Theatre, Music, Poetry and More Slated for Irish Arts Center's Fall 2017 Season

Irish Arts Center (IAC), the arts and cultural center dedicated to projecting a dynamic image of Ireland and Irish America for the 21st century, has announced its fall 2017 season. THE LINEUP epitomizes IAC's commitment to building community with a diversity of arts institutions, artists and audiences - in New York, across America, and abroad.

IAC continues to animate its neighborhood with special site-specific programming. Following Enda Walsh's haunting installation Rooms earlier this year, the U.S. premiere of Beckett in the City: The Women Speak (September 20 - October 1), from Sarah Jane Scaife and Company SJ, will fill the walls of the old piano factory space at 508 West 52nd Street with the reinvented voices of Beckett's women, resituating them from Dublin to New York City. In conjunction with this production, IAC will present a photographic exhibition featuring John Minihan's iconic portraits of Samuel Beckett and various artists he inspired (opening September 11). Scaife will also offer a master class and workshop, Sculpting Beckett in Space (September 27), which will focus on Beckett's use of the body as sculpture.

IAC grows in its role as a gateway for Irish artists to the U.S. and for American artists to Ireland with the first tour of one its programs, Masters in Collaboration: Liam Ó Maonlaí Meets Cassandra Wilson. This singular collaboration between the Irish folk singer and American jazz vocalist will travel to Los Angeles and Chicago, before returning to New York for encore performances at IAC on November 11 & 12.

This fall, IAC expands the range of their partnerships with fellow NYC cultural institutions to support a widening range of artists and help them to reach new audiences. The season launches a new partnership with National Sawdust, co-presenting Irish artists This is How We Fly (October 27 & 28). IAC will co-present this year's Family Music Day (September 23) with The Orchestra of St. Luke's, at the DiMenna Center for Classical Music; Saturday Morning Cartoons (December 9) with the Museum of the Moving Image; and RIOT (February 15-17, 2018), from Dublin's THISISPOPBABY, with NYU Skirball Center for the Performing Arts.

Irish Arts Center also presents new editions of its signature artist-curated programs, including Muldoon's Picnic (September 11, October 9, November 13), a feast of music, storytelling and poetry hosted and organized by Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Paul Muldoon; SongLives (November 1), a showcase of Ireland and North America's most exciting contemporary singer-songwriters, curated by Grammy Award-winner Susan McKeown and featuring performances by Niall Connolly, Anna Tivel and Jeffrey Martin; PoetryFest (Nov 3-5), a three-day festival featuring top contemporary poets from both sides of the Atlantic, organized by Northern Irish novelist and poet Nick Laird and presented in association with Literary HUB and Glucksman Ireland House NYU; the jazz series Tobin's Run on 51 (October 12), curated by Christine Tobin, this time honoring the jazz label that once inhabited IACs current space, Riverside Records; and IAC's beloved Winter Solstice Celebration (December 15), featuring festive performances by a cast of America's top Irish and world musicians, curated by Mick Moloney.

As always, the season features eclectic music programming, including the U.S. solo debut of former Celtic Woman star Lisa Lambe, performing with members of The Hothouse Flowers (September 29 & 30). Described by The New York Times as an artist who inhabits the works of those she covers with a ferocious commitment to unearthing their truths, chanteuse Camille O'Sullivan returns to IAC to sing the songs of Jacques Brel (October 18-22). IAC will also host this year's New York Trad Fest (November 10), curated by Tony DeMarco and featuring performances by local masters of traditional Irish, bluegrass and old-time American music. In The Whistling Girl (Nov 17-18), composer Trevor Knight transforms the poetry of Dorothy Parker into song performed in a cabaret setting by Honor Heffernan.

Literary programming includes award-winning writer Sebastian Barry, who will read from his latest novel, Days Without End (September 21). In partnership with Fordham University and the Irish Women's Symposium, Expanding the Canon (September 28), with academic authors Fiona Coleman Coffey and Elizabeth Mannion, will be a unique evening celebrating the social histories of women in Irish theatre on the twentieth century stage. Karl Geary will read from his debut novel (October 3), accompanied by special musical guests Jenna Nicholls and Gerry Leonard, and in conversation with playwright Dael Orlandersmith. Author Ron Rosbottom will host Pen Paper Palate (November 7), a literary salon featuring a panel of renowned Irish and American biographers.

In addition to Family Day and Saturday Morning Cartoons, the season's family programming includes An Irish Halloween / Oíche Shamhna (October 29), which celebrates the Celtic roots of Halloween; and the third annual Rí Rá Children's Festival of Literature (November 19), with Children's Books Ireland, featuring some of Ireland and New York's greatest children's authors and illustrators.

Other highlights include Movements: A Conversation with Ambassador Samantha Power and journalist Niall Stanage (September 14); the Sundays at Seven comedy series (October 15, November 19); screenings of Cathal Kenna's documentary Coming Home (October 25), which portrays five Irish emigrants returning to Ireland, and Peader King's film Western Sahara - A Deserted People, the story of a deserted people and a testimony to human resilience, in partnership with Robert F. KENNEDY Human Rights (November 6); and this year's Spirit of Ireland Gala, honoring Steve Martin and Paul Muldoon, October 13 at Cipriani 42nd Street.

IAC commissions a number of new works this season, including Deirdre Kinahan's Ettie, an ambitious new theater production reimagining the life of Ettie Steinberg, the only known Irish citizen to have been murdered in the Holocaust; Uncle Ray, a new collaboration from David Bolger and CoisCéim Dance Theatre that reimagines the life and work of Ray Bolger, best known as the Scarecrow in The Wizard of Oz; Girl Song, a fierce and multi-layered dance-theatre creation from choreographer and performer Emma Martin (Enda Walsh's Arlington); and Olagón, a new collaboration between four-time Grammy-winning ensemble Eighth Blackbird, and longtime IAC artists Paul Muldoon, Dan Trueman and Iarla Ó Lionáird.

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Irish Arts Center FALL 2017 PROGRAMMING:

[MUSIC / LITERARY EVENT]
Muldoon's Picnic
Hosted by Paul Muldoon
With music by Rogue Oliphant
September 11, October 9, November 13 at 7:30 PM
September 11 Guests: Dan Barry, Lucie Brock-Briodo, Damsel (Beth Myers and Monica Mugan), Edmund White
October 9 Guests: Michael Brunnock, Dinner, The Cornelius Eady Trio, Min Jin Lee
November 13 Guests: Shaker Flynn, The Christine Tobin Trio, Kevin Young, Erica Jong
Irish Arts Center
Premium tickets: $40 ($32 members) / General tickets: $35 ($28 members)

Now in its seventh season, Muldoon's Picnic, Irish Arts Center's acclaimed feast of music, storytelling and poetry has become a staple of New York's cultural diet. Hosted by Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Paul Muldoon, and featuring house band Rogue Oliphant, the words-and-music jamboree features an evolving lineup of world-class special guests from the across the spectrum of arts and letters.

[THEATER / PERFORMANCE]
Company SJ
Beckett in the City: The Women Speak (American Premiere)
Written by Samuel Beckett
Directed by Sarah Jane Scaife
Starring Bríd Ní Neachtain, Michèle Forbes and Joan Davis
September 20 - October 1 (Wednesday - Saturday at 8pm, Saturdays at 2pm, Sundays at 3pm)
508 West 52nd Street, meeting place at Irish Arts Center
General tickets: $34 ($28 members)

Experience the women who inhabit some of Beckett's best-known short works, women whose connection between body and soul has ruptured. Director Sarah Jane Scaife places Beckett's characters from the page into the urban landscape, using the aesthetic tools of the body, sound, site, movement, architecture, and projection to put flesh on the scars the playwright reveals within our society.

Beckett in the City is a body of work that celebrates and reveals Beckett's writings as existing all around us. This beautiful production premiered at the Dublin Fringe Festival 2015.

Beckett in the City: The Women Speak, follows on conceptually from Company SJ's first collaboration with Raymond Keane and Bryan Burroughs on the presentation of Act Without Words II on the streets of Dublin for the Dublin Fringe Festival.

This site-specific production, which introduces Company SJ to American audiences, features four Beckett works: Footfalls, a drama of containment in the form of a girl who has never been fully born; Rockaby, which follows a woman confined to her rocker, like her mother before her; Not I, where a babbling mouth evokes bodily immobility and some unspecified traumatic event; and Come and Go, in which three female figures seem to be trapped in a permutation of gesture, one leaves, a whisper is shared, she returns, and all is repeated.

[MASTER CLASS & WORKSHOP]
Sculpting Beckett in Space with Dr. Sarah Jane Scaife
September 27 at [6:30pm]
244 W 54th St, New York, NY 10019, 10th floor
Tickets: $50 ($40 members, seniors and students)

Beckett's concentration on the body and its experience in space is essential to understanding the writer's prose and drama. The stage becomes a canvas, and the performer's bodies become the paint and clay.

The first part of this workshop will involve exercises to help students experience their body physically, both outwardly and from within, including exercises inspired by Butoh and Polish mime. The second part will look at Beckett's shorter plays, and will illustrate his use of the body as sculpture. Plays will be read with the intention of creating a new perspective, one that calls attention to the importance not just of words spoken, but also of stage direction, gesture, costume, lighting and movement.

No prior performance experience is necessary for this workshop, but a familiarity with Beckett might help, whether through studying his writing, performing it, or even as an audience member of one of his works.

[PHOTOGRAPHY / VISUAL ART]
Beckett and His World
John Minihan
Gallery hours by appointment: Monday - Friday, 10am - 6pm
Artist talk and reception: October 10 at 6pm
Irish Arts Center
FREE | Reservations encouraged

Walter Asmus directed Waiting for Godot and worked with Samuel Beckett in Berlin in the 1970s, author Edna O'Brien and publisher John Calder made up his circle in London, and actor Lisa Dwan gave life to Not I as never before. These are some of the luminaries who made up a world of Beckett, both during his life, and after his passing. John Minihan captures their essence in black and white portraiture, including his iconic images of Beckett himself.

In his artist talk "Beckett and the Wake," John remembers spending time with a playwright who was often a reluctant subject and rarely posed.

John Minihan photographed volumes I and II of IAC's cultural exhibition To Love Two Countries, a celebration of the men and women who immigrated to the United States in the early half of the twentieth century.

[CONVERSATION]

Movements: A Conversation with Ambassador Samantha Power
With Journalist Niall Stanage
September 14 at 7:30pm
Irish Arts Center
Tickets: $35

Irish Arts Center's Movements series features thought-provoking conversations with important global voices, bringing a current affairs context to the institution's cultural programming. Following the initial evening of Movements with Senator George Mitchell, IAC welcomes Samantha Power, Pulitzer Prize-winning author and former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, for an intimate conversation with Niall Stanage, Irish journalist and Associate Editor of the American political newspaper The Hill.

Called by Forbes "a powerful crusader for U.S foreign policy as well as human rights and democracy," Ambassador Power has been named one of TIME's "100 Most Influential People" and one of Foreign Policy's "Top 100 Global Thinkers."

[LITERATURE]
Sebastian Barry in Conversation with Sabina Murray
Days Without End
September 21 at 7:30pm
Irish Arts Center
Tickets: $18 ($15 members)
Free for Friend / Young Patron ($125) members and higher

"Time was not something then we thought of as an item that possessed an ending, but something that would go on forever, all rested and stopped in that moment."

Sebastian Barry, who was #1 on The Guardian's list of top ten writers to see live, comes to Irish Arts Center to read from his latest literary triumph, Days Without End. The two-time shortlisted Man Booker Prize author of A Long Long Way and The Secret Scriptures will be joined in conversation with Sabina Murray, author of Valiant Gentleman.

Set against the wild and violent backdrop of the 1850s American West, Days Without End tells the story of Irish immiGrant Thomas McNulty and his companion John Cole as they experience the harrowing realities of the Indian wars and the American Civil War. Hauntingly brutal and atmospheric, Barry's narrative evokes the language of Cormac McCarthy and Thornton Wilder.

Presented in association with Glucksman Ireland House NYU

[FAMILY EVENT]
Family Music Day
Presented in association with Orchestra of St. Luke's
September 23 at 10am
The DiMenna Center for Classical Music (430 West 37th St)
Free Admission

IAC and Orchestra of St. Luke's present an eventful and hands-on morning of musical experiment and entertainment. Children and adults alike can play orchestral and traditional Irish music at the instrument petting zoo, make instruments to take home, create art at the coloring station, win gifts and prizes, and enjoy performances from the Orchestra of Saint Luke's String Quartet, students of Youth Orchestra of St. Luke's, and Irish Arts Center musicians.

[LITERATURE & CONVERSATION]
Expanding the Canon
With Fiona Coleman and Elizabeth Mannion
Moderated by Keri Walsh
Presented in association with Fordham University
September 28 at 7:30pm
Irish Arts Center
Free Admission

In partnership with Fordham University, IAC presents a unique evening celebrating the social histories of 20th Century women in Irish theatre. Drawing on their respective publications, Political Acts: Women in Northern Irish Theatre and The Urban Plays of the Early Abbey Theatre, academics Fiona Coleman Coffey and Elizabeth Mannion will discuss how gender, civil rights, and the rural-urban contrast have played out on the Irish stage and in academia, from the founding of Dublin's Abbey Theatre to the brink of Brexit.

The evening is presented as part of the Irish Women Writers Symposium at Fordham University, dedicated to celebrating and exploring the works of Irish and Irish-American women writers and scholars.

[LIVE MUSIC]
Lisa Lambe
September 29 & 30 at 8pm
Irish Arts Center
Tickets: $24 ($20 members)

Irish singer, actor and songwriter Lisa Lambe (Celtic Woman) will join us with collaborators Fiachna O'Braonain and Peter O'Toole of the Hothouse Flowers to showcase her gentle and heartfelt world of song. In concert, you will hear Lambe's remarkable voice as you've never heard it before.

[MUSIC & LITERATURE]
Karl Geary
Montpelier Parade
Music by Jenna Nicholls and Gerry Leonard
Moderated by Dael Orlandersmith
October 3 at 7:30pm
Irish Arts Center
Tickets: $18 ($15 members)

Karl Geary, Dublin-born actor and co-founder of East Village music venues Sin-é and the Scratcher, launches his luminous first novel, Montpelier Parade, with an evening of words and music. Unfolding in the sea-bright, rain-soaked Dublin of early spring, Montpelier Parade is a beautiful cinematic novel about desire, longing, grief, hope, and the things that remain unspoken. Concluding this reading with live music will be a conversation with actress, poet and playwright Dael Orlandersmith.

[LIVE MUSIC]
Tobin's Run on 51
Curated by Christine Tobin and Paul Robeson
October 12 at 7:30pm
Irish Arts Center
Tickets: $24 ($20 members)

Our newest artist-curated jazz series, Tobin's Run on 51, returns with a special tribute to Riverside Records, the American jazz record company that previously inhabited the home of Irish Arts Center at 553 West 51st Street. Founded by Orrin Keepnews and Bill Grauer, the label played an important role in the jazz record industry and represented jazz and blues veterans such as Thelonious Monk, Randy Weston, Cannonball Adderley, Bill Evans, Charlie Byrd, Johnny Griffin, Wes Montgomery, and folk artists Bascom Lamar Lunsford, Obray Ramsey, George Pegram, and Walter Parham.

The award-winning Irish vocalist, songwriter and composer Christine Tobin and acclaimed jazz guitarist Phil Robson will bring together some of New York's best Irish and international musicians to awaken the spirits that will forever inhabit our historic home, including Peter Brendler, upright bass, Charles Goold, drums, Craig Handy, saxophone, and Fintan O'Neill, piano.

[GALA]
The Spirit of Ireland Gala
Honoring Steve Martin and Paul Muldoon
Hosted by Liam Neeson and Gabriel Byrne
Friday, October 13 at 6pm
Cipriani 42nd Street
Tickets: $1,000 +
Reservations: Adam Lamberg at 212-757-3318 ext. 222 / adam@irishartscenter.org

The Spirit of Ireland Gala is one of New York City's premier gatherings of supporters of Irish arts and culture here. This year, as in the past ten years, this stunning event is hosted by the organization's Honorary Co-Chairs, Liam Neeson and Gabriel Byrne. During the gala, IAC presents the Spirit of Ireland Award to individuals who have made a remarkable contribution to the fields of arts and business, and who embody the spirit of the Irish -tenacity, creativity, resilience, integrity, humor, charisma, indomitability and, of course, a unique talent for storytelling. This year's honorees are Steve Martin and Paul Muldoon.

[COMEDY]
Sundays at Seven
Curated by Fiona Walsh and Ann Design
October 15, November 19 at 7pm
Irish Arts Center
Tickets: $12 ($10 members)
Free for Friend / Young Patron ($125) members and higher

Curators Fiona Walsh and Ann Design keep Irish Arts Center audiences in stitches with this monthly evening of comedy and music. Sundays at Seven features the most exciting voices in comedy, from up-and-coming stars to seasoned industry professionals featured on "Letterman," "Conan," HBO, Comedy Central and more. It is the perfect way to end a weekend.

Past performers of Sundays at Seven include Jim Gaffigan, Colin Quinn, Eddie Brill, Susan Prekel, Maureen Langan, Myk Kaplan and Anthony Rapp.

[LIVE MUSIC]
Camille O'Sullivan Sings Jaqcues Brel
October 18 - 22 at 8pm
Irish Arts Center
Premium tickets: $40 ($32 members) / General tickets: $32 ($28 members)

The Irish-French chanteuse Camille O'Sullivan returns to Irish Arts Center with a tribute to the legendary Belgian singer-songwriter Jacques Brel. In an emotional and thrilling performance with her live band and longtime collaborator, the pianist Feargal Murray, O'Sullivan summons the haunting Parisian soul within Brel's repertoire, including such favorites as "Amsterdam" and "Je Ne Me Quitte Pas."Her past engagements at IAC have showcased her chameleon-like interpretations of some of the 20th Century's most beloved songwriters. This return to IAC's intimate Donaghy Theater is an opportunity experience not only THE VOICE and charisma of O'Sullivan, but also the power and passion of Brel.

[FILM]
Coming Home
Directed by Cathal Kenna
October 25 at 7:30pm
Irish Arts Center
Tickets: $12 ($10 members)
Free for Friend / Young Patron ($125) members and higher

A landmark documentary portraying five Irish emigrants returning home to Ireland, Coming Home charts the experience each of them faced-the initial departure from Ireland, the thrill of arriving in new unexplored worlds, coping with homesickness, and the decision to return home. A talkback with director Cathal Kenna will follow the screening.

[LIVE MUSIC]
This is How We Fly
Irish Origins Series, Presented in Association with National Sawdust
October 27 at 8pm and October 28 at 3pm
National Sawdust (80 N 6th St., Brooklyn)
Tickets available at National Sawdust

Fusing traditional Irish music, Swedish folk, jazz and percussive dance music, the beloved This is How We Fly return to New York City to perform work from their highly anticipated second album. Recorded live over three performances in Dublin, the new release l is utterly unique, combining the individual culture and musical vocabularies of these four musicians with a liberated and playful spirit. This concert follows their rapturously-received performances at IAC in spring 2015.

[FAMILY PROGRAMMING]
An Irish Halloween / Oíche Shamhna
October 29, 12-3pm
Irish Arts Center
FREE

New York's favorite holiday, Halloween, descends from the Irish Celtic tradition of Samhain, where the original jack-o'-lanterns were carved from turnips, potatoes and beets. This year IAC pays homage to Halloween's origins with a captivating exploration of light and shadows. Families can celebrate the Autumn Moon with a shadow puppet show from Chinese Theatre Works, creative projects featuring turnip carving and lantern making, traditional Irish dance performance from Darrah Carr Dance, traditional Irish Halloween games, a flashlight dance party, and more.

[LIVE MUSIC]
SongLives
Curated by Grammy Award-winner Susan McKeown
Performances by Niall Connolly, Anna Tivel and Jeffrey Martin
November 1 at 8pm
Irish Arts Center
Tickets: $18 ($14 members)

SongLives showcases Ireland's and North America's most exciting contemporary singer-songwriters, bringing the rich tradition of busking on Dublin's Grafton Street to the cozy confines of IAC's Donaghy Theatre for a night of authentic music and warm company. Three solo artists with a deep love of stories will treat audiences to new tracks from their newly released albums.

Cork man Niall Connolly will return to Irish Arts Center with his infectious melodies and engaging lyrics, performing an acoustic set. Joining him will be Portland-based songwriter Jeffrey Martin, who has been likened to Josh Ritter, John Gorka and Joe Pug; as well as award-winning indie folk songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Anna Tivel.

[LITERATURE]
PoetryFest
Curated by Nick Laird
Presented by Irish Arts Center in association with Literary HUB and Glucksman Ireland House NYU
November 3 - 5
Irish Arts Center
Premium tickets: $50 / General tickets: $35

Described as "literary revelry" by The New Yorker, Irish Arts Center's PoetryFest returns for its ninth annual edition. Once again curated by Nick Laird, this three-day festival of contemporary poetry gathers poets from both sides of the Atlantic. This weekend of free events also includes an evening curated by Stonecutter Magazine, featuring emerging voices and more. Participating poets include Billy Collins, Terrance Hayes, Sinéad Morrissey, Alice Lyons, Seamus Heaney Center for Poetry Prize-winner Adam Crothers, Iggy McGovern, Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin, Caitríona O'Reilly, Rowan Ricardo Phillips, and more.

A highlight is Favorite Poems (Nov 3 at 8pm)-in which IAC friends and special guests read a selection of well-known, personally-chosen poems-includes an after-party with poets and guests.

[FILM]
Western Sahara - A Deserted People
Directed by Peader King
November 6 at 7:30pm
Irish Arts Center
Tickets: $12 ($10 members)

A story of a deserted people and a testimony to human resilience, the compelling documentary Western Sahara - A Deserted People explores the hardships faced by the Sahrawi people. Set in the searing heat of the refugee camps in the desert of Algeria and in the occupied Western Sahara, the film tells the profoundly moving story of how the Sahrawi people's lives have been framed by poverty and injustice over their 40 year-long displacement. Exposing the human consequences of global economic inequalities, a hostile political environment and human rights violations, Western Sahara - A Deserted People illustrates an indifferent world. The screening will be followed by a conversation with King.

Presented in association with Robert F. KENNEDY Human Rights.

[LITERATURE & CONVERSATION]
Pen Paper Palate: Authors Who Write about Personalities
Moderated by Ron Rosbottom
Presented in Association with Ruda Beresford Dauphin
Tuesday, November 7 at 7pm
The Half King (505 W 51st St)
Tickets $10

A hotbed of creativity and ideas, this engrossing literary salon welcomes professor, essayist and author Ronald Rosbottom (When Paris Went Dark) as moderator, with panelists who have spent their careers researching and documenting the lives of some of the most important people of our time. The evening will include live music, a special menu, mingling and book signings.

Panelists include Mary V. Dearborn (Ernest Hemingway: A Biography),Michael Schulman (Her Again: Becoming Meryl Streep), Edward Sorel (Mary Astor's Purple Diary: The Great American Sex SCANDAL of 1936), William Taubman (Gorbachev: His Life and Times) and Victoria Wilson, (A Life of Barbara Stanwyck).

[MUSIC]
New York Trad Fest
Curated by Tony DeMarco
Friday, November 10 at 8pm
Irish Arts Center
Tickets: $40

Local masters of traditional Irish, bluegrass and old-time American music come together for New York Trad Fest at Irish Arts Center, kicking off a weekend of events all over the city. Curated by Brooklyn-born fiddler Tony DeMarco, the concert will feature performances by award-winning fiddlers Matthew Mancuso and Patrick Mangan, and accordionist James Keane with uilleann piper Jerry O'Sullivan, and more. For more information on the full schedule, please visit NewYorkTradFest.org.

[LIVE MUSIC]
Masters in Collaboration: Liam Ó Maonlaí Meets Cassandra Wilson
November 11 & 12 at 8pm
Irish Arts Center
Premium tickets: $75

More than any other building in the city, the New Irish Arts Center is defined by the dynamism and diversity of the unusual, exciting artistic marriages that emerge from our creative home.

Forged in explosive, emotional fashion at our 2016 Ireland Rising concert and deepened in our 11th Masters in Collaboration series last November, the thrilling artistic partnership of Liam Ó Maonlaí and Cassandra Wilson returns this fall with special touring performances at two of the country's most beloved intimate venues-Largo at the Coronet in Los Angeles and The Old Town School in Chicago-followed by an exclusive return engagement at Irish Arts Center. Featuring a stellar ensemble of top Irish, folk and jazz musicians from both sides of the Atlantic.

[LIVE MUSIC]
Whistling Girl
Composed by Trevor Night
Vocals by Honor Heffernan
With Musicians Ed Deane (guitar), Garvan Gallagher (bass) and Tom Jamieson (drums)
November 17 & 18 at 8pm
Irish Arts Center
Premium tickets: $34 ($28 members); General tickets: $28 ($23 members)

Dublin-based composer and musician Trevor Knight and singer/actor Honor Heffernan bring their reimagining of the work of Dorothy Parker to Irish Arts Center this fall.

Embracing dirty-cabaret, electronic-vaudeville, rock, and jazz, Knight's arrangements lend a vital theatricality to Parker's sardonic verse. He, Heffernan, and their full band channel the spirit of an American literary icon during Parker's years of notoriety in New York.

In association with the Dorothy Parker Society.

[CHILDREN'S EVENT]
Rí Rá Children's Festival of Literature
Presented by Irish Arts Center and Children's Books Ireland
Sunday, November 19 from 12pm - 3pmIrish Arts Center
Tickets: $5 per person, per event / $15 festival Pass (+ get 20% off books)
$50 Festival Family Pass (2 adults + 2 kids OR 1 adult + 3 kids + 20% off books)
Free for Junior Joyce & Family Circle Members
Recommended for readers 5-8 years-old, but open to all

Irish Arts Center's third annual literature festival for children (and their grown-ups) celebrates work from today's very best Irish children's authors and illustrators. Audiences enjoy a friendly, family atmosphere while discovering new books, meeting the authors and illustrators, and participating in hands-on art workshops and activities.

This year's line-up includes Niamh Sharkey, Sarah Webb, and Steve McCarthey. Full line up to be announced at irishartscenter.org.

[FAMILY PROGRAMMING]
Saturday Morning Cartoons
Presented in Association with Museum of the Moving Image
Saturday, December 9, 11am - 1pmMuseum of the Moving Image (36-01 35th Ave, Queens)
Tickets: $15 per adult / $7 per child
Free for Junior Joyce & Family Circle members

Ireland is home to acclaimed animation studios that have helped to create such beloved films as the Academy Award-nominated The Book of Kells and Song of the Sea. Irish Arts Center joins forces with the Museum of the Moving Image present a special edition of IAC's Saturday Morning Cartoons, offering audiences an opportunity to learn about the arts of animation and filmmaking while viewing some of the most imaginative and entertaining cartoons coming out of Ireland today.

[LIVE MUSIC]
Irish Arts Center Winter Solstice Celebration with Mick Moloney, Athena Tergis & Friends
December15 at 8pm
Symphony Space (2537 Broadway)
Premium Orchestra: $65 / Orchestra: $50 ($40 members)
Balcony: $40 ($32 members) / $25 students and seniors

It wouldn't be the holiday season without the cross-cultural ebb and flow of IAC's favorite annual celebration of world music, dance and storytelling. Featuring Mick Moloney, Athena Tergis, and a cast of America's top Irish and international musicians, the Winter Solstice Celebration is guaranteed to fill hearts with cheer. The Huffington Post calls this unforgettable journey of winter solstice traditions from around the world "one of the best Irishcontributions to a New York Christmas."

[PERFORMANCE]
RIOT
By THISISPOPBABY
Co-presented with NYU Skirball Center for the Performing Arts
February 15-17, 2018, at 7:30pm
NYU Skirball Center for the Performing Arts (566 LaGuardia Pl, New York, NY)
Tickets: $50

RIOT, the jaw-dropping theatrical highlight and winner of Best Production at the 2016 Dublin Fringe Festival, is a disorderly cocktail of wild theater, gut-punching spoken word, banging jigs, slapstick comedy and eye-popping circus that leaves audiences dazzled and dizzy. RIOT is both party and politic, a love letter of hope to the future, and a clarion call on the state of the nation and a celebration of Ireland. The all-star cast includes Panti Bliss, Ireland's Queen of Drag.

THISISPOPBABY, self-described "theatre makers, club creatives and good time gurls," lands SOMEWHERE BETWEEN pop culture, counter culture, queer culture and high art. Founded in 2007, the Dublin-based company regularly sells out across Ireland and stages Queer Notions, a mini-festival of queer ideas and performance.

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Founded in 1972, Irish Arts Center is a New York-based arts and cultural center dedicated to projecting a dynamic image of Ireland and IrishAmerica for the 21st century, building community with artists and audiences of all backgrounds, forging and strengthening cross-cultural partnerships, and preserving the evolving stories and traditions of Irish culture for generations to come. Our multi-disciplinary programming is centered around three core areas: Performance - including live music, dance, theatre, film, literature, and the humanities; Exhibition - including visual arts presentations and cultural exhibitions that tell the evolving Irish story; and Education - with dozens of classes per week in Irish language, history, music, and dance.

Located in New York City, a global capital of arts and culture, Irish Arts Center serves as a dynamic platform for top emerging and established artists. Irish Arts Center is currently developing plans to construct a new facility to serve our multi-disciplinary program and will be the strongest possible gateway for artists to reach into our cultural community and nourish their work, to connect with our partner institutions who help them innovate, and to become visible in The New York City media market which enhances their ability to achieve U.S and further international success.

The New Irish Arts Center will contain a purpose-built, state-of-the-art contemporary performance space for music, dance and theatre seating up to 160; industry-standard back of house and support facilities to allow artists to achieve their vision; a second, intimate performance space - the renovated historic Irish Arts Center theatre - optimized for live music, literature, film, talks, large classes and special events; classrooms and studio space for community education programs in Irish music, dance, language, history, and the humanities, and for master classes and workshops by visiting and resident artists; technology capability to project the Irish Arts Center experience on the digital platform; an avenue-facing café lobby to engage with the neighborhood and provide a social setting for conversation and interaction between artists and audiences; a beautiful new courtyard entrance on 51st Street where the historic Irish Arts Center building and the new facility meet.

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