MUSICAL THEATRE | 27 – 29 Aug
Temple Bar: The Musical
Molly Mew
Main Space
On one fateful St Patrick’s day, Sonny McNamara is tasked with 7 gigs to play around Temple Bar. Everything that can go wrong will go wrong, however the show must go on.
YOGA | 8, 10, 12 + 15 Sep
EMBODI – Yoga for Creatives X Smock Alley
Embodi – Yoga For Creatives
Banquet Hall
A space for creatives to flow. This practice is open to all levels. A dynamic Vinyasa flow class, designed to combine breath and mindful movement to aid and support a creative practice. Expect an energising flow with options to modify and deepen your practice.
DUBLIN FRINGE FESTIVAL | 5 – 8, 11 + 12 Sep
Not My Real Accent
Sadhbh McLoughlin
Boys’ School
From Belgian chocolates to hot chicken rolls, after 10 years Sadhbh can finally pronounce her name right. Well, sort of…
DUBLIN FRINGE FESIVAL| 5 – 8, 10 + 12 Sep
Ratling
Genevieve Hulme-Beaman
The Black Box
Jacky keeps her house immaculate, her routine rigid and her diet exclusively Special K Red Berries. When something sinister scuttles its way into the safe haven of her Donegal home, she is rattled to her bones.
DUBLIN FRINGE FESTIVAL | 6 – 9 Sep
Chronically Hopeful
Musici Ireland
Main Space
Blending live music, movement, text and striking visual design, and created by artists living with chronic illness and unseen disability, this immersive performance reveals the hidden, often messy truth behind “I’m fine”.
DUBLIN FRINGE FESTIVAL | 6 + 7, 9 – 11 Sep
MERCURIAL
Rosaleen Cox, Serpentine Productions & 19th Street Productions
Boys’ School
Crocodiles. Colin Farrell’s eyebrows. Welcome to a one night stand gone full-on rogue.
A twisted, darkly comedic two-hander about toxic love and our fear of ending up alone, this sharp, warped and hilarious play asks: how far will we go to feel wanted?
DUBLIN FRINGE FESTIVAL | 6 – 9, 11 Sep
SUPLEX
Jaxbanded Theatre
The Black Box
Meet Danu, a trans woman who picked a terrible name, as she traverses the sissy, cissy world of wrestling, confronts shadows from her past, and tries to excel in the sport she absolutely loves, despite it not loving her back.
DUBLIN FRINGE FESTIVAL | 8 – 12 Sep
DADDY ISSUES
Brigid Leahy | Presented by LemonSoap Productions
Main Space
Abigail is carrying the cloned fetus of Abraham Lincoln.
Joan is carrying the cloned fetus of Michael Collins.
They are making the future, making change, making…reality television. The cameras are rolling.
DUBLIN FRINGE FESTIVAL| 8 – 10, 12 + 13 Sep
Mam and Love and Woo
Liam McCarthy
Boys’ School
Mam is worried her son is spending too much time alone.
So worried in fact, she hasn’t left the house in six weeks either.
Coping with the death of a loved one, their quiet lives are upended when a well-meaning community volunteer barrels into their world.
DUBLIN FRINGE FESTIVAL| 9 – 12 Sep
Dead In Here
Theatre Giovanni
The Black Box
The old world is dying… A group of friends escape to a countryside manor for the weekend.
They dance. They drink. They fight.
They do anything to distract themselves from the absolute state of the world.
But something is listening from below.
DUBLIN FRINGE FESTIVAL | 10 – 12 Sep
The Boxes
Yves Lorrhan & Inner Man Community
Main Space
A raw and honest fusion of dance and physical theatre, directed by Yves Lorrhan, who also performs alongside members of the Inner Man community group. This group is dedicated to exploring male identity and social expectations, and this new work puts their lived experience centre stage.
DUBLIN FRINGE FESTIVAL | 14 Sep
TenderWRITE
Tenderfoot: Plays By & For Young People
Main Space
TenderWRITE invites you to see the world through the eyes of our youngest artists, playwrights aged 16 – 24, illuminating the here and the bang up to now! Stories to shine light on what it’s like to try to hope for a future when the world all around is spinning. Spinning fast. Spinning furiously. Spinning dangerously out of control.
DUBLIN FRINGE FESTIVAL| 14 – 16 Sep
This Genuinely Did Happen
Ryan Carrick
Main Space
Join Ryan Carrick as he sacrifices his pride to make you laugh. His debut show is packed with stories so hilarious, awkward and wild you’d think he’d made them up… but every word is true.
DUBLIN FRINGE FESTIVAL| 15 – 19 Sep
Across The Fence
Thomas Collins
Boys’ School
Jimmy is a Traveller man, Aoife is a young settled girl. Through small conversations, silences and quiet moments, their relationship begins to challenge the divisions between them. As their worlds overlap, questions of prejudice, identity and trust come to the surface.
DUBLIN FRINGE FESTIVAL | 15 – 19 Sep
Please Break My Heart
NAF Dance
The Black Box
Taylor Swift. Shakespeare. Jane Austen. Bridget Jones. All made great art from love and heartbreak. So naturally, the next step is to get your heart broken on purpose for material.
DUBLIN FRINGE FESTIVAL | 16 – 19 Sep
BUTCH
Crithir Productions
Boys’ School
What is a butch lesbian? What do they look like? Why do they love Subarus so much?
Worry not, YD is here to answer all.
Watch her record her latest and greatest video essay, tracing the history of gender non-conformity and highlighting notable gender-benders of the past as she goes.
DUBLIN FRINGE FESTIVAL | 16 – 19 Sep
GRETEL
TAN & JWY
The Black Box
Hansel and Gretel, reimagined for the concrete jungle.
Homes don’t hold. Rules don’t always stick. A sofa appears. A bag must be carried. Two young people navigate a city where survival is learned and protection isn’t guaranteed. Bass travels, the story shifts and the audience begins to question what they believe in.
DUBLIN FRINGE FESTIVAL| 17 – 19 Sep
Johnny Hollywood
John Spillane
Main Space
What do cult classics, family favourites and action-packed thrillers have in common? They all need a John Spillane makeover.
Dublin Fringe Festival award winner John Spillane is remaking his favourite films… and casting himself in the lead!
DUBLIN FRINGE FESTIVAL | 17 – 19 Sep
Welcome to Traumatraum
Speckintime
Main Space
A broken dancer’s body won’t move the way it used to.
A boy’s limp threatens to end his dream of playing football for Ireland.
A banjaxed clown has more bulging discs than a weightlifter.
This trio find themselves trapped in a warped trauma dream, where the only way out is head on.
DUBLIN THEATRE FESTIVAL | 24 – 26 Sep
The Horse of Jenin
Palestine Comedy Club
Main Space
The Horse of Jenin tells a universal story of resilience and imagination. This show combines storytelling, mask and stand-up comedy to explore the everyday life of a boy growing up in Jenin in Occupied Palestine, who, like every child in the world, just wants to play and have fun.
DUBLIN THEATRE FESTIVAL | 2 – 4, 6 – 10 Oct
Let Me In
Esosa Ighodaro
Main Space
Lola is a firefighter – in every part of her life. The city is on fire and Lola needs rest, but it’s almost Seán’s birthday and his friends are coming over. Let Me In is a new play by Esosa Ighodaro set in contemporary Ireland – where welcome is offered but belonging is negotiated daily. Told through warmth and humour, with a creeping sense of inevitability.
DUBLIN THEATRE FESTIVAL | 9 Oct
The Rachel Baptiste Programme: First Look
Dublin Municipal Theatre at Smock Alley
Main Space
The Rachel Baptiste Programme is a script development initiative supporting Black Irish theatre makers and writers.
This First Look event offers audiences an early encounter with new work in progress, featuring readings of excerpts by M. M. Coelho, Marcello Fidelis, Dafe Pessu Orugbo and Tierra Porter, alongside a panel discussion with the artists exploring the ideas, process and possibilities shaping these emerging plays.
THEATRE | 13 – 17, 19 – 24 Oct
The Man Who Swallowed a Dictionary
Green Shoot Productions
Main Space
Green Shoot Productions presents The Man Who Swallowed a Dictionary, a powerful one-man drama about the life, language and legacy of David Ervine.
Written by Robert Niblock with Martin Lynch and Matthew McElhinney, the play looks beyond the headlines to reveal the human story behind Ervine’s transformation. It explores how conflict, years in prison, education, conviction and language shaped a life, and how one man’s thinking developed during a period of profound political and social change.
MUSICAL THEATRE | 14 + 15 Oct
Remember That Time? A Musical
Annmarie Cullen
Boys’ School
Remember That Time? is an uplifting one-woman musical about loss, change and resilience.
After a breakup, a heartbroken musician returns to her native Dublin after 25 years away to reclaim her identity and passion for life.
A humorous, deeply personal and moving story, with original songs woven throughout.
THEATRE / COMEDY | 25 + 26 Oct
Diana: The Untold and Untrue Story
Awkward Productions
Main Space
From Awkward Productions; the duo behind Gwyneth Goes Skiing and The Fit Prince (who gets switched on the square in the frosty castle the night before (insert public holiday here)). After sold-out performancesearlier this year, Awkward Prods are bringing Diana BACK to Smock Alley Theatre due to exceptional demand, as the multi-award-winning, Edinburgh Fringe sell-out show takes the main stage.
THEATRE / ARTS PARTICIPATION / HEALTH / COMMUNITY | 4 Nov
Theatre Room: Food For Thought – A Daylight Performance Symposium
Outlandish Theatre Platform
Main Space
The artists, Fióna Bolger, Tara Bredemeier, James Hosty, David Ferreira Alves and Maud Hendricks, with the audience, upend and reimagine the conventions of theatre anew.
Theatre serves here as a place to relate to our uncanny human existences addressing the collective unconscious at a time when violence and grief are undeniable aspects of our experiences. In this Performance Symposium we will collapse the borders between the internal human experience and the external lived experience — the unconscious and the embodied intellectual.
MUSIC / COMEDY / SPOKEN WORD | 6 + 7 Nov
Thrum
Daniel Kitson
Main Space
There’s a duty to act and there’s a resistance to growth and there’s a new place up the road and there’s a completely redundant volume control. There’s a toilet in Hong Kong and a coffee shop in Melbourne and the passage of light through a building and deliberately making things much more difficult than they actually need to be.
And.
There’s music, more or less throughout, at least two funny voices and upwards of three jokes.
MUSIC / LITERATURE / FILM | 10 Nov
CRANN MÓR | TREE
IMRAM Féile Litríochta Gaeilge
Main Space
Iomann siansach don chrann agus gach gné de is ea Tree de chuid Richard Berengarten, dán fada a tharraingíonn ar Chrann na Beatha sa Chabála, agus an t-ionad lárnach atá ag an gcrann i dtraidisiúin spioradálta ar fud an domhain.
Commissioned by IMRAM in 2020, Gabriel Rosenstock’s Irish language translation of the poem “Crann” was first presented as a film directed by Laura Hilliard.
MUSIC / LITERATURE / VISUAL ART | 13 Nov
AN 424: AN BUS GO DTÍ AN GHEALCHATHAIR | THE BUS TO THE BRIGHTCITY
IMRAM Féile Litríochta Gaeilge
Main Space
Tar linn ar aistear draíochta an 424, an bus a thógann muid ó dhorchadas na maidine thiar i gCarna tríd bhóithre casta Chonamara go dtí an Ghealchathair. Fág ‘aiteann, fraoch, fiataíl, srutháin, claíocha, tolláin, gleannta’ i do dhiaidh agus tú ar oilithreacht i dtreo na Gaillimhe.
Poet Laoighseach Ní Choistealbha, novelist Jackie Mac Donncha and poet and musician Cúán de Búrca read from new work inspired by their journeys on the bus; with music from Trá Pháidín, and visuals from broadcaster and film maker Donal Dineen.
MUSIC / LITERATURE / VISUAL ART | 14 Nov
DIAMAINT AGUS MEIRG | DIAMONDS AND RUST: THE DYLAN-BAEZ PROJECT
IMRAM Féile Litríochta Gaeilge
Main Space
IMRAM has already staged two hugely successful Bob Dylan projects – one on his greatest hits, and the other on his gospel songs. This new project focuses on his creative and personal relationship with Joan Baez. This show features their songs translated into Irish by poets Rody Gorman and Caitríona Ní Chléirchín, as well as songwriter Tadhg Mac Dhonnagáin. They will be sung by Colm Seoighe and Jessie Dingle, who will be joined by musicians Aidan Claire (mandolin), Cathal Murphy (keyboards) and Cathal Seoighe (fiddle). Visuals by artist Margaret Lonergan.
THEATRE
/ STORYTELLING | 4 + 5 Dec
Making a Show of Myself
Mary Kate O Flanagan
Boys’ School
Fresh from a critically acclaimed sellout run off-Broadway, nominated for Best Solo Performance by The New York Critics Outer Circle Awards, this is pure distilled theatre. Mary Kate O Flanagan tells six of the tales that made her a Grand Slam Champion Storyteller at The Moth on two continents, while making a case for why understanding how storytelling works will change your life.