If you’re a theatre fan, or if you’ve been meaning to get into the arts a little more, then you’ll want to know what the Abbey Theatre has got in store for its upcoming season.
Their impressive 2018 line-up is an eclectic mix of performances in which you’re sure to find something that will suit your tastes.
2017 was a great year for the Abbey Theatre. They welcomed 120,000 audience members, and had queues around the block for their Free First Previews, where audiences can attend the first preview of a new show for free. You’ll have 12 chances to see a show for free in 2018.
Early bird tickets for the new season are now going from €10, so a night at the Abbey Theatre should be a stocking filler to keep in mind for someone close to you this Christmas.
Have a look at what’s coming up in the new season and grab the best deal possible while you can…
LET THE RIGHT ONE IN (Until January 20)
“A supernatural thriller and coming-of-age love story from the makers of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, Let the Right One is based on the Swedish vampire novel and film.
“Oskar and Eli forge a deep connection but, when a series of mysterious killings plagues the neighbourhood, their friendship is tested beyond all imaginable limits.”
Book your tickets HERE.
CLASS (January 24–February 3)
“The five-star, sell-out show of the Dublin Theatre Festival, CLASS is first up on the Peacock Stage in January 2018. Written and directed by Iseult Golden and David Horan, the play explores the complications and comedy when three adults find themselves back in class.
“Brian and Donna’s son is nine years old, and he’s struggling. That’s what his teacher says. Says he should see a psychologist. But Brian and Donna – recently separated – never liked school, never liked teachers. So are they going to trust this one? And should they?
“A parent-teacher meeting goes very, very wrong in CLASS – a new play about learning difficulties: in school, in life, wherever.”
Book your tickets HERE.
THE 24 HOUR PLAYS: DUBLIN (January 28)
“Within 24 hours, six short plays will be written, rehearsed and performed by the best of Irish writing and directing talent and over two dozen of Ireland’s most recognised and beloved stars of stage and screen. A team of over 30 theatre technicians, including producers from The 24 Hour Company in New York will facilitate the work.
“All proceeds from this special gala fundraising event go directly to Dublin Youth Theatre.”
Book your tickets HERE.
HAUGHEY | GREGORY (February 8-10)
“1982: Dublin’s Inner City is devastated by unemployment and addiction – and the planners’ solution is simply to bulldoze it. But the general election results in the novice TD, Tony Gregory, holding the balance of power. Can Gregory use his vote to achieve something sustainable for the Inner City? To do so, he will have to face off against the dominant personality of Irish politics – Charles J Haughey…”
Book your tickets HERE.
SWAN LAKE / LOCH NA HEALA (February 8-17)
“Swan Lake / Loch na hEala comes to the Abbey following its hit run during Dublin Theatre Festival 2016. The Winner of the Best Production Award at the Irish Times Theatre Awards 2016, this interpretation of Swan Lake is rooted in the Midlands of Ireland in a place where ancient mythology and the modern world collide. Performed by a company of 13 world-class performers including actor Mikel Murfi, this production is interwoven with story-telling, song and live music.”
Book your tickets HERE.
PORCELAIN (February 16-March 10)
“A new play by Margaret Perry, Porcelain weaves past and present, myth and fact to explore the parallel stories of two Irish women.
Tipperary, 1895. Bridget Cleary’s not feeling quite herself. Her husband believes she has been taken by fairies and a changeling left in her place, with devastating consequences.
“London, 2017. Hat is a new mother. She has a great life. So why does she want to disappear?”
Book your tickets HERE.
NOT A FUNNY WORD (March 6-10)
“In a deeply personal and bravely funny testimony, actor, comedian and activist Tara Flynn shares her account of having to travel out of Ireland for an abortion. With searing honesty, Not a Funny Word examines the status quo through one woman’s own journey. With songs.”
Book your tickets HERE.
THE UNMANAGEABLE SISTERS (February 26- April 7)
“Green Shield Stamps, a million of them, and Ger Lawless has won them all. It’s Ballymun, it’s 1973 and she’s got 15 friends round for a stamp-sticking party.
“Over one night, the lives of 15 women collide in Deirdre Kinahan’s new version of Michel Tremblay’s fêted Quebecois comedy.”
Book your tickets HERE.
OPERA BRIEFS (March 27-29)
“The Royal Irish Academy of Music and The Lir National Academy of Dramatic Art return to the Abbey Theatre for a double bill of operas performed and produced by Ireland’s next generation of singers and stage technicians.”
Book your tickets HERE.
HERE ALL NIGHT (April 11-14)
“An hypnotic journey into the musical mind of Samuel Beckett by master interpreters, Gare St Lazare Ireland — ‘The Unparalleled Beckett Champions’ (New York Times).
“In exploring the use of music in Samuel Beckett’s work, Gare St Lazare Ireland have created an entirely original performance that defies easy description. A meditation, a celebration, an interpretation; Here All Night’s absence of linear narrative frees us to go where the words and music bring us and offers another way to access both Beckett’s world and our own.”
Book your tickets HERE.
MUSICTOWN (April 17-21)
“For the first time ever, MusicTown presents a series of concerts at the Abbey Theatre celebrating Dublin as a music city.”
Tickets yet to go on sale.
OPEN STUDIO (April 20-21)
“Open Studio is an invitation to join a conversation about connecting to younger audiences/participants through dance, performance and live art. It brings together a diverse range of perspectives and methodologies across four days of workshops, seminars and scratch events, which will be hosted by Dublin Dance Festival, Live Collision and the Abbey Theatre.”
Tickets yet to go on sale.
THE PLOUGH AND THE STARS (April 24-May 5)
“Seen by over 50,000 people in Ireland and the US, Sean Holmes’ refreshed, high-energy restaging of The Plough and the Stars is back for a limited run, this time at the Gaiety Theatre.
“Set amid the tumult of the Easter Rising, The Plough and the Stars is the story of ordinary lives ripped apart by the idealism of the time.”
Book your tickets HERE.
ON RAFTERY’S HILL (April 27-May 12)
“Red Raftery is a powerful man, used to getting what he wants. He owns 300 acres of the finest land this side of the Shannon and west of the Pale. He lives on his farm with three generations of his family. But there is something rotten on Raftery’s hill.”
Book your tickets HERE.
CATEDRAL (May 15-16)
“Winner of the Critics’ Choice Award for Best Performance at Seville’s renowned Bienal de Flamenco in 2016, in Catedral Guerrero transforms the stage into a sacred, spiritually charged space. In this densely atmospheric world of phantoms, light and shadow, a woman battles her demons, raging against the religious and social constraints that paralyse her.”
Book your tickets HERE.
HARD TO BE SOFT — A BELFAST PRAYER (May 18-19)
“Trailblazing dancer and choreographer Oona Doherty, in collaboration with renowned DJ and composer David Holmes and designer Ciaran Bagnall, presents Hard To Be Soft – A Belfast Prayer. A reflection on their hometown, this four-part dance work is based on the experiences and realities of living in today’s Belfast.”
Book your tickets HERE.
ULYSSES (June 11-July 21)
“After a sell-out run, the Abbey’s bawdy, vibrant and tumultuous production of James Joyce’s classic is back by popular demand.
“Bloom’s odyssey is a pandemonium of live music, puppets, dancing, clowning, bowler hats and kazoos. It’s Ulysses as you’ve never imagined it before, a superbly theatrical homage to Joyce’s chronicle of Dublin life and the greatest novel of all time. Created by Abbey Theatre Director Graham McLaren, this production is absurd, brilliant and oodles of fun.”
Book your tickets HERE.
THE LOST O’CASEY (June 25-30)
“Nannie’s Night Out, Seán O’Casey’s 1924 play for the Abbey Theatre had multiple endings — ‘the ending I wanted, the ending they wanted and the compromise.’
“Reframed as a searing call to action, ANU invite audiences to jump start this thrilling project and tumble through the private recesses of the theatre to ‘experience’ the play which explores motherhood and addiction.”
More info HERE.
COME ON HOME (July 13-August 4)
“A new play about faith, family, place and desire from Phillip McMahon the writer of Alice in Funderland, Town is Dead and the co-creator of RIOT.
“Michael hasn’t been home in almost twenty years. Having been kicked out of the seminary and exiled from his family home, he found himself in London, by accident rather than design. But now, the death of his mother sees him back in the small town where he grew up. The place that chewed him up and spat him out.”
Book your tickets HERE.
JIMMY’S HALL (July 26-September 8)
“Bursting with music, dance, poetry and song, the must-see feel-good show of last summer returns.
“Jimmy’s Hall tells the true story of Leitrim farmer Jimmy Gralton, the only Irishman deported from his own country. His crime was to build a dance hall where he encouraged the local community to learn, to argue and to dream, but above all to dance and have fun.”
Book your tickets HERE.
FRNKNSTN (August 17-September 1)
“This daring adaptation of Mary Shelley’s classic re-imagines Victor Frankenstein as a gene-splicing molecular biologist who creates human life from his own DNA with catastrophic results.
“Speaking from a holding cell, Frankenstein is desperate to set the record straight.”
Book your tickets HERE.
THE PATIENT GLORIA (September 28-October 6)
“1964, California. A nine year old girl, Pammy, asks the question, ‘Mommy, did you ever go to bed with anyone besides daddy?’ The child’s mother, Gloria, recently divorced and struggling with her new single status, lies ‘No, honey.’ Gloria later wrote in her diary ‘What was I supposed to say? Of course, dear. Everyone does? Oh shit.’
“Gloria’s discomfort with her own sexual desire, her trying to be good but wanting to be bad, became central to the 1965 films Three Approaches to Psychotherapy, also known as The Gloria Films. The films were intended for academic purposes but given a cinema and TV release, betraying the privacy of the patient Gloria.”
Book your tickets HERE.
RATHMINES ROAD (October 9-27)
“Set over one evening, Rathmines Road is a play that rages in a tiny room.
“Following a hugely successful run of Spinning in the 2014 Dublin Theatre Festival, Fishamble is delighted to present Deirdre Kinahan’s latest powerful and questioning drama. Rathmines Road unleashes a brutal truth that affects us all. Bristling with tension, the play asks the question: when and how do we take responsibility?”
Book your tickets HERE.
DOUBLE CROSS (October 31-November 10)
“Double Cross creatively pitches two real-life Irishmen against each other in World War 2’s propaganda battle. Brendan Bracken the British Minister for Information, and Nazi broadcaster William Joyce, better known as Lord Haw-Haw. Both parts are played by the same actor.”
Book your tickets HERE.
ASKING FOR IT (November 9-24)
“A new stage adaptation of Louise O’Neill’s devastating novel, which shines an unflinching light on the experience of a young woman whose life is changed forever by a horrific act of violence.
“One night in a small town in Co. Cork, where everyone knows everyone, things spiral terrifyingly out of control. What will happen now? — to Emma? To her family? To the others?”
Book your tickets HERE.
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