So far in 2018 we’ve staged and supported numerous new plays with our monthly playreadings, our New Writing Week, and new theatre productions.
We were delighted to kick off the year with the return of the sold out 2017 show Save + Quit by Sophie Leuner, directed by Billie De Buitlear, which had another hugely successful two week run. At the end of January Megan O’Malley’s new play Home confronted the issues of the 8th Amendment Referendum, asking audiences to make up their own mind about the vote with dual endings.
Sally Denver Matthews developed from a short piece in Scene + Heard 2018 to a full play in March, entertaining audiences with its comedic look at the trials and tribulations of motherhood. In April we celebrated a sold out run and national tour of Gerard Humpreys’ politically charged play Norah. In June we produced a hugely commercially and critically successful debut run of Jane McCarthy’s The Harvest, which returns in 2019 for another 2 week run and national tour.
In July we collaborated with Honest Arts to bring Limerick-produced PUNT by Tara Doolin and Pius McGrath to a Dublin audience. In September we were delighted to welcome back the Dublin Fringe Festival with 5 new plays all achieving great acclaim and packed houses.
Our annual New Writing Week followed and was another huge success. This year’s Path to the Stage brought the work of six talented writers to the stage, with feedback from our New Play Dramaturg Pamela McQueen, following an open callout.
Throughout the year we’ve also hosted our Monthly Play Readings, with in house feedback from the New Writing team. The staged scripts were: Jade City by Alice Malseed, PushBack by Elizabeth Moynihan, Pippi by Tracy Ryan, Arachnophilia by Aidan Fitzmaurice (which had a subsequent full run in the Fringe Festival), The Letters of St. Declan by Peter Gowan, The Bones of This Place by Hilary Dziminski and small men might see rain by Peter Reid. Our final reading of the year will be Mummy Claus by Jesse Weaver on Dec 3rd.
More new writing came to our stage from Nov 8th – 10th with AboutFace’s NEWvember festival, with performed readings of 5 new plays in our rehearsal space.
This month sees our award-winning Writer in Residence, Ciara Elizabeth Smyth, bring her new comedy We Can’t Have Monkeys in the House to the stage, running from Mon 12th November for 2 weeks. Finally we’ll wrap up 2018 with Jane McCarthy’s adaptation of Charles Dickens’ classic ghost story The Signalman, from Dec 3rd to 15th.
Here’s to another year supporting New Writing!
The New Theatre supports New Writing with the assistance of Dublin UNESCO City of Literature & The Arts Council Ireland.
