Irish Repertory Theatre

Irish Drama.
New York Style.

2018-2019 Season

Love, Noël

THE SONGS AND LETTERS OF NOËL COWARD

in the W. Scott McLucas Studio Theatre

For the 2020 Digital Production, visit irishrep.org/noelonscreen

Written and Devised by Barry Day
Directed by Charlotte Moore

Starring Steve Ross and KT Sullivan

July 27 – August 25, 2019

“Charming… [the songs are] all terribly clever and amusing.” – The New Yorker

Get to know the life and times of one of the 20th century’s most dynamic creative icons – Noël Coward – through this intimate performance in which Steve Ross and KT Sullivan transform into some of the many characters that made up Coward’s unique life…Gertrude Lawrence, Marlene Dietrich, Greta Garbo, Elaine Stritch, Lynn Fontanne, Virginia Woolf, Edna Ferber, the Queen Mother, and, of course, The Master himself, Noël Coward.

Through Coward’s songs, stories, and personal letters, cabaret legends Steve Ross and KT Sullivan will summon up timeless memories of an era that may be gone, but is never to be forgotten.

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Love, Noël is an invigorating 90-minutes of trenchant wit, beautiful melodies and a reminder of what a brilliant legacy of words and music Coward left us.” – Talkin Broadway

“Sullivan’s fairy-footed soprano gleams like metal” – Time Out New York

★★★★Love, Noel “does service to its subject’s legendarily sharp wit… to charming and moving effect.” – Elysa Gardner, New York Stage Review

★★★★★ – David Finkle, New York Stage Review

“For a rare look at some of the best material from another era, I suggest you visit the Irish Rep Theatre and delight in this small gem of a show.” – On and Off Broadway

“it is the two stars who turn the Irish Rep’s tiny studio theatre into a living room where they can entertain their friends with superbly crafted songs and sophisticated repartee… I commend to you this tribute to one of the twentieth century’s greatest entertainers.” – Lighting & Sound America

Steve Ross “delivers excellent patter with his unspoiled take on arrangement and lyrics… [KT] Sullivan is pitch perfect.” – Woman Around Town

This is the New York Premiere of Love, Noël: The Letters and Songs of Noël Coward, an original entertainment devised by Barry Day. A previous version of the play was published by Samuel French in 2016 and premiered at The Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts in Los Angeles, CA in February 2014. This revised version starring Steve Ross and KT Sullivan premiered in February of this year at the Kravis Center in Palm Beach, FL.

Little Gem

The Francis J. Greenburger Mainstage

By Elaine Murphy
Directed by Marc Atkinson Borrull

Starring Brenda Meaney, Lauren O’Leary, and Marsha Mason

“a warm slice-of-life tale” – The New York Times

★★★★ “Murphy weaves everyday stories together with deceptive skill.” – Financial Times

“an altogether winning revival…the writing is wonderful full of incident, comedy, drama and emotion” – The New Yorker

Just Extended through September 8, 2019!

One year can bring extraordinary change; just ask Amber, Lorraine and Kay, three generations of North Dublin women who find themselves suddenly facing the unexpected. Young Amber’s case of indigestion – or perhaps it’s a brutal hangover? – grows into something more, while her mother Lorraine discovers salsa dancing after an incident at work leads to therapist-suggested self-care. Grandmother Kay, “on the wrong side of sixty, but not dead yet,” struggles to take care of a personal itch while adjusting to life as a caretaker for her beloved Gem. As the year moves forward, the women confront their individual challenges with courage and humor, finding strength in one another and discovering the beauty and complexity of family.

Hilarious and poignant, Irish playwright Elaine Murphy’s debut play, Little Gem, premiered at the Dublin Fringe Festival in 2008 where it won the Fishamble New Writing Award. It then transferred to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, where it won the Carol Tambor Best of Edinburgh Award, the festival’s top prize. Little Gem made its acclaimed US premiere in January of 2010 at the Flea Theater.

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“an altogether winning revival…the writing is wonderful full of incident, comedy, drama and emotion” – The New Yorker

★★★★ “Murphy weaves everyday stories together with deceptive skill.” – Financial Times

“a solid new production… human dramas… rendered delicately, empathetically, and perceptively.” – Theatermania 

“you will have to control your laughter… and then hold back your tears…eminently touching…The title of the play may be a spoiler alert.”- CurtainUp

“Marsha Mason, Brenda Meaney, and Lauren O’Leary are absolutely top-notch fantastic…an ebullient, emotive experience in the theatre.” – One Magazine

“Absolute Gem! Irish Rep’s Little Gem delights.” – IrishCentral / Irish Voice

★★★★ “Little Gem is modest in scale but proves to be generous with feelings… an engaging play that lives up to its title.” – Michael Sommers, New York Stage Review

★★★★ “a delight” – David Finkle, New York Stage Review

★★★★ “Mason is delightful, seamlessly combining humor and wisdom…it is excellent theatre, with moving performances and that particular brand of Irish humor that leavens life’s miseries with an appreciation of irony that has kept that sturdy little nation going through thick and thin. – New York Theatre Guide

“It’s perfect in its Irish-ness, filled to the brim with funny whip smart asides and sexual frankness that when delivered with that accent rings true and charming.” – Front Mezz Junkies

“all three portrayals are superb…another feather in the cap of the very vital Irish Repertory Theatre” – Wolf Entertainment Guide

“a fascinating and funny slice of life from Ireland in the early 21st century.” – Exeunt Magazine

“a small jewel in today’s rhinestone-studded theatrical landscape…consistently engaging, occasionally hilarious and sometimes heart wrenching.” – Theater News Online

Support for this production is provided by Culture Ireland.

YES!
Reflections of Molly Bloom

FOR THE 2022 PRODUCTION OF YES! REFLECTIONS OF MOLLY BLOOM, SEE HERE.

From the novel Ulysses by James Joyce
Adapted for stage by Aedín Moloney & Colum McCann
Music by Paddy Moloney
Directed by Kira Simring

Performed by Aedín Moloney

World Premiere presented by
Irish Repertory Theatre,
in association with Gabriel Byrne
in the W. Scott McLucas Studio Theatre

“exuberant…an unforgettable affirmation of life and joy” – Theatermania

“a veering, vivid, ribald monologue expertly performed by Ms. Moloney” – The New York Times

June 7 – July 7, 2019

A daring theatrical journey into the mind and heart of James Joyce’s most sensual hero – a woman of women, a soul of souls, the indomitable Molly Bloom.

It is Ireland in the early hours of June 17th, 1904. Molly Bloom’s husband – the wandering philandering Leopold “Poldy” Bloom – has just come home & fallen asleep in their Dublin row house. Molly – a daughter, a mother, a lover and a long suffering wife – patrols the pathways of her wild and leaping consciousness. She is lustful. Scared. Exuberant. Heartbreakingly lonely. Vivaciously reckless. And profoundly funny.

With an empty nest, an unfulfilling affair and a marriage long past its prime, Molly must find a way back to the rock-bed of love that she and Bloom once shared. Her unsentimental stream of consciousness is a song of songs that reaches backwards and forwards across the centuries.  Written one hundred years ago, Joyce’s words seem carved not just for today, but tomorrow too. Time ticks within time, dreams are upended, and life is thrown off balance. Molly seeks to reanimate love, and ends up discovering herself. Dublin becomes Gibraltar, age becomes youth, and a small room in Dublin becomes the world.

A beautiful and honest celebration of womanhood, written by James Joyce, adapted by Aedín Moloney and Colum McCann, and directed by Kira Simring, Moloney’s one-woman performance is a tribute to the enduring mysteries of loss and love – and the affirmation found, yes, in between.

“Yes, that was why I liked him.  Because I saw he understood or felt what a woman is … Yes!”

Free post-show discussions have been organized for Friday, July 5 with Director Kira Simring and after the evening performance on Saturday, July 6 with Peter Quinn and Colum McCann. These discussions are free for all performance attendees who wish to stay.

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“exuberant…an unforgettable affirmation of life and joy… an affirmation of female strength, liberation, and self-determination that we need to hear.” – Theatermania

“a veering, vivid, ribald monologue expertly performed by Ms. Moloney” – The New York Times

“In her dynamic portrayal, Moloney offers a portrait of woman burning to be seen and celebrated” – BroadwayWorld

“One of the best acting performances currently on stage in New York.” – Wolf Entertainment Guide

“strikingly presented…Moloney’s enthralling performance makes for an entrancing 80 minutes…Without being a Joycean scholar or just having slight or even no knowledge of its source material, one can still marvel at Moloney’s lyrical gutsiness and Yes! Reflections of Molly Bloom’s power.” – Theaterscene.net

“Moloney’s performance is, quite simply, a masterpiece.” – Theatre is Easy

Moloney dives into the monologue with passion and verve – CurtainUp

“this 75-minute monologue brings to full-bodied life one of Irish author’s James Joyce’s most indelible and interesting characters… say, “Yes! Yes! Yes!’” – Theater News Online

Production History:
After reading Ulysses as a young girl, Aedín Moloney began developing her unique interpretation of James Joyce’s Molly Bloom. In 2003, renowned author and Joyce enthusiast, Colum McCann, invited her to perform passages from the Penelope chapter at his annual Bloomsday celebration.  With McCann’s encouragement, Moloney released “Reflections of Molly Bloom” in 2017, an audio recording of the unabridged text, accompanied with music by Paddy Moloney (The Chieftains). This will be the world premiere of Yes! Reflections of Molly Bloom, adapted for the stage by Aedín Moloney and Colum McCann from James Joyce’s novel, Ulysses.

Please note: Due to nudity and explicit language, audience members must be at least 16 years old to attend this production.

The Sean O’Casey Season Reading Series

As part of The Sean O’Casey Season, Irish Repertory Theatre is delighted to present free readings of all of Sean O’Casey’s plays written from 1928 through his death in 1964, along with Grandchild of Kings, Harold Prince’s adaptation of Sean O’Casey’s autobiographies, in the W. Scott McLucas Studio Theatre. Together with The O’Casey Cycle, this series represents a full retrospective on the work of Sean O’Casey.

February events (listed below) are currently available for reservations. March and April events will be made available at a later date.

All readings are free to attend. To request an invitation, call the Irish Rep box office at 212-727-2737.

The Plough and the Stars

The Francis J. Greenburger Mainstage

by Sean O’Casey
directed by Charlotte Moore

“I cannot begin to catalog its virtues… The Plough and the Stars is the kind of show whose unflinching honesty will leave you open-mouthed with awe.” – The Wall Street Journal

With Úna Clancy, Terry Donnelly, Rory Duffy, Meg Hennessy, John Keating, Robert Langdon Lloyd, Ed Malone, Michael Mellamphy, Clare O’Malley, Adam Petherbridge, Maryann Plunkett, James Russell, Harry Smith, and Sarah Street

April 20 – June 22, 2019

Pretty young newlywed Nora Clitheroe is the talk of her tenement as she tirelessly works to lift her family out of their impoverished circumstances. She tries to keep her husband Jack from the revolutionary fervor sweeping through Dublin. But Jack becomes a Commandant in the Irish Citizen Army, and when the Easter Rising of 1916 begins, he leaves a pregnant Nora to help lead the fight. The disparate, quarrelsome tenement residents are forced to shelter together as urban warfare makes their home nearly as treacherous as the streets. Passions and ideals rise and converge, but in the end, loss and devastation triumph over the promise of a new Ireland.

This powerful play is widely hailed as O’Casey’s most complex and masterful work. Its premiere at the Abbey Theatre in 1926 was met with riots condemning O’Casey’s negative portrayal of the recent revolution and its heros. However, the play was otherwise successful, receiving wide acclaim both in Ireland and abroad. Drawing from his own childhood and experiences with the Irish labor movement and in the Irish Citizen Army, The Plough and the Stars is among O’Casey’s most autobiographical works.

The Plough and the Stars inspired the first collaboration between Irish Rep founders Charlotte Moore and Ciarán O’Reilly, and in 1988, it was Irish Rep’s first production. It was staged once more at Irish Rep in 1997. Both productions were directed by Charlotte Moore. We are delighted to return to the play that started it all for our 30th anniversary season.

The Plough and the Stars (1926), along with The Shadow of a Gunman (1923) and Juno and the Paycock (1924) make up Sean O’Casey’s Dublin Trilogy (or Dublin Plays), presented here in repertory as Irish Rep’s O’Casey Cycle, which established O’Casey as one of the major figures in modern drama. These masterpieces introduced O’Casey’s innovative playwriting style, which balances deeply comic and tragic elements in an atmosphere of stark realism. These plays premiered during a time of revolution and civil strife throughout Ireland, proving both provocative and popular, and establishing O’Casey’s legacy among the most influential and enduring playwrights in history. This spring, don’t miss this rare opportunity to see Sean O’Casey’s full Dublin Trilogy – subscribe to the O’Casey Cycle!

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“A riveting production” – Newsweek

“outstanding… the cast is exceptional” – Theatermania

★★★★ “[Maryann] Plunkett, always a powerhouse, gives the performance of a lifetime.” – Time Out New York

★★★★★ “a masterful production… The Plough and the Stars throbs with robust life… It’s not merely a pleasure so much as a downright privilege to see The Plough and the Stars and its companion dramas produced as astutely as they’re staged here.” – New York Stage Review – Michael Sommers

★★★★★ “See this production for several reasons: because it’s O’Casey in rep being put on by one of New York’s most vibrant off-broadway companies; because it has something to say about what is happening in our society today; because MaryAnn Plunkett’s talent will make you feel compassion for someone you thought you despised.” – New York Theatre Guide

★★★★★ “a must-see… played by a flawless troupe” – New York Stage Review – David Finkle

“timeless and heartfelt” – Talkin’ Broadway

 

Juno and the Paycock

The Francis J. Greenburger Mainstage

by Sean O’Casey
directed by Neil Pepe

With Una Clancy, Terry Donnelly, Rory Duffy, Meg Hennessy, John Keating, Robert Langdon Lloyd, Ed Malone, Michael Mellamphy, Ciarán O’Reilly, Maryann Plunkett, James Russell, Harry Smith, and Sarah Street

“a perfect introduction to the Irish Repertory Theatre…New York’s best off-Broadway theater troupe” – The Wall Street Journal

“this Juno is Irish Rep’s best at its best” – Newsweek

March 9 – June 22, 2019

Jack Boyle is out of work and determined to stay that way. He postures and drinks with his sidekick Joxer while his long-suffering wife Juno struggles to support their family and maintain their dilapidated tenement flat. Their son Johnny, crippled fighting in the revolution, cowers indoors to avoid the bitter new civil war, while his sister Mary considers her options for the future. When a handsome visitor arrives with news of an inheritance, the family begins to plan their new life, but their apparent salvation soon reveals itself to be the cause of their ruin. One of the great plays of the twentieth century, Juno and the Paycock is a devastating portrait of wasted potential in a Dublin torn apart by the chaos of the Irish Civil War.

Premiering in 1924, just one year after Sean O’Casey’s professional debut, Juno and the Paycock became the first play at The Abbey Theatre to run for more than one week. Its success allowed O’Casey to quit his road repair job and became a full-time writer at age 44. It has since become one of his most frequently performed plays and has been adapted several times, including into a 1930 film by Alfred Hitchcock and a 1959 Broadway musical entitled Juno. Irish Repertory Theatre has presented Juno and the Paycock twice previously (1995 & 2014), both directed by Charlotte Moore.

Juno and the Paycock (1924), along with The Shadow of a Gunman (1923), and The Plough and the Stars (1926) make up Sean O’Casey’s Dublin Trilogy (or Dublin Plays), presented here in repertory as Irish Rep’s O’Casey Cycle, which established O’Casey as one of the major figures in modern drama. These masterpieces introduced O’Casey’s innovative playwriting style, which balances deeply comic and tragic elements in an atmosphere of stark realism. These plays premiered during a time of revolution and civil strife throughout Ireland, proving both provocative and popular, and establishing O’Casey’s legacy among the most influential and enduring playwrights in history. This spring, don’t miss this rare opportunity to see Sean O’Casey’s full Dublin Trilogy – subscribe to the O’Casey Cycle!

BUY TICKETS

SUBSCRIBE AND SAVE!

“entertaining…performed by a dynamic cast…Pepe’s take feels fresh and relevant while remaining faithful to O’Casey’s nearly 100-year-old play.” – Theatermania

★★★★ “a gem of Irish realism, expertly transitioning from humorous banter to life-altering epiphanies” – Time Out New York

★★★★★ “superb, searing revival” – Elysa Gardner, New York Stage Review

“Only someone with a heart of stone will fail to be deeply moved” – CurtainUp (spoiler warning)

★★★★ “heart-thumping, heart-breaking… well-done productions confirm first-rate writing. This Juno and the Paycock hits that high mark.” – David Finkle, New York Stage Review

★★★★★  “This focus on O’Casey’s body of work is a true gift the Irish Rep is giving us all” – New York Theatre Guide (spoiler warning)

“a resounding winner” with “performances of award-winning caliber” – Theater Pizzazz (spoiler warning)

“a family story that will make you laugh and shed a tear… superbly performed… and directed with care.” – Third Coast Review

“resound[s] with a riveting ferocity” – Simon Seez

“a gem of a revival… with some truly unforgettable performances…both funny and strikingly moving” – From the Orchestra

“a hard and beautiful play, and Neil Pepe’s staging… is lovely” – Stage Voices

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