Irish Arts Center News

Irish Arts Center celebrated its 100th performance and continues to inaugurate its new home—a 21,700 square foot hub for the arts at 726 11th Avenue—with an ever eclectic suite of programming this fall.

After a successful Irish tour in 2017 and again in 2019, as well as ten sold out seasons at the Irish Arts Center in New York, Muldoon's Picnic returns for four dates nationwide, 10-14 August 2022, visiting Limerick, Letterkenny, Dublin, and Belfast. 

WMI celebrates its 37th year in NYC with 18 performances featuring artists from over 20 countries, including Botswana, Brazil, Democratic Republic of Congo, Dominican Republic, England, Estonia, Ethiopia, Finland, Ghana, India, Iran, Iraq, Ireland, Korea, Mali, Morocco, South Africa, Spain, Ukraine, USA, Venezuela, and Wales.

Following the sold-out success of COVID SUX: The Musical at Cumston Hall, Chris Henry, and Mark Falconer have written a new sequel to their previous original musical comedy about the pandemic featuring parodies of hit Broadway songs from shows like Hamilton, Les Miserables, Tick Tick Boom, West Side Story, Chicago, and Annie.

After a successful Irish tour in 2017 and again in 2019, as well as ten sold out seasons at the Irish Arts Center in New York, Muldoon's Picnic returns for four dates nationwide 10-14 August 2022.

Symphony Space, which celebrates James Joyce’s masterpiece Ulysses in its beloved annual Bloomsday on Broadway, marks the milestone occasion of the book’s 100th anniversary with a new commission in which Elevator Repair Service (ERS) brings the novel to wild, illuminating theatrical life.

Irish Arts Center will present Mufutau Yusuf's Òwe, the artist's full-length NYC choreographic debut. With Òwe—“proverb” in the Yoruba language—the Nigeria-born Yusuf seeks to decode his personal identity through the lens of the ancestral, in an evocative confluence of personal, ritual, and digital archives.

Audiences will have another chance to watch this critically acclaimed major adaption from Marina Carr and directed for the stage by Annabelle Comyn as it returns for a limited on-demand video stream this spring.   

Originally scheduled to run from Sun Jan 9 to Mon Jan 31, the hybrid virtual and in-person Festival was extended by several days to accommodate the world premiere of John Kearns’ “Boann and the Well of Wisdom,” which was forced to reschedule its run at Ryan’s Daughter due to COVID-related developments.

The Irish Arts Center presents the U.S. debut of Martin Hayes’ Common Ground Ensemble, in which he has convened a range of musicians—acclaimed practitioners of traditional Irish music, jazz and improvisation, avant-garde and cutting edge contemporary classical—with roots in Irish trad music, the “common ground” of their name.

Now in its final week, the 14th annual Origin 1st Irish Theatre Festival, running through January 31,will host two in-person events, including the world premiere of a new play by John Kearns and an online curated Irish language theater salon. 

Origin Theatre Company and the Irish Arts Center are jointly presenting a star-studded commemorative reading of Richard Norton-Taylor’s “Bloody Sunday: Scenes from the Saville Enquiry” to mark the 50th anniversary of Bloody Sunday, a seismic turning point in the history of Northern Ireland.

You don't have to be from Belfast to appreciate the themes explored through raw physicality in Oona Doherty's Hard to Be Soft — A Belfast Prayer. Any “city body” possessing collective trauma from an urban environment will recognize and relate to the thick shells worn to conceal perceived weakness.

Pipes of Christmas offers a spiritual and traditional take on the season that connects concertgoers to the holiday in a fresh, meaningful way. The show features beloved tunes such as, 'Highland Cathedral,' 'Joy to the World', and 'Amazing Grace', all performed on pipes and drums, harp and fiddle, and organ and brass and more.

Beginning December 17th at 7:30 PM, pianist Sara Davis Buechner premieres Of Pigs and Pianos — the new one-woman show of her extraordinary life story in music & words. This theatrical & musical evening consists of excerpts from her recently-completed autobiography, illustrated with luminous piano performances, visual imagery & dramatic narration.

Irish Arts Center (IAC), based in New York City and renowned for presenting dynamic, inspiring, collaborative experiences of the evolving arts and culture of Ireland and Irish America in an environment of warm Irish hospitality, will open the doors to its long-heralded new home, a 21,700 square foot hub for the arts at 726 11th Avenue, with a monumental inaugural season of programming, from December 2021 to December 2022.

Produced by Ma-Yi Theater Company, The First Twenty: 20 Years of Asian American Playwriting is a new 30-minute documentary film that showcases the evolution of the Asian American playwright over the last 20 years as part of ALL ARTS’ The First Twenty content initiative.

Irish Taoiseach (Prime Minister) Micheál Martin attended the dedication ceremony for the new Irish Arts Center in Hell's Kitchen yesterday.

The First Twenty, a new content initiative from ALL ARTS uncovering the ways that the first two decades of the 21st century have impacted American art, culture and the collective consciousness, will premiere three original specials this fall. 

The First Twenty, a new content initiative from ALL ARTS uncovering the ways that the first two decades of the 21st century have impacted American art, culture and the collective consciousness, premieres three original specials this fall.