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 | 29 Oct – 1 Nov
Dancing at Lughnasa
Entr’acte Musical Theatre and Drama Society
Main Space
Set in Donegal in 1936, Brian Friel’s award winning play centers on the five Mundy sisters, who live with their older brother, a priest just returned from Uganda, and the youngest sister’s seven year old son, Michael. Narrated by a grown up Michael, this play explores memory, family, and public and private life against a backdrop of the tension between Christianity and paganism.
THEATRE | 29 Oct – 7 Nov
Beards
LemonSoap Productions
Boys’ School
Here ye, Queer ye! The Beards are BACK!
A farcical tale of hope and resilience, Beards by LemonSoap Productions, is a rollicking new musical comedy, bringing Smock Alley audiences all the way back to the Middle Ages! After our sold out run and rave critical acclaim, don’t miss this limited run this Winter.
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.