On Friday 25th January 2019 Heresy Records will release Testament, an album of eleven compositions by Mel Mercier (b. 23. December, 1959), Composer/Percussionist/Professor and Chair of Performing Arts at the Irish World Academy of Music and Dance, University of Limerick. Mel was first introduced to music by his father, Peadar Mercier, a member of the Chieftains, who taught him to play the Irish traditional percussion instruments, the bodhrán and bones. As one of the world's leading Irish percussionists He has performed and recorded with many of the leading artists in this genre including, Mícheál Ó Súilleabháin, Donal Lunny, Pallé Mikkleborg, Martin Hayes, Liam Ó Maonlaoi, Alan Stivell, Iarla Ó Lionáird, Caitríona O'Leary and Bill Whelan.
The T.S. Eliot Estate and the Abbey Theatre announce the third of five annual lectures in T.S. Eliot's name and in memory of his impact on modern letters.
Well-ensconced on the UCLA campus, Los Angeles Theatre Works presents audio theatre, or as pre-millennials call it 'radio drama,' a throwback technique of decades-old entertainment enhanced by current day technology. I had the chance to delve into the inner workings of LATW from one of the co-founders herself, Susan Albert Loewenberg.
Polly Frame and Siwan Morris have been cast in the roles of Gail and Karen in Thick as Thieves, a new play from Wales Drama Award winning playwright Katherine Chandler.
Chicago Shakespeare Theater presents Big in Belgium-Chicago, a series of three acclaimed theatrical events representing the next wave of boundary-pushing European theater. Featured productions include a sweeping tribute to 2,500 years of oration, an engaging examination of free will-and the manipulation of it-in political elections, and a chilling look at tragedy and terror through the eyes of children. Curated by Chicago Shakespeare, Richard Jordan Productions, and David Bauwens, Big in Belgium-Chicago will be presented in the theater Upstairs at Chicago Shakespeare, beginning with BigMouth on September 12, 2018. All Big in Belgium productions are performed in English.
Lisa Burger, Chair of the Lyric Hammersmith and Sian Alexander, Executive Director of the Lyric Hammersmith are delighted to announce the appointment of Rachel O'Riordan as the theatre's new Artistic Director and Joint Chief Executive.
Writer Michael West artfully distills the dark essence of Mary Shelley's classic into a fateful 70 minutes, gratifying literary scholars and beguiling newcomers. I imagine Director Muireann Ahern enjoyed collaborating with her colleague, Louis Lovett, to unsettle and bewitch the audience. (Ahearn & Lovett are Joint Artistic Directors of Theatre Lovett.) Lovett was triumphant as both Victor Frankenstein and Frankenstein's monster, undertaking his heinous crusade with aplomb.
Studio Theatre kicks off its 40th Anniversary season by stepping outside its front door as Associate Artistic Director Matt Torney directs Tony Award-winning playwright (Dear Evan Hansen) and Bethesda native Steven Levenson's If I Forget. This observant, political-but-personal family drama set in 2000 centers on the dynamics of a modern Jewish family in DC's Tenleytown neighborhood. Brought together by their elderly father's 75th birthday, the adult children of the Fischer family squabble over what to do with their long-held and now lucrative 14th Street property, igniting debates on religion, politics, and history. The first act opens days after the collapse of the Israel-Palestine Camp David peace talks, and If I Forget considers events of the outside world-and the weight of the turn of a millennium-through a domestic lens, grounding events and issues of the time in personal perspectives, while interrogating what it means to be an American Jew in the twenty-first century.
Chicago Shakespeare Theater presents Big in Belgium-Chicago, a series of three acclaimed theatrical events representing the next wave of boundary-pushing European theater. Featured productions include a sweeping tribute to 2,500 years of oration, an engaging examination of free will-and the manipulation of it-in political elections, and a chilling look at tragedy and terror through the eyes of children. Curated by Chicago Shakespeare, Richard Jordan Productions, and David Bauwens, Big in Belgium-Chicago will be presented in the theater Upstairs at Chicago Shakespeare, beginning with BigMouth on September 12, 2018. All Big in Belgium productions are performed in English.
On The Quays, a New York City based production company aimed at producing works that promote inclusivity, has announced it will present the world premiere production of Gary Duggan's STOP/OVER, a swift new play about rekindled friendship, as part of the 2018 Dublin Fringe Festival. Directed by Nicola Murphy, and supported by The Arts Council of Ireland,FringeLab, and The Lir Academy, The Production will run September 12th-23rd on the third floor of The Chocolate Factory (26 Kings Inn Street).
Jimmy's Hall is based on the true story of a tin barn built on a farm in Leitrim by Jimmy Gralton in the 1920s. His vision of a haven for the local community to congregate for music, dance and lively discourse is perceived as a menace by the local establishment, including the Catholic Church, then at the height of their influence in Ireland. The church soon wield their political influence to banish the 'revolutionary' Gralton from Ireland.
Irish Arts Center welcomes back Mikel Murfi, one of the most vital and versatile voices in Irish theater, to present two of his solo works-companion plays I Hear You and Rejoice and The Man in the Woman's Shoes(September 12-October 21). The plays, presented in repertory by the celebrated writer and performer, see Murfi embodying a mute shoemaker and the coterie of characters he encounters in a small Irish town in County Sligo. While Rejoice functions as a sequel to Shoes (whose U.S. premiere IAC presented in 2015), revealing the bittersweet next chapter of the lives of the characters audiences came to know and love inthat first play, the two works easily stand alone. Those who saw The Man in the Woman's Shoes in 2015 will find their relationship with Murfi's singular style and his depiction of small town Irish existence deepening, and audiences new to his work will marvel at how his acting acrobatics can, most importantly, access and activate our hearts.
Following their sell out family production of They Called Her Vivaldi in December 2017 at the Abbey Theatre, Theatre Lovett return to the Peacock Stage with a new work for older audiences (not suitable for under 16s).
This year's Dublin Theatre Festival features a seductive selection of new work, including World and European Premieres, fresh versions of classic plays and adventurous international productions created by both renowned artists and emerging voices.
Come on Home is a quintessentially Irish tale exploring the fragile yet resilient bonds of family against a backdrop of sexual intolerance, rejection and regret. Playwright Philip McMahon's new narrative dredges the murky waters of small-town Irish prejudice and presents it compassionately without bias or judgement.
After last year's sell-out tour of pubs across Ireland, the Abbey Theatre's Two Pints by Roddy Doyle is back for another round stopping off at pubs in Ireland and the UK. Directed by Caitriona McLaughlin, Two Pints will head back on the road in August and September. The tour kicks off in The Flowing Tide on Lower Abbey Street in Dublin, before performances in Carlow, Louth, Longford, Derry, Newcastle upon Tyne and Sunderland.
On Thursday, June 16th, 1904 a young man and his new belle spent their first day together wandering the streets of Dublin. The experience had such a profound impact on him that over the following 2 decades he commemorated the milestone by writing a fictional account about the lives of a group of Dubliners on that eventful day.
The young man was James Joyce, that day is now universally known as Bloomsday, and his immortal novel, is Ulysses.
One of the biggest hits on Broadway, COME FROM AWAY continues its extraordinary success story ahead of its Australian premiere at Melbourne's Comedy Theatre in July 2019, with today's announcement of UK and Irish premieres, a major extension of its Canadian production, and continuous standing room only houses on Broadway.
As BroadwayWorld previously reported, the Tony Award-winning new musical COME FROM AWAY tells the remarkable true story of 7,000 stranded air passengers during the wake of 9/11, and the small town in Newfoundland that welcomed them. It will land in London for its long-awaited UK premiere at The Phoenix Theatre next year with performances from 30 January 2019 and opening night on 18 February 2019. Prior to the West End, this heart-warming musical will have a limited engagement at The Abbey Theatre in Dublin from 6 December 2018 to 19 January 2019.
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