Dublin Theatre Festival Reveals Its 2024 Programme

The Festival has unveiled 30 productions in its 2024 programme, featuring new voices as well as familiar faces, a wealth of Irish and International work, exploring stories about family, identity, migration, climate, colonial legacies, conflict and its resolution.

Willie White invited audiences to play their vital role in this year's festival, creating a shared civic space to share live collective experience, as DTF 2024 explores stories about family, identity, migration, climate, colonial legacies, conflict and its resolution. The programme also strives to be ever more accessible with initiatives such as 10 for 10 (which will see 10% of tickets for select festival productions be available for €10 to under 30s, unwaged, freelance artists and arts workers).

 

The programme announced today features more than 30 productions - world premieres of new Irish work and acclaimed international productions, showcasing artists exploring the issues that define our times, in settings from the domestic to the global, in vital and engaging performances.

 

DTF 2024 welcomes back Teaċ Daṁsa for a joyful opening production, Nobodaddy, a feast of music and dance rooted in Corca Dhuibhne and created by Michael Keegan Dolan with a team of Irish and international artists.

 

New Irish work features strongly with premieres of new plays by Ross Dungan, Kate Heffernan, Caitlin Magnall-Kearns, Amy Kidd and Dee Roycroft, each making their festival debut as a writer this year.

 

International highlights include three remarkable pieces from England. Leading experimental theatre company Forced Entertainment's Signal to Noise, which continues their interest in pulling at and pulling apart the forms of contemporary culture, Javaad Alipoor's Things Hidden Since the Foundation of the World an intriguing political mystery that expands into an exploration of storytelling and truth in the Internet age and Benji Reid's Find Your Eyes, a soulful and visually stunning work that combines theatre, dance and photography.

 

The Festival continues to look for ways to make it ever more accessible and is delighted to announce that 10 for 10, supported by Aviva, will once again see 10% of tickets for select festival productions be available for €10 to under 30s, unwaged, freelance artists and arts workers. To book, eligible customers need to register in advance – see dublintheatrefestival.ie

 

Artistic Director Willie White said: “In a turbulent and divided world, theatre can offer refuge, a place to think through our dilemmas together, offering moments of reflection and most importantly time for solidarity and celebration.”

 

Officially opening DTF 2024 will be Nobodaddy a new work by acclaimed choreographer Michael Keegan-Dolan and Teaċ Daṁsa (Swan Lake/Loch na hEala and MÁM) bringing together familiar and new collaborators in the West Kerry Gaeltacht. An affecting large-scale dance and theatre ritual for 9 dancers and 6 musicians including renowned folk singer and musician Sam Amidon. (O'Reilly Theatre, Belvedere College)

 

Gare St Lazare Ireland take Beckett's character Belacqua on a journey to the source in Dante, discovering how Melville's character, Bartleby travels a similar road. Tracing a path across time, this devised work combines a newly commissioned score and visual artworks with an ensemble of theatre makers (Samuel Beckett Theatre).

 

Dream Factory, a modern legend about over-consumption and environmental collapse told by a star-studded cast in the playful and infectious comedic style of Lords of Strut (The Civic).

 

Reimagined for 2024 by Abbey Theatre Artistic Director Caitríona McLaughlin, for its first ever production at the Abbey Theatre, Grania Lady Gregory's groundbreaking 1912 play, will connect us to our past and illuminate our present.

 

Playing Fields is a youth driven, outdoor, participatory sound performance that takes place on your local field. The Chop Theatre (Canada), using interviews with teenagers ages 13–16 from Ireland and around the world about ownership and belonging.

 

Time Based Editions' ingenious new format offers ‘audio-visual' as two separate elements, held together in the present through a physical synchronisation of our hands. Printed photography brought alive by a soundscape that both guides and surrounds us in Borderline Visible (Patrick Sutton Studio, Gaiety School of Acting)

 

Nightlife gatecrash, raucous cabaret and musical extravaganza; 0800 CUPID is a genre-defying queer countercultural opus from THISISPOPBABY that fizzes between performance and reality. Through her drag persona, crumbling club-kid Cupid, Emer Dineen grapples with love in a lonely capitalist paradigm (Project Arts Centre).

 

At the Gaiety Theatre, Druid presents Tom Murphy's classic play, The House, directed by Garry Hynes, a tense drama of desire, belonging and possession.

 

The personal becomes political in Sandpaper On Sunburn, written and directed by David Horan, a funny and fascinating exploration of identity and family (Smock Alley Theatre – David Horan & Verdant Productions).

 

From Dee Roycroft amelia is a solarpunk play about birds, migration and leaving home, set in an offline future where actors make theatre sustained by radical hope, despite carbon quotas and power cuts. (Project, Cube).

 

Home, Boys, Home by Dermot Bolger (Speckintime) completes a unique trilogy that started with In High Germany (DTF 1990) three standalone plays, written fifteen years apart, recounting the lives of three friends, as emigrants abroad and now as returnees to Ireland (The Civic, Studio).

 

A vivid, urgent and personal portrait of Dublin at a crossroads of past and present from ANU Productions – Starjazzer. Inspired by The Starjazzer by Sean O'Casey, it is a fever dream exploration of grief, sexuality and hope.  (Royal Society of Antiquaries Ireland).

 

The Gate Theatre presents a Lyric Theatre production Agreement set in April 1998 as the main political parties in Northern Ireland, the British government and the Irish government, all under the watchful eye of Senator George Mitchell, try to hammer out a deal that could pave the way for peace in Northern Ireland.

 

In DARKMATTER, Cherish Menzo and Camilo Mejía Cortés (JEZEBEL – DTF 2022) disentangle their bodies from fixed patterns and preconceptions and go in search of a new, futuristic environment (Samuel Beckett Theatre).

 

From the Abbey Theatre SAFE HOUSE written and directed by Enda Walsh, a song cycle, a gig, a smashed-up memory play played out in a handball alley. Composed by Anna Mullarkey. On the Peacock stage.

 

Decadent Theatre Company and Pavilion Theatre, Molly Sweeney by Brian Friel. This compelling play, directed by Andrew Flynn, delves into the intricacies of psychological isolation.

 

At The New Theatre, Trifled by Caitlin Magnall-Kearns about a bolshy young Northern Irish woman who is housebound with agoraphobia and trying to make the best of a sticky situation. A brutally honest, darkly comedic two-hander.

 

Fishamble's world premiere of BREAKING by Amy Kidd asks fascinating and profound questions about how we navigate a world without any simple answers. How do we judge, when we can't trust our own judgement? Who do we distrust and who gets the benefit of the doubt? (Draíocht)

 

A vagabond new play criss-crossing the city (Once Off Productions) by Kate Heffernan, Guest Host Stranger Ghost about living in someone else's home, which will be performed on the sets of other people's plays. Each iteration offers a completely unique encounter (various theatres see website).

 

An upbeat spectacle, which is slowly breaking apart. Forced Entertainment's (UK) Signal to Noise, a delirious late- night churn of fragments, enlists AI voices to perform the text as six performers lip-sync all the voices (Samuel Beckett Theatre).

 

The Winter's Tale – retold from the perspective of the Bear. Exit, Pursued by a Bear by William Shakespeare and Pan Pan. Pan Pan's response to The Winter's Tale.

 

A major new ensemble play, Reunion (Landmark Productions and Galway International Arts Festival) starring a roll-call of Ireland's finest actors. Written and directed by Mark O'Rowe who turns his laser focus on the deep currents of family life with a masterfully orchestrated story which resonates with biting humour, profound insights and extraordinary authenticity.

 

Presented ahead of a highly anticipated Off- Broadway run, A Knock on the Roof is by Khawla Ibraheem who is herself based in the occupied Golan Heights. Mariam prepares for war, practising how far she can run in five minutes, and what she can carry to safety (Piece by Piece productions (USA). Smock Alley Theatre).

 

An extraordinary true story, brought to life in an exhilarating, adrenaline-filled way from Rough Magic and Lime Tree Theatre | Belltable, Freefalling by Georgina Miller. Aerial flight captures the joy of living life to the full, and the terror of being trapped in a body that refuses to function (Draíocht).

 

A world premiere - an epic adaptation of Nobel Prize laureate J.M. Coetzee's novels, The Jesus Trilogy is a moving saga exploring the legacy of memory, the nature of passion, and dance (Hatch Theatre Company) re-uniting Annabelle Comyn and Eoghan Quinn (colic, DTF 2022) together with a team of leading creatives (Project Arts Centre).

In the funny and provocative Global Desires (Outlandish Theatre) we meet Polina, a Russian poet, living in Dublin 8. With an international ensemble of performers we consider our myriad desires against the desire plots of Maxim Gorky's play Summerfolk (Bay 1 @ Digital Hub).

 

Pioneer of hip hop theatre turned award-winning photographer, Benji Reid (UK) mixes Afro-futurist imagery with hard-hitting tales from his life and adventures in a unique show – Find Your Eyes (O'Reilly Theatre, Belvedere).

 

From Javaad Alipoor Company (UK) & Riverside's National Theatre of Parramatta (Aus), part free-wheeling comic lecture, part podcast and part play, Things Hidden Since the Foundation of the World is a thrilling ride down the rabbit hole of Wikipedia and murder mystery podcasts about a case you've never heard of - the unsolved murder of a pop icon, the Iranian Tom Jones.

 

15th Oak make their festival debut with a darkly comic new play that blends multimedia, movement and live illustration. CONTENT by Ross Dugan is the story of the unseen people who are charged with scooping up the sum total of our daily online toxic waste. Armed with a teaspoon. (Project Cube).

 

Irish composer Emma O'Halloran has turned two of her uncle Mark O'Halloran's (Adam & Paul, Garage) plays into searing operas for Irish National Opera – Trade and Mary Motorhead (Pavilion Theatre)

For younger audiences there is an exciting Family programme including the Theatre for Children programme curated by The Ark.

Created, written and performed by Julie Sharkey, a charming and moving story, An Ant Called Amy, about an ant who learns to slow down (ages 5-8) directed by Raymond Keane. This will include an audio described performance and Touch Tour as well as some relaxed performances.

 

From Maas Theater and Dance (Netherlands) BullyBully, a hilarious musical for ages 3+ told in the style of West Side Story, with two performers, many songs, funny quarrels, a bit of bickering, and (eventually) a happy ending.

Acrobatic sound theatre that appeals to the senses, Murmur, from Grensgeval I.C.W. Aifoon (Belgium) for ages 4+

Barnstorm, a new play Grace for young people (8+) and families by Jody O'Neill, exploring family and communication as Grace and her father invite you into the multisensory landscape of her world. All performances will be relaxed performances as well as some audio described and ISL interpreted performances.

 

FESTIVAL+ , a series of talks, critical events includes: 7 works-in-progress showings as well as a first look at four new works from the Rachel Baptiste mentored script development programme for Black Irish theatre makers and writers of colour. Two walking tours - Dublin's older theatre history walking tour and Dublin a city of drama tour as well as backstage tours of the Abbey. Panel discussions - Young Critics, International Theatre Forum and a final discussion looking back at productions audiences saw this year.

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