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The New York Irish Theatre Festival is back, and twice as big!

21 Irish playwrights and 375 artists feature over five weeks from September 1 to October 4

By
CAHIR O'DOHERTY,
Irish Voice Reporter

Published Wednesday, August 19, 2009, 9:24 AM
Updated Wednesday, August 19, 2009, 9:51 AM

 

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Wexford playwright Billy Roche makes a rare New York appearance during the 1st Irish Theatre Festival in September.

What recession? Wall Street may have the vapors, but Irish theater in Manhattan is experiencing an unprecedented renaissance.

When Origin Theatre Company, helmed by Limerick man George Heslin, 37, was founded in 2002, the company’s goal was to produce exciting new European (often Irish) plays.

By last year Origin’s artistic mission had expanded to include an entire Irish theater festival in Manhattan. It was a mad idea, given all the financial constraints of a fledgling festival and -- let’s face it -- New York’s considerable distance from the old sod.

But it worked. In fact, it’s been such a critical and cultural hit that within a year it has more than doubled in size.

“When we launched the 1st Irish Theatre Festival in 2008, we knew what we wanted but we were less assured of what we could do,” Heslin tells the Irish Voice.

“But we not only achieved our goal, we exceeded it. Last year’s festival featured 13 plays by Irish writers. This year’s festival will highlight work by 21 playwrights and offer over 26 events, including live Irish theater and panel discussions with academics and artists from Ireland and the U.S.”

Just reading the festival program, which runs to 48 pages, gives you an idea of the ambition and scope of the month long event. With new Irish plays, premieres, academic talks and even a brand new award ceremony to celebrate the best work, the festival has really put itself on the map on its second outing.

The question is, who would be crazy enough to take on a project of this scale?

“It’s a good question. My own background is that I trained as an actor at the Sam Beckett Center at Trinity College, Dublin and after graduating I eventually moved to New York and set up shop here. I did the Broadway tour of Marie Jones’ Stones In His Pockets among other things, but living in New York I saw that there was a real gap between the new plays being produced in Ireland and here. Those new Irish voices were not being presented here in New York,” says Heslin.

With that in mind, Heslin set up Origin Theatre Company in 2002. The mission of the company was to produce American premières of European plays.

Living in Dublin and London in the nineties, he discovered that Irish playwrights were more enamored of getting their plays staged in London, and so his new company worked to change that. In 2002 Origin launched Enda Walsh here with their off-Broadway production of Misterman.

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