Irish Repertory Theatre to Present New Works Fall Festival 2025

Irish Repertory Theatre has revealed the lineup for the New Works Fall Festival 2025, which will run November 3-11, 2025 on the Francis J. Greenburger Mainstage at Irish Repertory Theatre.

Irish Repertory Theatre’s New Play Development Program includes table reads, staged readings, workshops and commissions from voices that fulfill Irish Rep’s mission and tell stories of Irish and Irish-American people of all ethnicities, genders, abilities, and orientations. The New Works Fall Festival returns this November with four new play readings spotlighting voices writing new work that fulfills this mission. This program enables Irish Rep to hear new work aloud with an audience, and discover new plays and musicals for possible future production.

Since the inception of this series, three plays have gone on to their New York premieres on Irish Rep’s mainstage: Irishtown by Ciara Elizabeth Smyth (NWFF 2023), The Beacon by Nancy Harris (NWFF 2023), and The Honey Trap by Leo McGann (NWFF 2024).

The New Works Fall Festival 2025 will include plays by jose sebastian alberdi, Janet Moran, Colin Murphy, and Erica Murray. The readings will be directed by Bailey Bass, Nicola Murphy Dubey, and Colm Summers.

The cast for this year’s Festival will include Ciaran Byrne (Philadelphia, Here I Come!), John Keating (The Weir), Michael Mellamphy (The Smuggler), Clare O’Malley (Philadelphia, Here I Come!), Tony Award nominee Taylor Trensch (Floyd Collins), and more to be announced. 

Stage Directions will be read by Samuel Dolman. Sound Design will be by Caroline Eng, and Katie Barnhard, Jade Doina, and Mary Garrigan will be the Stage Managers. 

Each reading will begin at 7pm. Tickets to all readings are $20 and are available at irishrep.org. 

The New Works Fall Festival 2025 lineup is as follows:

THE LOVED ONES 

By Erica Murray

Directed by Nicola Murphy Dubey

Monday November 3

In a remote farmhouse in West Clare, Nell is preparing to scatter her late son’s ashes with his grieving wife. Meanwhile, an American tourist settles in for what she expects to be a peaceful countryside retreat. But when a young woman arrives at the cottage unexpectedly, the weekend takes a surprising and darkly comic turn. As tensions rise and secrets are revealed, these four strangers are forced into an uneasy reckoning with the past – and each other.

Hailed by The Irish Times as “wonderful, witty, assured and entertaining” and praised by The Irish Independent as “a glorious personality clash extravaganza”, Erica Murray’s The Loved Ones is a sharp, deeply moving, and wickedly funny new Irish play about motherhood, grief, and the families we find when life doesn’t go to plan.

The cast of The Loved Ones will include Clare O’Malley.

THE TREATY

By Colin Murphy

Directed by Nicola Murphy Dubey

Tuesday November 4

One hundred years ago, a small group of untested politicians left Dublin for London, to negotiate for Irish independence with one of the most formidable delegations ever put together. The Irish were seeking to take back control; the British believed they were stronger together. The Unionists believed in a hard border on the island of Ireland; the Republicans wanted the border in the Irish Sea. The Irish wanted a hard exit from the British Empire; the British tried to tempt them with the Canada option. And overseeing it all was a prime minister nobody trusted, notorious for his wizardry. The Treaty is a history play for this moment.

The cast of The Treaty will include Ciaran Byrne, John Keating, and Michael Mellamphy.

BOGFRIENDS

By jose sebastian alberdi

Directed by Colm Summers

Monday November 10

Tanner & Archie work at a museum. Finn & Cillian are Americans in Ireland. Osgar & Irial died over four thousand years ago. A play about power-dynamics, love, and preserving dead things (or trying to) that traverses place, time, and culture.

The cast of Bogfriends will include Taylor Trensch.

AFTERWARDS

By Janet Moran

Directed by Bailey Bass

Tuesday November 11