the concert was canceled due to COVID-19. Joined by cellists Eleanor Norton and Philip Sheegog, Harrington will kick off the season with an Irish-themed concert of new arrangements of traditional Irish and Celtic influenced tunes ranging from “Shenandoah” and “The Parting Glass” to “The Last Rose of Summer” and a special take on O’Carolan’s “Concerto.”
A BEGGAR UPON HORSEBACK / A BEGGAR ON FOOT
PART 1: A BEGGAR UPON HORSEBACK: THE CONTEXT,
FROM FREDERICK DOUGLASS TO TODAY
PART 2: A BEGGAR ON FOOT: CREATING CHANGE IN IRISH ARTS
MONDAY NOVEMBER 9 & TUESDAY NOVEMBER 10, 2020
Irish Repertory Theatre marks the 175th anniversary of Frederick Douglass’s historic trip to Ireland with a dramatic reading by award-winning actor John Douglas Thompson of Douglass’s Letter from Belfast, written on January 1, 1846. In this letter, Douglass recounts his impressions of the Irish people, describing “warm and generous co-operation.” The reading will be followed by a panel led by Dr. Miram Nyhan Grey in which scholars and writers of Irish-American and African-American history will discuss the emigration of the Irish to America, and the complexity of Black and Irish interactions in the American experience: sometimes as allies and sometimes as aggressors. This conversation will span the infamous Draft Riots of 1863 to Irish-America as we know it today.
After exploring the complex intersections of Irish-American and African-American history in Day 1, the second day of discussion will center on the role of Irish cultural institutions in the push for racial equity.
PLAGUEY HILL
A NEW WORK BY PAUL MULDOON
READ BY TONY AWARD WINNER LIEV SCHREIBER
TUESDAY DECEMBER 1, 2020
Irish Repertory Theatre is proud to present a reading of Plaguey Hill, a new work by Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Paul Muldoon (Incantata), read by Tony Award winner Liev Schreiber. Written over the first two weeks of April 2020, Plaguey Hill is an impressionistic account of day-to-day life during the COVID-19 pandemic. Though the poem is set in Sharon Springs, New York, it harkens back to memories of the burial mound of Plaguey Hill, in Friars Bush Graveyard, Belfast, where victims of the 1830s cholera epidemic were laid to rest. The poem takes the form of an intricately locked series of 15 sonnets known as a crown, or corona.
