The W. Scott McLucas Studio Theatre
Written by Harold Prince
Adapted from Sean O’Casey’s Autobiographies
Directed by Patrick Fitzgerald
Music Director: Stephen Kennedy Murphy
Saturday, April 13 at 8pm
Sunday, April 14 at 3pm
For this acclaimed 1992 Irish Rep original production, esteemed director Harold Prince adapted Sean O’Casey’s autobiographies for the stage, transforming O’Casey’s life into a riveting theatrical experience. The play covers O’Casey’s early years, from birth to his early twenties. This award-winning play showcases and illuminates O’Casey’s rich and complex early life growing up in turn-of-the-20th-century Dublin. Audiences witness O’Casey’s evolution to master playwright, beginning with his determined self-education after an illness caused failing eyesight, preventing him from attending school. He becomes an amateur actor, takes up politics and labor organizing as a young worker, and becomes invested in the Gaelic revival.
An original Irish Repertory Theatre production, Grandchild of Kings premiered in February of 1992 at Theater for The New City during Irish Rep’s 3rd Season. Its 19-person cast starred Patrick Fitzgerald, the Director of this Reading Series event, as young Sean O’Casey, and included two members of this season’s O’Casey Cycle cast: Terry Donnelly, and Irish Rep Producing Director Ciarán O’Reilly. The production received a Drama Desk Award and three Outer Critics Circle nominations. Time Magazine called it “Exuberant, emotionally rich” and The New Yorker stated “No synopsis could do justice to the richness of Grandchild of Kings. Every moment is alive with characters, with music and dancing, and with feelings that explode and vanish.”
All readings are free to attend. Invitations were sent via email. To request an invitation, call the Irish Rep box office at 212-727-2737.
