The Irishtown Players, a celebrated Dublin-based theatre company, have just started rehearsals for their new play. After the astounding success of their last production, the company are scheduled to open on Broadway, with the same visionary playwright at the helm. However, trouble arises when the actors decide she’s going too dark, too experimental, and… not Irish enough? Taking matters into their own hands, the company fights to restore the Hibernian flair. Irishtown is a hilarious and searing new comedy that explores the commercialization of culture, inviting audiences to experience the fragile creative process and the potential collapse of a collective.
Irishtown is like a mashup of The Play That Goes Wrong (there’ s lot of slapstick humor) and a takedown of the pretentious creative process. The tension is maintained as we wait to see will-they-or-won’t-they come up with a new Irish masterpiece. Perhaps, with some light editing, we might even be watching the said masterpiece or at least a very good night of theater.
If you’ve had the pleasure of attending performances at the Irish Repertory Theatre, you’ve grown accustomed to certain recurring themes and tropes in the grand tradition of Irish drama: domestic disputes that unfold in either Dublin or the remote countryside, with detours to the local pub of course, and feature the eventual revelation of long-buried family secrets. Ciara Elizabeth Smyth’s Irishtown, a wise craic-ing new comedy at the Irish Rep, is an affectionate and often hilarious riff on the genre’s many go-to clichés.
| 2022 | Off-Broadway |
Off-Broadway |
| 2024 | Off-Broadway |
Off-Broadway Production Off-Broadway |
| 2025 | Off-Broadway |
Off-Broadway |
| 2025 | Off-Broadway |
Off-Broadway |
| 2025 | Broadway |
Broadway |
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