2012 Dublin Theatre Festival Announces Program, Set for Sept 27-Oct 14

Today Willie White announced details of his first programme as Artistic Director of the Dublin Theatre Festival. The 55th anniversary Dublin Theatre Festival will run for 18 days from 27 Sept – 14 Oct at various venues around the city. - This year the Dublin Theatre Festival will celebrate 'Your City, Your Stories', putting Dublin at the very heart of this 18 day theatrical spectacular.

On announcing details of this, his first Dublin Theatre Festival programme Willie White said, "This year we are putting Dublin at the very heart of the Festival. Our city is constantly changing and new stories are being written every day in our lives and the lives of those around us. Over the 18 days of the Festival we are inviting people living in, working in or visiting Dublin to experience some of those stories, to take a look at familiar tales reimagined and to discover new ones yet to be heard. It is fitting to be launching this programme in Dublin's iconic City Hall and to open the 2012 Festival with a new adaptation of James Joyce's Dubliners in the Gaiety Theatre. The city and the Festival are on a journey. This is the first year of my own journey with Dublin Theatre Festival and I am thrilled to present such a range of exciting work from established and emerging voices in Irish theatre alongside some of the best of interNational Theatre."

The Festival continues its important work of showcasing new work from many of the leading and new Irish theatre companies and writers, including The Corn Exchange, Hatch Theatre Company and Landmark Productions, Pan Pan, The Gate Theatre, The Abbey Theatre, Tall Tales Theatre Company and Solstice Arts Centre, ANU Productions, The Company, Theatre Lovett, Brokentalkers, Dylan Tighe, Red Kettle and Garter Lane.

The programme includes the only Dublin dates for the hugely successful DruidMurphy and the debut production from new Irish Opera company Wide Open Opera.

Some of the world's leading theatre companies and practitioners will visit Dublin for this 18 day celebration of theatre including the first visit to the Republic of Ireland by renowned US company The Wooster Group, the return of Elevator Repair Service (who brought Gatz to the Festival in 2008), Forced Entertainment (UK) and Winner of Scotsman Fringe First Award 2009, Inua Ellams.

Audiences will have the opportunity to see three successful productions from the last 12 months again when they are restaged as part of the ReViewed showcase in partnership with Culture Ireland and Irish Theatre Institute. - The Festival is setting out to capture the changing mood of Dublin. A giant neon smiley face, Public Face III, will adorn Dublin's skyline during the Festival which, using sophisticated software to read facial expressions of passersby, will capture the humour of Dublin and Dubliners throughout the day and night.

Young and family audiences can experience the best of international productions from Scotland, Belgium and the UK as part of the Family Season at The Ark. - An exciting programme of special events will encourage audiences to offer their opinions, debate and discuss. - Booking opens to the general public on the 15th August. Priority booking for friends of the Festival commences 26th July (for details of how to become a friend of the Festival go to http://www.dublintheatrefestival.com/friends/)

This year, Dublin, her stories and storytelling are at the very centre of the Festival as audiences are invited to celebrate Your City, Your Stories. The 2012 programme is an exciting mix of Irish work, including 12 world premieres and some of the very best international work. The Festival will include 32 theatre productions, staged in 19 venues over 18 days.

IRISH WORK

The Dublin Theatre Festival has always been an important platform for Irish companies, Irish work and Irish writers. On 27 September the Festival will open at Dublin's Gaiety Theatre with an adaptation of Dubliners by James Joyce presented by The Corn Exchange and Dublin Theatre Festival. Following their award-winning Freefall and Man of Valour, Ireland's acclaimed ensemble company, will present this extraordinary opportunity to experience a collection of Joyce's stories in this large scale production.

Hatch Theatre Company, Landmark Productions and Dublin Theatre Festival present The Talk of the Town by multi award-winning author Emma Donoghue (Room). This is a dazzling new play inspired by the life and work of pioneering writer Maeve Brennan who moved from 1950s Dublin to Manhattan, throwing herself into the glamour of New York literary circles while writing heartbreaking stories of a very different world back in Dublin.

The Festival will also include the only Dublin dates for the hugely successful DRUIDMURPHY. Already garnering acclaim at home and abroad, Druid Theatre Company celebrates one of Ireland's most acclaimed living dramatists, Tom Murphy, with three productions Conversations on a Homecoming, Whistle in the Dark and Famine.

Following their acclaimed World's End Lane and multiple award-winning Laundry, ANU Productions return to the Festival with the third instalment of their four-part Monto Cycle, exploring the social history of this notorious area in Dublin's north inner city. The Boys of Foley Street, a Dublin City Council public art commission, is ANU's most adventurous project to date. Chronicling the third regeneration of the area, this is a living, breathing exploration of the decade spanning from 1971-1981. Through intimate encounters, installation and cutting-edge technology, the audience is brought on an immersive journey through Foley Street, to an area history left behind.

Experience King Lear as you have never seen it before through the lens of Pan Pan's Everyone Is King Lear in His Own Home. Once again this inimitable company turns its attention to a Shakespeare play reinvigorating this familiar text in a way only Pan Pan can.

Red Kettle and Garter Lane present the debut play by Listowel Writers' award winner Michael Hilliard Mulcahy, Beyond The Brooklyn Sky, directed by Peter Sheridan. The past is a powder keg waiting to explode - the only question is who will strike the first match.

Making their Festival debut will be innovative Irish ensemble, The Company, with a topical new production Politik. Trying to find new ideals within a social and economic whirlwind, they have set themselves a challenge: to make a show not about the world we live in but the one we could create. Come, get entangled and find out what part you can play.

A new work from award-winning novelist and playwright Declan Hughes will premiere at The Gate Theatre. The Last Summer is a bittersweet comedy of love and loss. Declan Hughes' return to writing for the stage demonstrates his unrivalled ability to capture the contemporary Irish moment, the way we live now.

The Abbey Theatre presents two productions in this year's Festival. Wilde's iconic fable, The Picture of Dorian Gray, directed and especially adapted by leading theatre-maker Neil Bartlett will open on the Abbey stage. With a company of 16 actors, this new staging of his blackhearted masterpiece brings Wilde's most dangerous antihero back to contemporary theatrical life in Bartlett's trademark visual, flamboyant style.

On the Peacock stage, The Abbey Theatre presents the world premiere of Shibari, an Abbey commission, by Stewart Parker Trust award winner Gary Duggan, directed by Tom Creed. In Dublin city, people are more connected than you think. It will only take something small for six lives to become entwined. Relationships are strained, snapped and formed in this modern-day look at life in a multi-cultural Dublin.

Halcyon Days, a new drama from writer Deirdre Kinahan (Tall Tales Theatre Company & Solstice Arts Centre) is a story of an unforeseen relationship. Seán sits alone in a nursing-home conservatory, abandoned to his memories when in storms Patricia, a feisty woman with a zest for life and handsome men in wheelchairs. A wary intimacy soon develops between the two, charming and combative, tender and funny.

Feidlim Cannon's father died 11 years ago. His death could have been prevented. This powerful new play Have I No Mouth from Brokentalkers, one of Ireland's most daring independent theatre companies, explores the changing nature of the relationship between a mother and son in the aftermath of a family tragedy. Both performing on stage, Feidlim and his mother Ann take a brave, unflinching look at their past and attempt to piece together the truth.

Dylan Tighe, director of The Irish Times Theatre Award-winning No Worst There Is None, returns to the Festival with this stirring new project RECORD which explores depression and the concept of "mental illness" with courage, imagination and humour. This brave and evocative alternative opera is based on songs from Dylan's debut album RECORD and uses medical records, autobiography, fiction and 16mm film. A show set to delight both children and adults of all ages is The House That Jack Filled from Theatre Lovett.

Premiering at the Dublin Theatre Festival this production reunites writer Finegan Kruckemeyer and performer Louis Lovett, that incredible duo from the internationally acclaimed The Girl who Forgot to Sing badly.

A once in a lifetime event and regarded by many as the greatest operatic achievement of all time, Wagner's Tristan und Isolde is presented by new Irish opera company Wide Open Opera in association with Bord Gáis Energy Theatre, Dublin Theatre Festival and RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra. This epic new production originates from Welsh National Opera and features leading Irish and international performers alongside the 85-member RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra.

INTERNATIONAL WORK

For his first Festival Willie White brings some of the most renowned theatre companies and practitioners in the world to Dublin. The Festival is delighted to welcome groundbreaking theatre makers The Wooster Group (USA) to the Republic of Ireland for the very first time.

Acclaimed by The New York Times as "American theater's most inspired company", they are internationally renowned for reimagining classic and devised texts. The Wooster Group's HAMLET from visionary director Elizabeth LeCompte repurposes the film version of Richard Burton's legendary 1964 Broadway version of Hamlet. Prepare to be enthralled. The UK's most celebrated pioneers of Contemporary Theatre Forced Entertainment UK have been trailblazers for over a quarter of a century. Incorporating live music, The Coming Storm is Forced Entertainment at its best – trademark black humour, a collage of arresting images and an anarchic performance style.

2012 sees the much anticipated return of Elevator Repair Service. Following their hugely successful production of GATZ in Dublin in 2008, this exciting US theatre company brings to the Festival their bold and vivid adaptation of Hemingway's classic novel, The Sun Also Rises, The Select.

Belgian visual artist and theatre-maker Miet Warlop is renowned for creating anarchic, animated sculptures on stage. Her vivid imagination runs riot in this exuberant new performance Mystery Magnet (CAMPO) inspired by contemporary animation.

As children, brothers Zachary and Gator Oberzan (USA) used to make home videos parodying scenes from Hollywood movies. Two decades later, Zack has recreated those films, shot for shot, but now seen through a twenty-year lens of emotional and physical wear and tear. Your Brother. Remember? splices and dices home videos, Hollywood film footage and live performance in a touching, unique and funny production.

Winner of Scotsman Fringe First Award 2009, Fuel and Inua Ellams (UK) present a feat of playful storytelling, a poetic journey of family life, friendship and love. The 14th Tale is a free-flowing, mellifluous narrative written and performed by Inua Ellams. Be swept away by the hilarious exploits of a natural born mischief-maker, propelled from the clay streets of Nigeria to the rooftops of Dublin, and finally to London.

ReViewed Now in its fifth year ReViewed has given audiences another chance to enjoy a number of successful Irish productions each year which have debuted in Ireland over the past 12 months. It also provides these productions with a platform to restage these works for the many theatre and festival programmers who travel to Ireland from around the world for the Festival. Many of the companies featured over the years have gone on to perform and tour internationally. This is an important part of the work of the Festival which is done in partnership with Culture Ireland and Irish Theatre Institute.

2012 will see three productions from junk ensemble, Calipo Theatre Company and HotForTheatre. Bird with boy from junk ensemble is an immersive dance installation about things that end before they should. Created by multi-award winning junk ensemble and Jo Timmins, the work is performed in an old house unraveling with fractured stories. Winner of Best Production at ABSOLUT Fringe 2011, Bird with boy is performed by three dancers, two musicians and six boys from Company B, Ireland's only contemporary dance group for younger boys.

On the heels of multiple awards and the international success of 'I ?Alice ? I', HotForTheatre brings you Eternal Rising of The Sun an inspiring story of one woman's transformation. Gina wants to soar … to fly ... to dance. But Gina is hopeless as everyone knows. Nothing is impossible … well maybe the moonwalk, but Gina's gotta dance.

Calipo Theatre Company in association with Drogheda Arts Festival present Pineapple the beautifully tender and bitingly funny play from acclaimed writer Phillip McMahon (Alice in Funderland, Danny & Chantelle). In a tumbledown flat in Ballymun, Paula thinks she's is in control; but when the unknown shows up at her door, everything changes. Can Paula afford to take a chance on love, or will she always sacrifice her own happiness for others?

CAPTURING THE MOOD

The Festival will be making an impact on Dublin's skyline this year as Public Face III captures the mood of Dublin and Dubliners in real time. This giant neon smiley created by Julius von Bismarck, Richard Wilhelmer and Benjamin Maus will use sophisticated software as the 'face' will change from a smile to a frown to an indifferent grimace as it reacts to the expressions of passersby.

Presented as part of Dublin City of Science 2012, a year long celebration of science that brings together a community of cultural institutions, organisations and individuals who are passionate about showcasing the best of Irish culture, arts and science.

FAMILY SEASON

Dublin Theatre Festival and The Ark join forces once again to present a season of acclaimed international productions for families and schools. Four world class theatre companies will bring their work for young audiences to Dublin. Visit an enchanting world full of birdsong and birdhouses in White from Catherine Wheels Theatre Company (Scotland). Be utterly charmed by Belgian clown duo Okidok's Ha Ha Ha, a show brimful of laughter as its title suggests. Join story-teller Polarbear for a gripping tale of international assassins and secret codes in Battersea Arts Centre (UK) Mouth Open, Story Jump Out. Or meet a muddy potato, much in need of a bath in Shona Reppe's (Scotland) Potato Needs A Bath. Whether you are little or not, this year's Family Season, programmed by Maria Fleming Theatre Programmer at The Ark, will enthrall and delight.

SPECIAL EVENTS

An extensive programme of special events, screenings, debates and talks have been organized to compliment the on stage programme, full details can be found at www.dublintheatrefestival.com.

Among the events taking place will be:

- A series of screenings in the IFI spanning the three decades of The Wooster Company's career
- Drama in the Air presented by the Festival in association with RTÉ's Drama on One. A new radio play The Bacon Slicer by Andrew Fox will be recorded live in RTÉ and broadcast on RTÉ Radio One.
- The ever popular In Development will give a sneak peek at the progress of three new productions: Bird (Julie Feeney), Riverrun (The Emergency Room / Double M Arts and Events NY) and History (THEATREclub).
- A number of readings will take place in Project Arts Centre including work from Play On, the Festival's artist development programme.
- There will be a programme of artist's events including, Irish Theatre Institute's InterNational Theatre Exchange and The Next Stage as well as events such as the International Critics' Panel and Young Critics Panel.
- Audiences can also look forward to a series of panel discussions curated by Dylan Haskins on themes and topics arising from the Festival programme.

The Festival Club will return to the Odessa Club where this year the cream of Irish musical talent will add to your Festival entertainment. These will include; A Capital Idea - John Kelly will be joined by special guests for an intimate and informal evening of music, conversation and song; and a night of ancient, classical and contemporary music from Kaleidoscope. THANK YOU Dublin Theatre Festival is funded by the Arts Council. Dublin Theatre Festival is proudly supported by its presenting partner Dublin Airport Authority and by principal sponsors The Doyle Collection and The Irish Times.

Online: www.dublintheatrefestival.com
Festival Box office: 44 East Essex Street, Temple Bar, D. 2 Mon – Fri 10am – 6pm. Sat 10am – 5pm (Sept 22 – Oct 13 only) Sun 12noon – 3pm (Sept 30 – Oct 14 only)
Phone: 01 677 8899. Lines open during Box Office hours above.
Public Booking opens: 15 August 10am.
Priority Booking for Friends of the Festival opens: 25 July 1pm.

Final Call The Festival is delighted to continue Final Call, a standby scheme where a limited number of €10 tickets will be available for certain shows on the day of the performance. Tickets can be purchased in person at the Festival Box Office 4pm – 6pm and will be sold on a first- come first-served basis.

 

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