Dublin Theatre Festival Announces 2018 Lineup

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.

A powerful Irish programme by leading theatre makers includes 10 new works, and is complemented by a strong international programme including two productions from the US and Belgium, work from Poland, Netherlands, Australia and the UK. From intimate encounters in found spaces to the grander scale of Shakespearean drama, ballet and opera, there are portraits of individuals corrupted by power, testimonies from dissenting voices and challenges to received narratives. These theatrical experiences are all connected by one thing, the need for an audience to gather together in a shared time and space.

'Whether this is your first time seeing a festival show or you have been coming for years, there's something for you. The programme showcases many different ways that artists use theatre to engage with the world they're living in. It's a world where individuals, communities and the environment are under threat but also one where the desire for human connection is strong and the radical possibilities of imagination burn fiercely against the advancing darkness. This programme is full of moments where you can laugh, cry or have your mind blown. A festival is the time to take chances. Go and see something you might not otherwise.'
Willie White, Artistic Director

The 2018 line-up includes:

- Oscar nominated Ruth Negga leads the cast in the title role of Hamlet at the Gate.

- Arthur Miller's iconic film, The Misfits, is brought to the stage for the first time in a reimagining by Annie Ryan (The Corn Exchange).

- From the US: Obie-award winning Elevator Repair Service follow the ground breaking Gatz with Everyone's Fine with Virginia Woolf, and 600 HIGHWAYMEN's response to the current polarised social and political climate of the US, The Fever.

- After an absence of 16 years Brendan Coyle returns to the Irish stage in a new production of Conor McPherson's chilling play St Nicholas (Donmar Warehouse) which will open at Dublin Theatre Festival.

- 2 productions from Belgium: renowned theatre company CAMPO with Louis Vanhaverbeke in the humourous Multiverse, and Silke Huysmans & Hannes Dereere's documentary theatre performance Mining Stories, which explores the legacy of the toxic mining waste disaster in Brazil.

- Arthur Riordan's stage adaptation of A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, from Rough Magic will premiere.

- The blistering production from ANU and the Abbey Theatre, The Lost O'Casey, moves into the streets of Dublin.

- From Enda Walsh and Irish National Opera, Bluebeard's Castle with mezzo-soprano Paula Murrihy and Joshua Bloom.

- 2 productions from Poland - TR Warszawa returns with Fantasia, while Turkowski / Nowacka invite audiences on a virtual trip through stories documenting an artist community in a changing neighbourhood in Klosterhof.

- A new work by Gina Moxley, The Patient Gloria in association with Pan Pan Theatre.

- Junk Ensemble's The Bystander reveals some of the murkier and complex behaviours ofcontemporary society.

- Olivier Award-winning Fishamble: the New Play Company and the Abbey Theatre presentDeirdre Kinahan's latest drama Rathmines Road.

- Decadent Theatre's revival of Marina Carr's award-winning breakthrough play The Maifeaturing Derbhle Crotty.

- Raymond Keane explores Beckett's prose in Company from Company SJ.

- Home Theatre - 30 Dublin 15 'hosts' paired with 30 leading theatre makers results in 30 new plays performed in houses across Dublin 15 and a selection presented in Drai?ocht.

- Pan Pan Theatre contemplate artificial intelligence software in ELIZA'S Adventures in the Uncanny Valley.

- Druid continues its exploration of Shakespeare's kings with DruidShapespeare: Richard III, in association with the Abbey Theatre.

- Following White Rabbit Red Rabbit, Iranian playwright Nassim Soleimanpour and Bush Theatre with an audacious new theatrical experiment in NASSIM.

- A satirical look at the legacy of institutional Ireland in The M House from Equinox Theatre Company.

- Dance Consortium's (UK) all-male comedy ballet company Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo.

- The End of Eddy from The Unicorn Theatre and Untitled Projects, the story of Eddy's struggle to understand who he is and who he might become (for ages 16+).

- Dutch visual artist Nicoline van Harskamp with My Name is Language, a performative work about names.

- A programme of Theatre for Children from ages 2+, presented by Dublin Theatre Festival and The Ark which includes work from Second Hand Dance (UK) with Grass, Slingsby Australia with an adaptation of Oscar Wilde's The Young King, and Andy Manley (UK) and Teater Refleksion (Denmark) with Nightlight.

In additon a vibrant Festival+ programme with work-in-progress showcases, panel discussions and post-show talks will give audiences an insight behind the work, and Gala Night 2018 will celebrate the extraordinary contribution made to the world of theatre by Cillian Murphy.

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