The Irish Repertory Theatre: Celebrating Thirty-Five Years Off-Broadway 3031535456, 9783031535451

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NEW DIRECTIONS IN IRISH AND IRISH AMERICAN LITERATURE

Irish Repertory Theatre Celebrating Thirty-Five Years Off-Broadway Maria Szasz

New Directions in Irish and Irish American Literature

Series Editor Kelly Matthews, Department of English, Framingham State University, Framingham, MA, USA

New Directions in Irish and Irish American Literature promotes fresh scholarship that explores models of Irish and Irish American identity and examines issues that address and shape the contours of Irishness. The series aims to analyze literary works and investigate the fluid, shifting, and sometimes multivalent discipline of Irish Studies. Politics, the academy, gender, and Irish and Irish American culture have inspired and impacted recent scholarship centered on Irish and Irish American literature, which contributes to our twenty-first century understanding of Ireland, America, Irish Americans, and the creative, intellectual, and theoretical spaces between.

Maria Szasz

Irish Repertory Theatre Celebrating Thirty-Five Years Off-Broadway

Maria Szasz University of New Mexico Albuquerque, NM, USA

ISSN 2731-3182 ISSN 2731-3190 (electronic) New Directions in Irish and Irish American Literature ISBN 978-3-031-53544-4 ISBN 978-3-031-53545-1 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-53545-1 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2024 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors, and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. Cover credit: Irish Repertory Theatre This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland Paper in this product is recyclable.

For Jonathan

Foreword

When the author, Maria Szasz, approached us with the notion of writing a history of Irish Repertory Theatre, the adage “history is written by victors” sprang to mind and gave us pause. The concern was we didn’t think we had won! We didn’t think we had lost either. We just felt we were still in the middle of the fight, and perhaps it is too soon to look back. But as we heard the clang of the ringside bell to jumpstart the 35th year—a year where we honor the great Brian Friel—our trepidation disappeared and we thought perhaps it’s not such a bad idea to have a record of the game so far. Maria combed the Irish Rep archives at NYU and the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts and unearthed memories that had laid dormant in the boxes. Her research covered more than two hundred productions over thirty-four years. It goes without saying, not a single production or a single brick could have been laid without the thousands who have come to our aid over the years. Our boards of directors, actors, designers, admin staff, stagemanagement, friends, family supporters, and the country of Ireland that produced more playwrights than any other in the galaxy.

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FOREWORD

Frank McCourt once wrote: “In the beginning was the word—and the Irish got it!” We are very honored to continue offering the Word. New York August 2023

Ciarán O’Reilly Charlotte Moore

Acknowledgements

“There are only two kinds of people in the world: the Irish, and those who wish they were” —Irish proverb

Theatre at its best is a collaborative art form. I am indebted to numerous people who have made this project possible. My heartfelt gratitude goes to Irish Repertory Theatre co-founders, Artistic Director Charlotte Moore and Producing Director Ciarán O’Reilly, who have been so gracious, open, and welcoming. In late spring 2016, I sent Moore and O’Reilly an email, inquiring about writing a book-length history of the Irish Rep. Thankfully, they both agreed. Moore and O’Reilly had recently donated their Irish Rep archives to Special Collections at New York University’s Tamiment Library, so the timing was ideal. Over the course of research and writing this book, we sadly lost several influential people in the theatre world, many of whom have been vital to the growth of the Irish Rep: John McMartin (1929–2016), actor and partner of Charlotte Moore; producer and director Harold “Hal” Prince (1928–2019); composer and lyricist Stephen Sondheim (1930– 2021); designer and director Tony Walton (1934–2022); Irish playwright Patricia Burke Brogan (1926–2022), and Roundabout Theatre Producing Director Todd Haimes (1956–2023), among others. I deeply regret not having the opportunity to interview all of these talented theatre professionals.

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This book has been severely interrupted due to the COVID-19 pandemic, which closed the NYU Library to non-NYU faculty and staff for two years. Renovations to the Tamiment Library Special Collections in 2019 also closed the archives for a full summer prior to COVID. After finally receiving permission for eight days of research at the NYU archives in June 2022, it felt like winning the lottery. I thank all of the librarians at the Tamiment Library Special Collections, especially Allison Chomet. Prior to researching at NYU, I spent several summers researching in the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, where I would like to thank John Calhoun, Billy Rose Theatre Division Librarian. My colleagues have been very supportive: former UNM Honors College Dean, Eric Lau; Interim Dean, Leslie Donovan; Chair, Ryan Swanson; Renee Faubion, Myrriah Gómez, Sarita Cargas, Richard Obenauf, Jona Kottler, Kiyoko Simmons, Kyle Harvey, Lorena Rodriguez Vazquez, and Marygold Walsh-Dilley. I also thank my friends Lizabeth Johnson, Colleen O’Loughlin, Charlotte Headrick, and Brian McCabe. My thanks to my Publishing Editor at Palgrave Macmillan, Eileen Srebernik, and Project Coordinator, Uma Vinesh. The influence of my late father, Ferenc M. Szasz, runs throughout this book; many thanks to my mother, Margaret Connell-Szasz, for her editing suggestions and enthusiasm; my brother Eric and his partner Stephanie; my sister Chris and brother-in-law Scott; our nephews Tyler, Sean and Matthew, and my in-laws, Francis and Marge Rath. And finally, love and thanks to my husband Jonathan, who has helped me in a myriad of ways, including repeated trips to several libraries in NYC, attending many Broadway and Off-Broadway shows, and listening to “tales from the archives,” as my dad would have said, for probably longer than he wished (though he has come to enjoy the theatre a lot more than he initially imagined!). September 2023

Maria Szasz

Contents

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4 5 6 7 8

Introduction: Irish Repertory Theatre Company: Celebrating Thirty-Five Years Off-Broadway

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Charlotte Moore and Ciarán O’Reilly: “Smitten With Magic of the Theatre”

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Opening Season: 1988–1989 and Season 2: 1989–1990: The Plough and the Stars, Whistle in the Dark, Yeats! A Celebration, and Philadelphia, Here I Come!

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Grandchild of Kings: Harold Prince Takes the Helm, and Highlights From Seasons 3–7: 1990–1995

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Renting a Home in Chelsea, and Highlights from Season 8: 1995–1996

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The Irish … and How They Got That Way: Highlights from Seasons 9–15: 1996–2003

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Purchasing Their Home in Chelsea and Highlights from Seasons 16–22: 2003–2009

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From Renovation and Reopening to a Global Pandemic, Plus Highlights from Seasons 23–34: 2010–2022

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CONTENTS

Conclusion: The Ongoing Success of Irish Rep, and What Lies Ahead

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Bibliography

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Index

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List of Figures

Fig. 2.1

Fig. 3.1

Fig. 5.1

Fig. 6.1

Fig. 7.1

Irish Repertory Theatre banner outside their theatre, 132 W. 22nd St., July 2023. Ciarán O’Reilly designed the fan door logo in 1988. (Photo by the author) Paddy Croft as Bessie Burgess and Peter Rogan as Fluther in Irish Repertory Theatre’s 1988 inaugural production of The Plough and The Stars (Photo by Len Taveres, courtesy of Irish Repertory Theatre) The Stanwick Building, 132 W. 22nd St., July 2023. Irish Repertory Theatre rented three floors of the Stanwick Building in late 1994. (Photo by the author) The Irish … and How They Got That Way (1997) (Back left to right: Bob Green on fiddle, Ciarán O’Reilly singing, Marion Tomas Griffin on guitar, Ciaran Sheehan singing, Terry Donnelly singing, and Rusty Magee on piano. Photo ©Carol Rosegg) Irish Repertory Theatre’s stained glass windows in their lobby, created by Peadar Lamb. Pictured above is the final panel, which, in Lamb’s words, “celebrates the ‘performer’ with the audience in the foreground.” The Cockerel, with its chest out on the right, is from the third panel, referencing the Mad Hens in Bailegangaire (1985), by Tom Murphy, and Cock-a-Doodle Dandy (1949), by Sean O’Casey (Photo by the author)

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LIST OF FIGURES

Fig. 9.1

Irish Repertory Theatre Artistic Director Charlotte Moore and Producing Director Ciarán O’Reilly, July 2023, at the Irish Rep, in front of one of Stephen Sondheim’s pianos (Photo by the author)

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CHAPTER 1

Introduction: Irish Repertory Theatre Company: Celebrating Thirty-Five Years Off-Broadway

Since its founding in 1988, the Irish Repertory Theatre Company stands alone as the only Off-Broadway theatre company in New York City devoted to bringing Irish and Irish American plays to the stage. The Irish Rep is the fourth oldest Irish, Irish American, or Celtic theatre company in North America, and the oldest Irish theatre company in New York City and state. In its thirty-five years of unmatched leadership in producing Irish theatre, the Irish Rep has garnered “nearly every major award and nomination in the New York non-profit theatre world,” including numerous Drama Desk awards for the co-founders, Artistic Director Charlotte Moore and Producing Director Ciarán O’Reilly, along with the company’s actors, directors, and designers of their productions. The company has also received recognition for outstanding artistic programming by the National Endowment for the Arts, the New York State Council on the Arts, and New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, as well as the Lucille Lortel Award for Outstanding Body of Work in 2005.1 Moore and O’Reilly received the Outer Critics Special Achievement Circle Award in 2013, “in recognition of 25 years of producing outstanding theater.”2 In 2019, Moore and O’Reilly were inducted into the Irish America Hall of Fame, which since 2010 has lauded “the achievements of Irish-born and Irish-American leaders in the arts, business, politics, science, the military, journalism, and other professions.”3 Also in 2019, the Irish Rep © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2024 M. Szasz, Irish Repertory Theatre, New Directions in Irish and Irish American Literature, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-53545-1_1

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co-founders received Ireland’s Presidential Distinguished Service Award for Irish Abroad from President of Ireland Michael D. Higgins.4 According to Hasia R. Diner, in Being New York, Being Irish: Reflections on Twenty-Five Years of Irish America and New York University’s Glucksman Ireland House, “If one had to choose a single population from which to tell the story of all immigrant groups, the women and men who left Ireland and came to America provide us with the most dramatic and most exemplary case.”5 The Irish diaspora has shaped a community that numbers around 80 million.6 With approximately 70 million people around the world identifying with their Irish heritage, and 17 percent of the population living in Ireland born outside of the Emerald Isle, few places are as “global” as Ireland. Melissa Sihra reminds us that the word “diaspora” originates in the Greek word diaspeirein, meaning ‘disperse,’ which is appropriate for the Irish, as their diaspora “continues to disperse, and perpetuate or regenerate various conceptions of Irishness.”7 Nicholas Grene and Chris Morash take Sihra’s comments a step further, by suggesting that Ireland’s theatrical diaspora illuminates “the heart of some of the most pressing issues facing Irish culture in the twenty-first century.”8 In a similar reflection, John P. Harrington reminds us that modern and contemporary Irish theatre is “an excellent subject for the study of cultural change.”9 The Irish Rep has wrestled with exploring many angles of this cultural change since its inception in 1988. Patrick Lonergan, in Theatre and Globalization: Irish Drama in the Celtic Tiger Era, mentions the long-standing, deep connections between Ireland and America, noting “how America is present in Irish life and Ireland present in America,” two linked relationships that the Irish Rep has examined on and off stage.10 In an analogous reflection, Sihra suggests that every production of an Irish play, “whether in Ireland or abroad, explores and performs the key question, ‘What is Ireland?’”11 For thirty-five years, the Irish Rep’s co-founders, Moore and O’Reilly, have embraced this perennial question, by asking their audiences, actors, crew, board members and staff to ponder every aspect of what it has meant, and continues to mean to be Irish and Irish American. In his 2022 Saint Patrick’s Day message to Irish people at home and abroad, President of Ireland Michael D. Higgins emphasized the responsibility of the Irish to embrace “our role as global citizens [and] our responsibility to work with fellow citizens across all continents for a better, fairer, and more inclusive world.”12 The Irish Rep has greatly expanded

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its efforts to promote a more just, equitable and inclusive world. Their plays, musicals, benefits, and events have encouraged conversations about many of the most contentious aspects within Irish and Irish American culture, such as immigration, history, politics, war, sexuality, the urban vs. rural divide, the environment, as well as the importance of more diverse voices and experiences, especially emanating from women, the LGBTQIA + community, and Irish and Irish American people of color around the world. In addition to the Irish Rep’s role as the only theatre company in New York City that produces solely Irish and Irish American works, the company is also one of roughly a dozen theatre companies in North America with an Irish, Irish American or (more broadly expanded to include Wales, Scotland, and Brittany) Celtic focus. Irish, Irish American, and Celtic Theatre Companies in North America, as of 2024 (listed in order of founding; an * indicates that the company was founded before 1988, when the Irish Rep began): *1. Tara Players Theatre (est. 1974, Ottawa, Canada): founded by Brendan Carruthers, who notes that “Theatre is part and parcel of the Irish soul.”13 In 1994, Carruthers co-founded the Acting Irish International Theatre Festival, which presents full-length Irish plays performed by American, Canadian, and Irish companies. The festival chooses a new city each year for its performances. *2. Toronto Irish Players (est. 1975, Toronto, Canada): founded by a “a group of new Irish immigrants,” President Maureen Lukie currently leads the company, which strives to bring “the numerous sides of Irish theatre to Toronto.”14 *3. Liffey Players Drama Society (est. 1986, Calgary, Canada): led by President Tanya Wolff and Vice-Chairman Ian Bamford, the Liffey is a community theatre company devoted to plays “by and about the Irish.”15 4. Irish Repertory Theatre Company (est. 1988, New York City): Artistic Director Charlotte Moore and Producing Director Ciarán O’Reilly co-founded the Irish Rep. Their mission statement says the company provides, “a context for understanding the contemporary Irish-American experience through evocative works of theater, music, and dance …. by staging the works of Irish and Irish-American classic and contemporary playwrights, encouraging

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the development of new works focused on the Irish and IrishAmerican experience, and producing the works of other cultures interpreted through the lens of an Irish sensibility.”16 5. Irish Classical Theatre Company (est. 1990, Buffalo, New York): the ICT describes their mission as, “To present the greatest works of dramatic literature: Irish plays, both traditional and contemporary, international classics, and modern plays of exceptional merit.”17 ICT’s leadership includes Executive Artistic Director Kate LoConti Alcocer and Producing Director Cassie Cameron. 6. Gaelic Park Players (est. 1992, Chicago, IL): the Gaelic Park Players explain their mission as, “to promote, foster and develop Irish Theater.”18 The company is also active in the Acting Irish International Theatre Festival. 7. Irish American Theatre Company of Cincinnati (est. 2004, Cincinnati, OH): founded by Maureen Kennedy (currently Artistic Director), the company has been part of the Irish Heritage Center in Cincinnati since 2010. The Irish Heritage Center describes their goals: “to promote the culture, traditions, and story of the Irish and Irish Americans in Greater Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky. The customs and traditions of Irish Culture are extremely diverse and it would be impossible for us to cover everything, but we do our best.”19 8. Inis Nua (est. 2005, Philadelphia, PA): led by Artistic Director Kathryn MacMillan, Inis Nua (or “new island” in Irish) produces “contemporary, provocative plays from Ireland, England, Scotland and Wales which reflect those cultures’ new identities in today’s world,” and the company also promotes work from “American playwrights who deal with the Irish-American, Welsh-American, Scottish-American and Anglo-American experience.”20 9. Corrib Theatre Company (est. 2012, Portland, OR): led by Artistic Director Holly Griffith, Managing Director Karl Hanover, and Literary Manager Pancho Savery, Corrib Theatre’s mission is “to bring Irish playwrights’ unique perspective on oppression and empowerment, and conflict and resolution, to Portland in order to change our world for the better.”21 10. Irish Heritage Theatre Company (est. 2012, Philadelphia, PA): led by Artistic Director Peggy Mecham, the Irish Heritage Theatre explains their dedication to, “presenting and preserving the rich

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legacy of Irish theatre that has been created both in Ireland and during the long history of the Irish in American theatre.”22 As of 2024, there are also roughly seven North American organizations that include an Irish theatre dimension (listed in order of founding; an * indicates that the organization was founded prior to 1988): *1. Irish Arts Center (est. 1972, New York City): under the leadership of Executive Director Aidan Connolly, the Irish Arts Center showcases Irish culture, via musical and theatrical performances, film, dance, exhibits, and language lessons. The Center describes itself as “a home for artists and audiences of all backgrounds who share a passion or appreciation for the evolving arts and culture of contemporary Ireland and Irish America.”23 *2. Irish American Heritage Center: Midwest (est. 1976, Chicago, IL): under the leadership of President Nicole McDonagh-Tueffel, and Vice President Tim Taylor, the IAHC’s emphasis is on arts, history, education, dance, language, and social events. It also oversees the Irish America Hall of Fame.24 *3. CelticMKE (est. 1981, Milwaukee, WI): specializes in theatre, film, and visual arts. Their “signature event” is the annual Milwaukee Irish Fest. The mission of CelticMKE is “to promote and celebrate all aspects of Irish, Irish American and Celtic cultures, and to instill in current and future generations an appreciation of their heritage.”25 Its current Executive Director is Mike Mitchell. 4. The Celtic Connection (est. 1991, Vancouver, Canada): cofounded by Maura De Freitas and Catholine Butler, The Celtic Connection is published ten times per year, and “serves over 35,000 Celts across Western Canada and the Northwestern United States. The monthly newspaper has a strong focus on music, theater, movies and interviews, current events and Irish, English, Scottish and Welsh community news.”26 5. PICT Classic Theatre (est. 1996, Pittsburgh, PA): formerly known as Pittsburgh Irish and Classical Theatre, PICT does not exclusively produce Irish theatre today. Their productions “feature innovative, minimalist design, and examine current social issues through the lens of classic text.”27

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6. Solas Nua (est. 2005, Washington, D.C.): Solas Nua, or “new light” in Irish, is led by Executive Director Andrew Dolan. The company describes itself as “a multidisciplinary arts organization that is dedicated exclusively to contemporary Irish arts,” which includes “music, dance, visual arts, film and other literary events.”28 7. Tír Na (est. 2008, Boston, MA): founded by Colin Hamell, who is also Producing/ Artistic Director, Tír Na (Irish for “country of”) focuses on “new and contemporary works,” insisting the company is “unrestrained by place or style,” as Tír Na brings their productions “to theaters and screens throughout Europe and the United States.”29 Alongside the Irish Rep’s status as one of seventeen arts organizations in North America with an Irish, Irish American, or Celtic connection, another core aspect of the company’s multifaceted identity is their position as a leading Off-Broadway theatre company. Since 1974, “OffBroadway” refers to theatres that seat audiences of at least 100, but not more than 499; theatres with a seating capacity of over 500 are classified as Broadway theatres in Actors’ Equity terms. Prior to 1974, the term Off-Broadway was primarily geographical. In Stuart W. Little’s phrase, Off-Broadway originally meant, “outside the borders of the regular Times Square theatre district” in Manhattan, what is known as “the Broadway Box,” or theatres located between 40 and 54th Streets (which run north–south), and 6th and 8th Avenues (which run east–west).30 The Off-Broadway movement began in the early 1950s, primarily as a reaction against the commercial Broadway theatres, when artists searched for less expensive venues to perform plays and musicals. The 1952 production of Tennessee Williams’ Summer and Smoke at the Circle in the Square Theatre marked a major step forward for Off-Broadway’s growing reputation, becoming one of the first Off-Broadway plays to receive a review from Clive Barnes in The New York Times. Little defines the Off-Broadway movement: It is a showcase for new actors and directors, a place where new talent can be discovered. It is a place to revive Broadway failures and restore the reputations of playwrights who may have been ill served in the regular commercial theater. It provides the means of encouraging the growth of

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theaters … [and] engage[s] the loyalties of talented professionals that they can develop continuity of production and a consistent artistic policy.31

Little’s explanation aligns nicely with the Irish Rep, thanks to the company’s continuity of producing plays and musicals, its loyal actors, and its unique artistic angle as an Irish and Irish American Off-Broadway theatre company. Rob Meiksins offers a similar theatrical assessment to Little’s, commenting about how different Off-Broadway was from Broadway, especially in its early years: Two early Off-Broadway houses, Washington Square Players and Provincetown Players were established as collectives in the mid-1910s. They focused on the production of writers like [Irish American] Eugene O’Neill, whose work was simply not seen in the for-profit, commercial Broadway houses … [By the 1980s, Off-Broadway] places like the Public, Manhattan Theatre Club, Circle in the Square, and Second Stage were thriving. The movement was about producing work that would not be seen on Broadway because it was new, experimental, or simply not going to attract an audience big enough to fill a Broadway house and make enough money to turn a profit.32

Irish Rep opened its doors in 1988, during this thriving Off-Broadway period that Meiksins describes. There are currently twenty-one OffBroadway Theatre Companies. Off-Broadway Theatre Companies, as of 2024 (listed in order of founding; an * designates that the company opened prior to 1988)33 : *1. Cherry Lane Theatre Company (est. 1924): is Off-Broadway’s oldest continuously running theatre. Originally led by Edna St. Vincent Millay and the Provincetown Players, CLT has “fueled some of the most ground-breaking experiments in the chronicles of the American Stage.”34 Under the leadership of Managing Director Mary Geerlof, CLT has both a Mainstage and a Cherry Lane Studio theatre. *2. Classic Stage Company (est. 1965): led by Producing Artistic Director Jill Rafson, CSC describes itself as “a leading OffBroadway theater that is a home for new and established artists, as well as audiences seeking epic stories intimately told.”35 *3. Lincoln Center Theater (est. 1965): as one of eleven resident arts organizations based in Lincoln Center, LCT is led by Chair

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Kewsong Lee and Producing Artistic Director André Bishop. LCT has both a Broadway theatre, the Vivian Beaumont Theater, as well as two Off-Broadway theatres: the Claire Tow Theater and the Mitzi E. Newhouse Theater (est. 2002).36 *4. Roundabout Theatre Company (est. 1965): founded by Gene Feist and Elizabeth Owens, the fortunes of the Roundabout took a turn for the better when Todd Haimes became Artistic Director in 1989, a position he held until his death in April 2023 at age 66. Haimes has been widely praised for saving the Roundabout from bankruptcy, and helping to grow the theatre into one of the most prominent Off-Broadway companies. The Roundabout includes five theatres, two of which are Off-Broadway theatres: the Laura Pels Theatre, and Roundabout Underground Black Box (both opened in 2004 as part of The Harold and Miriam Steinberg Center for Theatre). Roundabout details its mission as producing “familiar and lesser-known plays and musicals with the ability to take artistic risk as only a not-for-profit can.”37 *5. The Public Theater (est. 1967): originally begun by Joseph Papp as the New York Shakespeare Workshop in 1954, the Public has four theatres: LuEsther, Martinson, Newman and the Anspacher. Under the leadership of Artistic Director Oscar Eustis and Executive Director Patrick Willingham, The Public declares, “theater is a place of possibility, where the boundaries that separate us from each other in the rest of life can fall away.”38 *6. Repertorio Español (est. 1968): founded by Producer Gilberto Zaldívar and Artistic Director René Buch, “to introduce the best of Latin American, Spanish and Hispanic-American theatre” to New York City and the Off-Broadway community.39 In 1972, the company moved to the Gramercy Arts Theatre. *7. York Theatre Company (est. 1969): founded by Janet Hayes Walker, and led by Producing Artistic Director James Morgan and Executive Director Marie Grace LaFerrara, the York describes its “two-fold mission” to produce “new musical works and rediscover musical gems from the past.”40 *8. Manhattan Theater Company (est. 1970): led by Artistic Director Lynne Meadow since 1972, and Executive Producer Barry Grove from 1975–2023, MTC owns the Broadway Samuel J. Friedman Theatre, and Stage I and Stage II performance spaces in New York City Center Theater. MTC describes its

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mission: “to produce a diverse repertoire of innovative, entertaining, and thought-provoking plays and musicals by American and international playwrights.”41 *9. New Federal Theatre (est. 1970): founded by Woody King, Jr., NFT performs at the Abrons Arts Center’s Playhouse Theater. Led by Producing Artistic Director Elizabeth Van Dyke, NFT describes its goals: “to integrate artists of color and women into the mainstream of American theater by training artists for the profession.”42 *10. Playwrights Horizons (est. 1971): founded at the Clark Center Y by Robert Moss, the company calls itself, “a writer’s theater dedicated to the development of contemporary American playwrights, and to the production of innovative new work.”43 Under the leadership of Artistic Director Adam Greenfeld and Managing Director Leslie Marcus, Playwrights Horizons has two stages, the Mainstage and the Peter J. Sharp Theatre. *11. New York Theatre Workshop (est. 1979): founded by Stephen Graham, who “envisioned an organization which would support and encourage outstanding new playwrights and directors outside the commercial area and to develop inventive new works for the theatre.”44 Led by Artistic Director Patricia McGregor, NYTW operates two Off-Broadway theatres, Theatre 79 and a black box theatre (a very simple and adaptable performance space, that lends itself to a multitude of audience/actor configurations). *12. Second Stage Theater Company (est. 1979): Second Stage describes its goals: “to create and champion plays and musicals solely from living American writers.”45 Led by President and Artistic Director Carole Rothman, Second Stage owns the Helen Hayes Theater on Broadway, and two Off-Broadway theatres: the Tony Kiser and the Theater McGinn/Cazale Theater. *13. Vineyard Theatre Company (est. 1981): Based in Union Square since 1989, and led by Artistic Directors Sarah Stern and Douglas Aibel, along with Managing Director Suzanne Appel, Vineyard describes itself as “dedicated to developing and producing new plays and musicals that push the boundaries of what theatre can be and do.”46 *14. Atlantic Theatre Company (est. 1985): led by Artistic Director Neil Pepe and Managing Director Jeffory Lawson, the Atlantic describes itself as, “a powerhouse off-Broadway company,” which

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is “committed to championing the stories from new and established artists alike, amplifying the voices of emerging playwrights.”47 The company performs in two theatres, the Linda Gross Theater and the Stage 2. 15. Irish Repertory Theatre Company (est. 1988): has two theatres: the 140-seat Francis J. Greenburger mainstage, and the 55-seat W. Scott McLucas Studio Theatre.48 16. Signature Theatre Company (est. 1991): founded by James Houghton, the company has three stages: the Irene Diamond Stage, the Romulus Linney Courtyard Theatre, and the Alice Griffin Jewel Box Theatre. Led by Artistic Director Paige Evans and Executive Director Timothy J. McClimon, Signature is known for “devoting each season to one living playwright, with multiple productions representing a body of work.”49 17. Mint Theatre Company (est. 1992): founded by Kelly Morgan, the Mint discovered its mission in 1995, under the leadership of Jonathan Bank, who decided the company ought to focus on producing lost, forgotten, or neglected plays, leading to their slogan, “lost plays found here.”50 Many of their productions are plays written by women, including the Irish writer Teresa Deevy. The Mint rents performance spaces, such as New York City Center Stage II. 18. Origin Theatre Company (est. 2002): founded by George C. Heslin. Its mission statement declares, “Origin has been devoted to discovering, nurturing, and introducing new exciting voices from Europe, whose work provide unique perspectives on national identity, cross-cultural relations, and global understanding.”51 In 2007, the company began its annual Origin 1st Irish Theatre Festival, which they describe as “the only festival of its kind devoted to producing and presenting the theatrical work of contemporary Irish playwrights from around the world.”52 19. Barrow Street Theatricals (est. 2003): Producers Scott Morfee and Tom Wirtshafter founded Barrow Street Theatre in 2003; in 2018, they lost their lease to the Greenwich House Theatre, when they changed the company’s name to Barrow Street Theatricals.53 20. Fallen Angel Theatre Company (est. 2003): founded by actress and director Aedín Moloney, Fallen Angel is “committed to presenting outstanding and dynamic Irish and British plays written by and about women.”54

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21. Baryshnikov Arts Center: (est. 2005): includes the 238-seat Jerome Robbins Theatre. The company states, “BAC is the realization of a long-held vision by Founder and Artistic Director Mikhail Baryshnikov to build an arts center in New York City that serves as a gathering place for artists from all disciplines.”55 In the context of the twenty-one Off-Broadway theatre companies described above, fourteen of the twenty-one were founded prior to the Irish Rep in 1988, making the Irish Rep among the youngest of the current companies. The Irish Rep also sets itself apart from these other companies with its distinctive, singular Irish/Irish American focus. Only Repertorio Español has a similar emphasis on producing work by a particular ethnic group. This book is the first history of the Irish Repertory Theatre Company. Leading scholars in the study of Irish drama abroad include Nicholas Grene, creator of the Irish Theatrical Diaspora Project, which began in 2002 “to research the production and reception of Irish drama throughout Ireland itself and outside the country.”56 Grene and Chris Morash edited the first publication that emerged from this Diaspora Project, Irish Theatre on Tour (2005), which was followed by Irish Theatre in England, edited by Ben Levitas and Richard Cave (2022).57 John P. Harrington’s Irish Theatre in America: Essays on Irish Theatrical Diaspora (2009) is another important work in this field. A particularly insightful essay in this volume is Christopher Berchild’s piece, “Ireland Rearranged: Contemporary Irish Drama and the Irish American Stage,” which is among the few publications about Irish and Irish American theatre companies (especially the Irish Rep), apart from newspaper and journal articles. Berchild’s discerning essay compares three American Irish theatre companies: Irish Rep in New York City, Súgán in Boston, and Solas Nua in Washington, D.C., in terms of what he calls each company’s “conservative, moderate [or] aggressive” approach, which he says determines the types of playwrights and plays that each company has produced.58 I mostly agree with Berchild’s categorization of the Irish Rep as conservative, Súgán as moderate, and Solas Nua as aggressive. As Berchild mentions, however, Súgán has been “on hiatus” since 2006, which sadly illustrates the tenuous existence theatre companies face around the world, especially after the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020–2021, which shut down live performances.59

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In Berchild’s explanation of the Irish Rep as conservative, he explains that the company has been “forced to indulge in more traditional and nostalgic views of Ireland to serve their more culturally conservative audiences,” and thus their productions include few playwrights who have “been aggressively and radically redefining the face of Irish drama in Ireland in the past two decades [roughly 1990s–2009],” including female playwrights like Marina Carr.60 Building on Berchild’s assessment, my book suggests that the Irish Rep has gradually become more progressive in its outlook, as seen in its productions of Eclipsed (1999), by Patricia Burke Brogan; Disco Pigs (2018), by Edna Walsh; Woman and Scarecrow (2018), by Marina Carr, and the world premiere of Deirdre Kinahan’s The Saviour (2023). In Theatre and Globalization: Irish Drama in the Celtic Tiger Era, Lonergan emphasizes, “the importance of utilizing a variety of methodologies in the study of theatre,” an approach I have employed here, by researching the Irish Rep archives at New York University’s Special Collections in the Tamiment Library; the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, Billy Rose Theatre Division; consulting Irish and Irish American Theatre scholars and reviewers, as well as interviewing Irish Rep Artistic Director Charlotte Moore and Producing Director Ciarán O’Reilly, among others.61 By including this range of source material, I hope to present as complete a history of the company as possible. Each chapter covers major developments within the company, as well as their most significant productions. Chapter Two begins with biographical sketches of the Irish Rep co-founders, Charlotte Moore and Ciarán O’Reilly, focusing on their professional acting careers prior to 1988 when they began the Irish Rep. Chapter Three explores the background of the company’s productions in their opening season, 1988–1989, and Season 2, 1989–1990: Sean O’Casey’s The Plough and the Stars , Tom Murphy’s Whistle in the Dark, the first of what would become their annual benefit galas, entitled Yeats! A Celebration, and Brian Friel’s Philadelphia, Here I Come!. Chapter Four focuses mainly on Grandchild of Kings , a play adapted and directed for the Irish Rep by American producer and director Harold Prince, along with the company’s production highlights from Seasons 3–7, 1990–1995. Chapter Five discusses the Irish Rep’s determination to find a more permanent home for their theatre company, which came to fruition in late 1994 when they rented three floors of the Stanwick Building on 132 West 22nd Street in Chelsea. I also discuss their subsequent remodeling

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of the Stanwick into performance, rehearsal and administrative spaces, and the chapter considers significant productions from Season 8, 1995–1996. Chapter Six describes the Irish Rep’s most successful show to date, The Irish … and How They Got That Way, by Frank McCourt, which began as the company’s annual benefit gala in May 1997; I also include important events (including September 11, 2001), and shows from Seasons 9–15, 1996–2003. Chapter Seven details the Irish Rep’s “campaign for a permanent home,” their extensive efforts to raise enough resources to purchase their three floors of the Stanwick Building, plus theatrical highlights from Seasons 16–22, 2003–2009. Chapter Eight discusses the highs and lows in both the company and their productions between 2010–2022, including embarking on another successful fundraising campaign to renovate their theatrical home on 132 West 22nd Street, and the devastating arrival of the COVID-19 global pandemic in early 2020, which shut down live performances in New York City and across the world, prompting the company to switch to one of their more fruitful ventures: streaming their productions. Chapter Nine concludes with reflections on the Irish Rep’s remarkable staying power in the very uncertain American professional theatre industry, with speculations about their promising future. Terry Teachout has reflected, “If I had to choose a single company to stand for all that is best and most characteristic about theater in New York, it might just be The Irish Repertory Theatre … one of the finest theater companies in America.”62 For thirty-five years, the Off-Broadway Irish Repertory Theatre Company has been the jewel in the crown of Irish, Irish American, and Celtic Theatre companies in North America. This book tells their story.

Notes 1. Irish Repertory Theatre. 2006. “The Campaign for a Permanent Home.” Irish Repertory Theatre Program for their 13th Annual Benefit, A Cabaret of Stars, 5 June. Tamiment Library and Robert F. Wagner Labor Archives. Irish Repertory Theatre Records. AIA 080 Box 11, Folder 9. 2. Outer Critics Circle Award: 2013 Award Winners, 19 October. https://www.newyorktheatreguide.com/theatre-news/ 2017. news/outer-critics-circle-2013-award-winners. Accessed 11 July 2023.

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3. Hickey, Neil. 2019. Hall of Fame: Irish Repertory Theatre Founders Charlotte Moore and Ciarán O’Reilly. Irish America, March/April. https://www.irishamerica.com/2019/03/hall-offame-irish-repertory-theatre-founders-charlotte-moore-ciaran-ore illy/. Accessed 18 July 2023. 4. Brunner, Jeryl. 2020. When Lightning Strikes! Podcast. #10: Charlotte Moore and Ciarán O’Reilly (Irish Repertory Theatre), 19 May. https://broadwaypodcastnetwork.com/when-lightningstrikes/10-charlotte-moore-and-ciaran-oreilly-irish-repertory-the atre/. Accessed 21 June 2021. 5. Diner, Hasia R. 2018. How the Irish Challenged American Identity: An Immigrant Group’s History Lessons for Today. In Being New York, Being Irish: Reflections on Twenty-Five Years of Irish America and New York University’s Glucksman Ireland House, ed. Terry Golway, 82–87. Quoted on 83; 85. Newbridge, Ireland: Irish Academic Press. 6. Segal, David. 2019. Who’s Irish Now? New York Times, 29 September: 1; 8. Quoted on 8. Author’s own collection. 7. Sihra, Melissa. 2005. Marina Carr in the U.S.: Perception, Conflict and Culture in Irish Theatre Abroad. In Irish Theatre on Tour, eds. Nicholas Grene and Chris Morash, 179–191. Irish Theatrical Diaspora Series: 1. Dublin: Carysfort. Quoted on 188. 8. Grene, Nicholas and Chris Morash, eds. 2005. Irish Theatre on Tour, xviii. Irish Theatrical Diaspora Series: 1. Dublin: Carysfort. 9. Harrington, John P., ed. 2009. Modern and Contemporary Irish Drama: A Norton Critical Edition, xix. 2nd Ed. New York: Norton. 10. Lonergan, Patrick. 2010. Theatre and Globalization: Irish Drama in the Celtic Tiger Era, 32. Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan. 11. Sihra, Melissa. 2005. Quoted on 179. 12. American Conference for Irish Studies. Digest of News and Announcements. Email to the author, 14 September. 2022. 13. Ratuski, Andrea. 2014. Tara Players Theatre Celebrates 40th Anniversary. CBC News, 1 May. https://www.cbc.ca/news/can ada/manitoba/tara-players-theatre-celebrates-40th-anniversary-1. 2626211.

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14. 15. 16. 17.

18.

19.

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Accessed 13 June 2023. Irish Association of Manitoba. 2023. Tara Players. https://irishassociationofmanitoba.ca/tara-players. Accessed 13 June 2023. Toronto Irish Players. 2023. About Us. http://torontoirishplayers. com/wp/about-us/. Accessed 13 June 2023. Liffey Players. 2023. About Liffey Players. http://www.liffeypla yers.com/about-us.html. Accessed 13 June 2023. Irish Repertory Theatre. 2023. About Irish Rep. https://irishrep. org/about/. Accessed 26 June 2023. Irish Classical Theatre Company. 2023. Mission and History. https://irishclassical.com/mission-and-history/. Accessed 5 June 2023. Gaelic Park Players. 2023. About the Gaelic Park Players. http:// gaelicparkplayers.org/about-the-gaelic-park-players/. Accessed 5 June 2023. Irish American Theatre Company of Cincinnati. 2023. https:// www.cincyirish.org/ and https://www.cincyirish.org/the-irishamerican-theater-company. Accessed 5 June 2023. Illustrating the often unfortunately short-lived nature of theatre companies, as of August 2023, at least seven other Irish theatre companies that opened after the Irish Rep in 1988 have since closed: Seanachaí Theatre Company (est. 1994; in 2014, the name changed to the Irish Theatre of Chicago; the company closed in 2022); Irish American Theatre Company (1997–1998, New York City); Theatre Banshee (est. 1994, Los Angeles; moved to Burbank, CA; closed in 2015); Súgán (est. 2002 in Boston; “on hiatus” since 2006); New Gate Celtic Theatre Company (est. 2005 in Cincinnati; an Internet search conducted 5 June 2023 did not find its closing date); Celtic Theater Company (1999–2006, New Jersey), and AIRE (American Irish Repertory Ensemble, 2007–2015, Portland, Maine). Bambino, Joe. Burbank’s Theatre Banshee has Closed Its Doors Permanently. 2015. Playbill, 2 December. https://www.playbill.com/article/burbanks-theatrebanshee-has-closed-its-doors-permanently-com-373928. Accessed 30 June 2023. Tench, Megan. 2008. Falling to Earth. Boston Globe, 25 May. http://archive.boston.com/ae/theater_arts/art icles/2008/05/25/falling_to_earth/. Accessed 20 June 2023. NJTheater.com. 2023. Theater History for Celtic Theatre Company. https://www.njtheater.com/Troupe/name/celtic.rails.

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20. 21. 22.

23. 24.

25. 26. 27.

28. 29. 30. 31. 32.

33.

Accessed 17 July 2023. https://www.njtheater.com/Troupe/All Shows.rails?name=celtic. Accessed 20 June 2023. Inis Nua. 2023. About Inis Nua. https://inisnuatheatre.org/ about. Accessed 5 June 2023. Corrib Theatre. 2023. About Us: Who We Are. https://corribthe atre.org/who-we-are/. Accessed 5 June 2023. Irish Heritage Theatre. 2023. About the Irish Heritage Theatre. https://www.irishheritagetheatre.org/support. Accessed 5 June 2023. Irish Arts Center. 2023. About the Irish Arts Center. https://iri shartscenter.org/about. Accessed 5 June 2023. Irish American Heritage Center. 2023. About Irish American Heritage Center: Midwest. https://irish-american.org/about-us/. Accessed 5 June 2023. Celtic MKE. 2023. About Celtic MKE: Our Mission. https://cel ticmke.com/CelticMKEAbout.htm. Accessed 5 June 2023. The Celtic Connection. 2023. About The Celtic Connection. http://celtic-connection.com/about/. Accessed 5 June 2023. Pict Classic Theatre. 2023. About Pict Classic Theatre: Who We Are. http://www.picttheatre.org/about-pict/. Accessed 5 June 2023. Solas Nua. 2023. About Solas Nua: New Irish Arts. https://sol asnua.org/about. Accessed 5 June 2023. Tír Na Productions. 2023. About Tír Na Productions. http://tir natheatre.com/about.html. Accessed 5 June 2023. Little, Stuart W. 1972. Off-Broadway: The Prophetic Theater, 14. New York: Dell. Ibid. Quoted on 15. Meiksins, Rob. 2018. Nonprofits On and Off Broadway: The Search for Enterprise Models. Nonprofit Quarterly. 26 February. https://nonprofitquarterly.org/nonprofits-off-broadway-searchenterprise-models/. Accessed 5 June 2023. This list does not include the Off-Broadway theatres known as “receiving houses,” which are rented theatres. These include the eight theatres on West 42nd Street between 7 and 8th Avenues, which were redeveloped in 1990 by the New 42nd Street Organization: Apollo, Empire, Liberty, Lyric, Selwyn, Times Square, Victory and The Duke. Other rented theatres include: New World Stages (est. 2004): a five theatre Off-Broadway performing arts

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34. 35. 36. 37.

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complex, owned by the Shubert Organization; 59E59 (est. 2004): three theatre spaces that stage both Off-Broadway and Off-Off Broadway shows, owned and operated by the Elysabeth Kleinhans Theatrical Foundation; Acorn Theatre (est. 1978): one of five Off-Broadway/Off-Off-Broadway Theatres owned by the 42nd Street Development Corporation; Stage 42 (est. 2002), owned by St. Luke’s Theatre, located at St. Luke’s Lutheran Church; Lucille Lortel Theatre (est. 1955); New Victory Theater (est. 1995), which offers theatre primarily for children; Westside Theatre (Upstairs and Downstairs, est. 1991), originally a German Baptist Church, the Westside reopened in 1991, and is currently managed by Reno Productions, Inc., Peter Askin, Director; Triad Theatre (est. 1984), owned and operated by Peter Martin and Rick Newman; Astor Place Theatre (est. 1968), once a resident for the Astor and Vanderbilt families in New York City, the performance art company Blue Man Group has owned this theatre since 2001; SoHo Playhouse (est. 1994); the Marjorie S. Deane Little Theater (remodeled 2001), owned by the YMCA of New York; the Actors Temple Theatre (a synagogue that rents out rehearsal space, est. 2001); the 47th Street Theatre (home to the Puerto Rican Traveling Theatre and Forbidden Broadway); the Daryl Roth Theatres (est. 1996); 777 Theatre; John Cullum Theatre; Manhattan Movement and Arts Centre; Liberty Theatres, which operates two Off-Broadway theatres: the Orpheum (home of Stomp since it opened in 1994), and the Minetta Lane Theatre; The Players Theatre (built 1907; converted to a theatre, late 1950s); The Theater Center; Theatre 80 St. Marks; Theatre at St. Clement’s Church; and the Gym at Judson. Cherry Lane Theatre. 2023. Mainstage History. https://www.che rrylanetheatre.org/mainstage. Accessed 22 May 2023. Classic Stage Company. 2023. Mission and History. https://www. classicstage.org/mission-and-history. Accessed 22 May 2023. Lincoln Center Theater. 2023. History of LCT. https://www.lct. org/about/history-lct/. Accessed 12 June 2023. Roundabout Theatre Company. 2023. About Roundabout. https://www.roundabouttheatre.org/about/. Accessed 12 June 2023.

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38. The Public Theater. 2023. Artistic Programs: Public Works. https://publictheater.org/programs/publicworks/. Accessed 14 June 2023. 39. Repertorio Español. 2023. https://repertorio.nyc/#/repertorioespanol. Accessed 30 June 2023. 40. York Theatre Company. 2023. Mission. https://yorktheatre.org/ about/mission-history. Accessed 30 June 2023. 41. Manhattan Theater Company. 2023. About MTC. https:// www.manhattantheatreclub.com/about-mtc/. Accessed 15 August 2023. 42. New Federal Theatre. 2023. Mission and History. https://newfed eraltheatre.com/mission-and-history/. Accessed 14 June 2023. 43. Playwrights Horizons. 2023. About Playwrights Horizons: Who We Are. https://www.playwrightshorizons.org/about/who-weare/. Accessed 12 June 2023. 44. New York Theatre Workshop. 2023. What We Do. https://www. nytw.org/about/what-we-do/. Accessed 30 June 2023. 45. Second Stage Theatre Company. 2023. History and Mission. https://2st.com/. Accessed 13 June 2023. 46. Vineyard Theatre Company. 2023. About Us. https://vineyardt heatre.org/about/. Accessed 13 June 2023. 47. Atlantic Theater Company. 2023. About Us: Who We Are. https://atlantictheater.org/about/who-we-are/. Accessed 13 June 2023. 48. Irish Repertory Theatre Company. 2023. About the Irish Rep. https://irishrep.org/about/. Accessed 22 May 2023. 49. Signature Theatre Company. 2023. About Us: Mission and Vision. https://www.signaturetheatre.org/About.aspx. Accessed 12 June 2023. 50. Mint Theatre Company. 2023. Mission and History. https://min ttheater.org/about/. Accessed 14 July 2023. 51. Origin Theatre Company. 2023. About Us: Mission. https:// www.origintheatre.org/about-1. Accessed 13 June 2023. 52. Origin Theatre Company. 2023. Ist Irish 2023. https://www.ori gintheatre.org/1st-irish-festival. Accessed 12 July 2023. 53. McHenry, Jackson. 2018. Barrow Street Theatricals Will Live On With a New Name and New Production. Vulture, 11 October. https://www.vulture.com/2018/10/barrow-street-the atre-new-space-name.html. Accessed 13 June 2023. Barrow

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54.

55. 56. 57.

58.

59.

60. 61. 62.

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Street Theatricals. 2023. http://www.barrowstreettheatre.com/. Accessed 13 June 2023. Fallen Angel Theatre Company. About Fallen Angel. https:// www.fallenangeltheatre.org/about. Accessed 13 June 2023. Fallen Angel co-produced Airswimming with the Irish Rep in 2013, and Fallen Angel founder Aedín Moloney also starred in this production. Baryshnikov Arts Center. 2023. About BAC. https://bacnyc.org/ about/about-bac. Accessed 29 June 2023. Grene and Morash, xiv. Levitas, Ben, and Richard Cave, eds. 2022. Irish Theatre in England: Irish Theatrical Diaspora. Irish Theatrical Diaspora Series: 2. Dublin: Carysfort. Berchild, Christopher L. 2009. Ireland Rearranged: Contemporary Irish Drama and the Irish American Stage, in Irish Theater in America: Essays on Irish Theatrical Diaspora, ed. John P. Harrington, 38–53. Quoted on 48. New York: Syracuse. Falling to Earth. Boston Globe, 25 May. http://archive.boston. com/ae/theater_arts/articles/2008/05/25/falling_to_earth/. Accessed 20 June 2023. Berchild. 2009. Quoted on 42. Lonergan. 2010. Quoted on 55. Teachout, Terry. 2011. Irish Repertory Theatre’s Campaign for a Permanent Home. Tamiment Library and Robert F. Wagner Labor Archives. Irish Repertory Theatre Records. AIA 080 Box 26, Folder 7.

CHAPTER 2

Charlotte Moore and Ciarán O’Reilly: “Smitten With Magic of the Theatre”

Charlotte Moore and Ciarán O’Reilly both began their careers in the theatre as actors. The daughter of an owner of a coal mine, Charlotte Moore was born on 7 July 1939, in what she calls “the southern tip of Illinois,” a rural farming community of Herrin, Illinois, whose population in 1940 was roughly 9,352.1 Moore’s maternal grandfather, John Ephraim Cotton, was a Kentuckian. On her mother’s side, Moore is a granddaughter and great-granddaughter of Irish immigrants from County Wexford, in the southeast corner of Ireland. During the 2019 induction ceremony for Moore and Ciarán O’Reilly into Irish America’s Hall of Fame, Moore reflected on her Irish ancestors: If all life is a circle, this honor today is significant for me. My ancestors left County Wexford in another century, landed on these shores, and made their way west to Kentucky and southern Illinois, to work in the coal mines. They left with little in their pockets, but their blood was flush with heritage. That heritage has inspired me for the past thirty years, as Ciarán and I decided to do a play one day, and founded the Irish Repertory Theatre. It’s been a privilege to honor that heritage of a country that has produced the finest playwrights in any language. The fact that my name hangs in the Hall of Fame in New Ross, County Wexford, is deeply meaningful to me.2

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2024 M. Szasz, Irish Repertory Theatre, New Directions in Irish and Irish American Literature, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-53545-1_2

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Long before Moore considered combining her Irish heritage with a theatre company, she developed an interest in acting. In an Irish America article discussing Moore and O’Reilly’s Hall of Fame honor, Neil Hickey notes that Moore’s interest in the theatre began during her childhood. “As a kid growing up in Southern Illinois, Charlotte already was performing in Catholic grade school plays, yearning to be an actor. ‘I wanted to be a movie star,’ she recalls, with a smile, but shifted her focus to live theater, which soon became her passion.”3 Before becoming involved with professional theatre, Moore relates that she “couldn’t make up her mind what to do,” as she “had bad luck with colleges … I’d run off from a couple … I was embarrassing my family, so I went to nursing school.”4 By age 18, she had a nursing degree. Following her nursing degree, she earned a Master of Arts in Comparative Literature from Washington University in St. Louis. During graduate school, she was cast in the Greek play Hippolytus, by Euripides. During this production, Moore realized, “I think I want to do some more of this.”5 She describes being instantly “smitten with magic of theatre,” and decided to become an actress.6 Moore has performed in most of the major regional theatres in the U.S. She began her acting career at the Hartford Stage in Connecticut and the Asolo Repertory Theatre in Florida, where she worked for four seasons in a row. Moore played 15 different roles with the Hartford Stage Company, in such plays as The Homecoming , by English playwright Harold Pinter; Three Sisters , by the Russian master of tragicomedy, Anton Chekhov; Blythe Spirit , by Englishman Noël Coward; Tiny Alice, by American playwright Edward Albee, and The Waltz Invention, by Russian writer Vladimir Nabokov. She has also performed with the Long Wharf Theatre in New Haven, Connecticut; the Williamstown Summer Theatre Festival in Massachusetts; the Stratford, Connecticut, Shakespeare Festival; the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C.; the Ahmanson Theatre and the Mark Taper Forum in Los Angeles, as well as the American Spoleto Festival in Charleston, South Carolina. Moore has enthusiastically commented on her extensive acting experience, “Mention a play! I’ve done it!”7 Some important examples include performing opposite Shirley Booth in Mourning in a Funny Hat , by Dody Goodman, at the Cape Playhouse in Dennis, Massachusetts in 1972; in 1974, she originated the role of Jan Loftus in the world premiere of Summer, by Irishman Hugh Leonard, directed by Brian Murray, at the Olney Theatre in Maryland, a play that The Irish Times ’ Fintan O’Toole

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calls “Hugh Leonard’s best play.”8 At Cincinnati’s Playhouse in the Park in 1983, she was Gwendolyn in The Importance of Being Earnest , by Irishman Oscar Wilde, which was her third time playing Gwendolyn (she first played the role at Washington University in St. Louis; her second portrayal of Gwendolyn took place at the Asolo Repertory Theatre in Sarasota, Florida). Moore studied acting with some of the all-time greats, including the influential teacher, actress, and author Uta Hagen, whom Moore called “fearful Uta”; actor and producer John Houseman; and Morris Carnovsky, and Carnovsky’s wife, Phoebe Brand, two of the founders of the Group Theatre (1931–1941), along with Harold Clurman.9 The Group Theatre emphasized a psychological grounding in actor training, focusing on “improvisation, emotional and sensory memories, private moments, and exercises in relaxation and concentration,” resulting in acting that was “more natural and earthy, more private, more intense, and more psychologically charged.”10 This approach led to the American Method style of actor training, first taught by Lee Strasburg, Sanford Meisner, Carnovsky, and Stella Adler. In 1971, Moore auditioned three times for Stephen Sondheim and Hugh Wheeler’s new musical, A Little Night Music, on the stage of the Winter Garden Theatre, where Sondheim and James Goldman’s musical Follies was playing, starring John McMartin as Benjamin Stone. Moore bemoans that her auditions, in front of director Harold “Hal” Prince, were “a disaster, a complete disaster—I was in tears and ruins, absolute ruins, embarrassed and humiliated.”11 O’Reilly later explained that for her audition, Moore “attempted to sing the bench song—’If I Loved You’—from Carousel [a 1945 musical by Rodgers and Hammerstein], but ‘nothing came out.’ Moore burst into tears, after which Sondheim comforted her.”12 While Moore did not receive a role in A Little Night Music, she clearly made an impression on Prince. A year later, Prince called her when she was performing at the Hartford Stage Company, and invited her to join the New Phoenix Repertory’s forthcoming season in New York City, led by the Managing Director Michael Montel and co-Artistic Directors Stephen Porter and Prince. Moore describes her decision to join this company as her “way in to New York.”13 Legendary Broadway producer and director Prince became a major influence on Moore’s acting career; he also became a good friend of Moore and O’Reilly’s, and a strong supporter of the Irish Rep, including adapting and directing the first two volumes of Sean

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O’Casey’s autobiography into Grandchild of Kings , which the company produced in 1992, during their third season. After arriving in New York, Moore took a few short-lived jobs, including a secretarial position in a medical agency, and waitressing for two days, while she kept auditioning. “When I decided to throw everything away and come here [New York City] without knowing anyone at all, it was a ridiculous idea … I knew nothing, but I just did it,” recalled Moore in 2021.14 Her gamble was worth it, as over the course of her professional acting career, she appeared in ten Broadway productions, the first seven of which were produced by the New Phoenix Repertory Company. During her three seasons with The Phoenix, from 1972–1975, she was in at least one if not two Broadway plays per year. She performed in such classics as The School for Scandal , by Irish playwright Richard Brinsley Sheridan; The Seagull , by Chekhov; and The Tavern, by Irish American playwright, composer, lyricist, and actor George M. Cohan. From the beginning of Moore’s involvement with The Phoenix, she met leading actor John McMartin. McMartin’s extensive acting resume includes Broadway, Off-Broadway, regional theatre, film, and TV. In addition to Follies , he played Frederick in A Little Night Music in 1991 at the Ahmanson Theatre in Los Angeles, and he was in the first Broadway revival of Sondheim and James Lapine’s Into the Woods in 2002, along with many other roles. He received five Tony Award nominations: in 1966, for Oscar in Sweet Charity, opposite Gwen Verdon (a role he would repeat in the 1969 film, starring Shirley MacLaine); in 1972 for Sganarelle in Don Juan; in 1995, for Cap’n Andy in a revival of Show Boat; in 1998 for Uncle Willie in Cole Porter and Arthur Kopit’s High Society, and in 2002 for the Narrator/ Mysterious Man in Into the Woods. McMartin married producer Cynthia Baer in 1960, and they had two daughters, Kathleen and Susan. Their marriage ended in 1971. Moore recalled first meeting McMartin, “I was madly in love with him on Day 1, although I didn’t know anything about him and hadn’t seen him in anything. I didn’t see Follies, to my horror.”15 McMartin and Moore became partners in 1972, and she moved into his Upper West Side apartment in 1973. They remained together for over forty years, until McMartin’s death from cancer at age 86 in 2016. Moore and McMartin acted in many plays together for The Phoenix, beginning in 1972 with The Great God Brown, an experimental 1926 work by Eugene O’Neill, which was performed in repertory with Don Juan, by French dramatist and actor Molière. In Great God Brown,

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Moore played Mrs. Anthony (she was also the understudy for the heroine Margaret), and McMartin was Dion Anthony; in Don Juan, Moore played a peasant character also named Charlotte, while McMartin was Sganarelle. In 1973, Moore played Frau Schill and McMartin played Anton Schill in The Visit , by Swiss dramatist Friedrich Dürrenmatt, a production that The New York Times praised for Prince’s “brilliant new staging.”16 That same year, Moore played Linda Seaton in Philip Barry’s comedy Holiday, where she received praise from Clive Barnes, who comments that she conveyed just “the right misty and dusty, poor little-rich-girl charm.”17 The program for the Irish Rep’s inaugural 1988 production of The Plough and the Stars describes Moore as a “Tony Nominee!” for her role as Sophie in the farce, Chemin de Fer (meaning “railroad” or “railway”), by French playwright Georges Feydeau, which ran 42 performances on Broadway, from 26 November 1973–16 February 1974.18 In Clive Barnes’ view, the entire Phoenix cast of Chemin de Fer, “hope, groan and gasp on their way through the playwright’s hoops with an expert, seemingly impromptu, abandon,” which kept the audience laughing throughout the play.19 In 1974, Moore was in a Broadway revival of the English Restoration Comedy Love for Love, by William Congreve (as Mrs. Frail, a sister to Mrs. Foresight); in 1975, she played Mrs. West in the drama The Member of the Wedding , adapted by Carson McCullers from her 1946 novel; in 1980, in the first Broadway revival of Morning’s at Seven, by Paul Osborn, and directed by Vivian Matalon, Moore replaced actress Lois de Banzie as Myrtle Brown, who, similar to Miss Adelaide in Frank Loesser, Jo Swerling and Abe Burrows’ musical comedy Guys and Dolls (1950), spends the play in a seemingly never ending engagement to the son of one of the sisters, Ida. In fall 1983, Moore toured the U.S. in a Broadway production of Private Lives , by English playwright Noël Coward, after replacing Kathryn Walker as Sybil Chase. Except for the addition of Moore, the cast remained the same from its May 1983 Broadway production, which starred Elizabeth Taylor as Amanda Prynne and Richard Burton as Elyot Chase, a divorced couple who mirrored Taylor and Burton’s two recent marriages and divorces from each other (their second divorce occurred in July 1976). The on and off-stage history and antics between Taylor and Burton dominated the reviews of this production (such as Burton heading to Las Vegas to marry his fourth wife, Sally Hay, during the tour). Nevertheless, in Dan Sullivan’s Los Angeles Times review of one of the Beverly

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Hills performances at the Wilshire Theatre (now the Saban Theatre), he complimented the supporting actors, pointing out that Moore was “new to the show and a vast improvement over the actress [Kathryn Walker] who played Elyot’s new wife on Broadway, not a dodo-bird, but a sensible woman wrongly confident of her ability to supplant the fascinating Amanda [Elyot’s former wife, played by Elizabeth Taylor].”20 In 1989, Moore originated the role of the mother, Mrs. Smith, in the Broadway premiere of the musical Meet Me in St. Louis , with music and lyrics by Ralph Blane and Hugh Martin, and book by Hugh Wheeler, and directed by Louis Burke. Based on the 1944 MGM film of the same name, Meet Me in St. Louis focuses on a year in the life of one family in St. Louis, Missouri, on the eve of the 1904 World’s Fair. Reviewer Frank Rich was unimpressed with the production, writing that the musical’s sole accomplishment seems to be to “spread the good will earned by the overture,” as the rest of the “lavish show” drowns in “insipid acting, an inane book and a complete lack of originality.”21 Despite Rich’s lack of enthusiasm, the original Broadway production ran 252 performances and received four Tony nominations. Moore was also in numerous summer stock shows, such as a 1971 Playhouse in the Park production of Candida, by Irishman George Bernard Shaw, in New York City, playing Prossie opposite Faye Dunaway as Candida. Other summer work includes the New York Shakespeare Festival, playing Thaisa in Pericles at the Delacorte Theatre in Central Park in 1974. Moore has Off-Broadway experience as well, such as in 1986, at the Playwrights Horizons, when she portrayed Lois in A.R. Gurney’s The Perfect Party. At the Hudson Guild Theatre in 1979, she played Helena in Tennessee Williams’ A Lovely Sunday for Creve Coeur, directed by Keith Hack, a part that Williams wrote specifically for her.22 She reflected that Williams “did extensive re-writes for me when I played Helena in Creve Coeur,” noting how “Tennessee was present at the rehearsals first in Charleston, South Carolina, and then in New York City.”23 Moore has a long association with Williams and his family. She was friends with Williams, whom she says she “admired,” and they would “hang out” at Washington University.24 She also knew “Miss Edwina,” Tennessee’s mother, explaining that she “met her [Miss Edwina] with Tennessee when he was visiting in St. Louis and I was in college,” and she also knew “his sister [Rose] on whom the character of Laura in The Glass Menagerie was based.”25

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In 1980, Moore reprised her role as Jan Loftus in an Off-Broadway production of Hugh Leonard’s Summer, also at the Hudson Guild Theatre, a production where she met Irish actor Ciarán O’Reilly, who had recently moved to New York City. In addition to her stage roles, Moore has plenty of TV experience: the 1961 series The Defenders; the soap opera, Search for Tomorrow; many PBS Specials, such as the series American Playhouse; Gideon Oliver, and Law and Order. Her film work includes playing Lady Reporter in The Bionic Woman (1976), Nancy Bearden in 3 by Cheever (1979), Queen in Mrs. Perkins (1993), and Carlene Jansen in PSI Factor: Chronicles of the Paranormal (1996). Clearly, Moore brought a wide range of acting experience to her role as co-founder and Artistic Director of the Irish Repertory Theatre. In 1988, Moore was cast in a Long Wharf Theatre production of Scenes from American Life, by A.R. Gurney, directed by John Tillinger. A week before opening night, she broke both arms in two places when she slipped and fell at her home, leaving her with an arm that neither straightens nor bends.26 Six days before the show opened, E. Katherine Kerr replaced her. After this accident, Moore found herself “out of commission as an actress,” which spurred her to consider directing.27 As co-founder, Artistic Director, director, and actor at the Irish Rep, Moore has received several prominent awards, including the Irish American Writers and Artists Eugene O’Neill Lifetime Achievement Award, and Director of the Year from the Wall Street Journal, both in 2011. She is a three-time winner of the Irish America Top 50 Power Women (2008, 2010, and 2016), and has been named to Irish America’s Top 100 and the Irish America Hall of Fame (2019).28 Ciarán O’Reilly had a longer geographical journey than Moore to reach the New York Theatre world. One of seven children born to Patrick O’Reilly and the former Maureen Matthews, O’Reilly was “born and raised on a farm” in Virginia, County Cavan, Ireland, on 15 May 1959.29 Also on the eastern side of Ireland, like County Wexford, Virginia is further north, in the province of Ulster, near the border with County Fermanagh in Northern Ireland. O’Reilly received his education at Carmelite College in Moate, County Westmeath. His father was a farmer, who also had a flax mill. O’Reilly reflected on his father’s life and interests: Sometime in the’40s, he got involved in politics and ran for parliament under his own independent party, the Farmers’ Party. He wanted to see

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that farmers were represented better than he felt they were. He thought that [Irish political leader Éamon] de Valera had no sympathy at all for them.30 Patrick O’Reilly served for 33 years in Dáil Éireann, the Irish parliament, first as an independent, then as a member of Fine Gael. O’Reilly has noted the connections between him and his father by commenting, “Politics is a form of theater.”31 During his thirty-five years as co-founder, Producing Director, actor, and director for the Irish Rep, O’Reilly has been involved with a number of openly political Irish and Irish American plays, such as directing the American premiere of Stuart Carolan’s Defender of the Faith for the Irish Rep in 2006. In 1978, right after he turned 19, O’Reilly came to New York City for the summer, which turned into a much longer stay than he planned. He first found work as a porter in a building. He also worked as “a furniture mover, a painter, a bus boy, a cutter of window shades in a factory and as the superintendent of a building,” while attending “evening acting classes and writing courses at the New School.”32 Forty-two years later, he remembered how he felt when he first arrived in the U.S., “I was completely lost; I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life.”33 Roughly ten weeks after he arrived in New York City, he found himself in a bar across the street from the Irish Arts Center, where actors were rehearsing Brian Friel’s 1973 political play, The Freedom of the City. Some of the actors came into the bar, grumbling about a cast member who had missed a technical rehearsal; a friend suggested O’Reilly fill in the role of Constable B. The actor who originated this role never returned, so O’Reilly remained in the play. He explained the importance of this experience: When the lights shown on me on the stage, I said, ‘this is exactly what I want to do’ … it was the camaraderie of the theatre people … suddenly I was talking to people who kind of knew what I was talking about, and that was, that we don’t know where the hell we are; we are all trying to find it, we are all trying to search for things … and I just hadn’t been around people who thought like that … it was completely transformative.34

When O’Reilly discovered this life-changing experience as an actor in 1978, the Irish Arts Center had only been around for six years. Brian Heron established the Center in 1972, initially in his Upper West Side

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apartment in Manhattan.35 The Irish Arts Center describes itself as “dedicated to projecting a dynamic image of Ireland and Irish America,” and further explains its mission: Our multi-disciplinary programming is centered around three core areas: performance—including live music, dance, theatre, film, literature, and the humanities; visual arts—including presentations and cultural exhibitions that tell the evolving Irish story; and education—with dozens of classes per week in Irish language, history, music, and dance.36 Ten years after O’Reilly performed in The Freedom of the City, he and Moore would establish the Irish Repertory Theatre. In 2012, thirty-four years after performing in Freedom as Constable B, O’Reilly would direct his own production of Friel’s play at the Irish Rep, during the company’s 25th anniversary season. O’Reilly played multiple roles at the Irish Arts Center in the late 1970s-1980s, including leading roles in The Playboy of the Western World, by J.M. Synge; O’Flaherty, V.C., by George Bernard Shaw; The Interrogation of Ambrose Fogarty, by Martin Lynch, and The Tunnel , by Gregory Teer, many directed by Jim Sheridan. O’Reilly also played Davoren in O’Casey’s The Shadow of a Gunman in 1984 at the Off-Broadway Actors Playhouse. The Irish Rep has produced many of the plays O’Reilly acted in at the Irish Arts Center, including Playboy of the Western World (1990, 2005 and 2024), and Shadow of a Gunman (1999 and 2019). The Irish Rep’s program for their 1991 production of Brian Friel’s Making History further details O’Reilly’s acting background: “Before coming to America, [O’Reilly] played several roles with the Abbey Theatre in Dublin in both the English and Gaelic languages,” as well as playing Gar Public in Brian Friel’s Philadelphia, Here I Come! at Dublin’s Victor Theatre.37 After he moved to New York and began acting in the U.S., O’Reilly says: I began to love Irish culture, which I abhorred when I grew up in Ireland. I didn’t want to hear from [Irish writers] W.B. Yeats or John Millington Synge. I mean, that’s old Irish hat. Who wants it? And then I come over to America and … suddenly there I was, spouting W.B. Yeats.38

Unbeknownst to O’Reilly when he first began performing in the U.S., his career in the Irish Rep as co-founder, actor, and director would soon take him into many more plays by Synge and Yeats, along with virtually all

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of the best Irish playwrights, from the Irish Renaissance to contemporary Irish and Irish American writers. In 1983, eleven years after Moore’s Broadway debut, O’Reilly made his own Broadway debut as Robbart Robbatch and a member of the “Welsh Chorus” in the comedy The Corn is Green, by Welsh dramatist Emlyn Williams, a production that starred Cecily Tyson and was directed by Vivian Matalon (who directed the 1980 Broadway revival of Morning’s at Seven, which included Moore). In 2005, O’Reilly played Dan Roche in a Broadway revival of Eugene O’Neill’s A Touch of the Poet , starring Gabriel Bryne, and directed by Doug Hughes. Ben Brantley’s review of this revival reminds us that the father in the play, Cornelius Melody, resembles “the mythomaniacal James Tyrone” from O’Neill’s Long Day’s Journey Into Night , a play that Moore would direct for the Irish Rep in 1998. O’Reilly would also go on to direct several plays by O’Neill for the Irish Rep: The Hairy Ape (2007), The Emperor Jones (2009 and 2017), Beyond the Horizon (2012), and A Touch of the Poet (2022). Rather fittingly, Moore and O’Reilly met while working on an Irish play: a 1980 Off-Broadway production of Hugh Leonard’s Summer, performed at the Hudson Guild Theatre, and directed by Brian Murray. The play is set on a hill near Dublin, where three couples and the son and daughter of another couple meet for a picnic. O’Reilly was not yet a member of Equity, the Actors’ Union, during this production of Summer, so he served as dialect coach, later humorously bemoaning that trying to teach Moore an Irish accent was “to absolutely no good result whatsoever.”39 After its Off-Broadway run ended, the production moved to the Poinciana Playhouse in Palm Beach, Florida. O’Reilly had become an Equity member by the time the production moved to Florida, where he joined the cast. Moore and O’Reilly remained friends “for a good many years” after this production, while they both pursued acting careers in film, TV, and the stage.40 Similar to Moore, O’Reilly also has TV experience, such as roles in One Life to Live, As the World Turns, and Edge of Night. His film work includes supporting roles, such as Father Canlon in The Devil’s Own (1997), about the Troubles, which starred Harrison Ford as Irish American policeman Tom O’Meara, and Brad Pitt as Irishman Francis McGuire. O’Reilly also played a passer-by in A Further Gesture or The Break (1998), a “local Irish guy” in Some Fish Can Fry (1999), a doorman in Law and Order: Special Victims Unit (2001), Mike in Third Watch (2003), and Owen Gibson in The Kitchen (2019).41 Since co-founding the Irish Rep, O’Reilly has

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been honored three times by Irish America’s “Top 100 Irish” Award. In 2012, he received the William Butler Yeats Award, given annually by the Council of Irish Associations of Greater Bergen County, New Jersey, to “an outstanding individual whose contributions in the field of literature defines their inheritance from the ancient Gaels to a modern people taking its part on the world stage and giving voice to the Irish experience.”42 In 1985, O’Reilly rode his motorcycle “around the world from Co. Cavan to New York (the long way round),” and in 1988, the same year he and Moore founded the Irish Rep, he rode “from New York to the Northern shores of Alaska to the tip of South America.”43 He chronicled his travels in American Motorcycle Magazine. In 2002, O’Reilly married Jennifer Essen, a public relations executive, and he and his wife have two children: Olivia and Seamus. In September 1988, Moore and O’Reilly reconnected, and they decided to form an Irish theatre company. They put immense thought and consideration into the founding of their company, calling their preparations, “a focused, strategically planned effort to launch a new theatre company.”44 Among many aspects of the company’s development, O’Reilly created the Georgian door fan logo (see Fig. 2.1). O’Reilly further describes the detailed, behind-the-scenes work that took place before the Irish Rep began its first season: The Irish Repertory Theatre (which was originally Ciarán O’Reilly DBA as Irish Repertory Theatre) was incorporated as a not-for-profit organization in its first season [1988-1989] with the view of it being an ongoing, sustainable Off-Broadway Theatre. The first full season of four plays were funded by O’Reilly, who had rented four slots at The 18th Street Playhouse from September 1988 through May 1989. Moore was with O’Reilly on every step of the way.45

The co-founders chose The Plough and the Stars , by Sean O’Casey, for their first production, with Moore directing and O’Reilly acting. Plough ranks among Moore’s top three favorite plays, alongside Tennessee Williams’ The Glass Menagerie and Eugene O’Neill’s Long Day’s Journey Into Night .46 During the Irish Rep’s 20th Anniversary Gala, in June 2008, Moore reflected on the beginning of the Irish Rep: When we started out, the literal birthplace of The Irish Repertory Theatre was a notebook in Ciarán’s bedroom—a looseleaf notebook in which we

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Fig. 2.1 Irish Repertory Theatre banner outside their theatre, 132 W. 22nd St., July 2023. Ciarán O’Reilly designed the fan door logo in 1988. (Photo by the author)

scribbled the company’s mission. This notebook also doubled as the box office, while O’Reilly’s apartment served for all of the administrative functions. Ciarán would receive phone calls in the middle of the night from hopeful patrons asking how to get a ticket, and bleary-eyed, he would book them.47

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The co-founders began the Irish Rep on a shoestring budget; nonetheless, producing Plough with O’Reilly in 1988 was an experience that Moore would later call “revelatory.”48 Thanks to their careful planning and their initial production of The Plough and the Stars , the Irish Repertory Theatre Company started on a strong note, with an auspicious future ahead.

Notes 1. Clipping files, New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, Billy Rose Theatre Division. T-CLIP Moore, Charlotte [actress]. 2. Irish America. “Ciarán O’Reilly and Charlotte Moore: Irish America Hall of Fame Induction.” YouTube Video, 3:38, 28 March. 2019. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tz83LdXLJ4&t=4s. Accessed 2 June 2023. 3. Hickey, Neil. 2019. Hall of Fame: Irish Repertory Theatre Founders Charlotte Moore and Ciarán O’Reilly. Irish America, March/April. https://irishamerica.com/2019/03/hall-of-fameirish-repertory-theatre-founders-charlotte-moore-ciaran-oreilly/. Accessed 21 June 2021. 4. Riedel, Michael. 2015. League of Professional Theatre Women, Interview with Charlotte Jean Montigue Moore, Artistic Director. Video recording. New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, Billy Rose Theatre Division, Performing Arts Research Collections, Theatre on Film and Tape Archive. Accessed 1 June 2017. Brunner, Jeryl. 2020. When Lightning Strikes! Podcast. #10: Charlotte Moore and Ciarán O’Reilly (Irish Repertory Theatre), 19 May. https://broadwaypodcastnetwork.com/whenlightning-strikes/10-charlotte-moore-and-ciaran-oreilly-irish-rep ertory-theatre/. Accessed 21 June 2021. 5. Ibid. 6. Riedel, Michael. 2015. 7. Ibid. 8. Hugh Leonard, Playwright. 2013. Summer. https://hughleonardp laywright.com/2013/02/09/summer/. Accessed 12 July 2019. Hugh Leonard was the pen name of Irish author and playwright

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9. 10.

11. 12.

13. 14.

15. 16.

17.

18.

19.

Jack Keyes (1926–2009), who is most famous for Da (1978, Tony Award for Best Play), which also premiered at the Off-Broadway Hudson Guild Theatre before moving to Broadway. The Irish Rep has produced Da twice, in 1996 and 2015. Ibid. Wilmeth, Don B, with Tice L. Miller. 1996. Group Theater, in Cambridge Guide to American Theatre, 177–178. Cambridge: Cambridge UP. Quoted on 178. Ibid. Westerfield, Joe. 2022. Ciarán O’Reilly Reflects on Irish Rep, the Pandemic and Stephen Sondheim. Newsweek, 29 March. https:// www.newsweek.com/ciaran-oreilly-reflects-irish-rep-pandemic-ste phen-sondheim-1692715. Accessed 31 May 2023. Brunner, Jeryl. 2015. Kaufman, Joanne. 2021. The Artistic Director of the Irish Rep on Art Directing an Apartment. The New York Times, 26 October. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/26/realestate/ apartment-decorating-charlotte-moore.html. Accessed 31 May 2023. Ibid. What’s New in the Theatre. 1973. The New York Times, 2 December: 184. https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmach ine/1973/12/02/91039376.html?pageNumber=184. Accessed 30 May 2023. Barnes, Clive. 1972. Stage: Having a Wonderful Holiday. The New York Times, 27 December: 45. https://www.nytimes.com/1973/ 12/27/archives/stage-having-a-wonderful-holiday-the-cast.html. Accessed 2 June 2023. Irish Repertory Theatre. 1988. Program for The Plough and the Stars , 15 September–9 October. Tamiment Library and Robert F. Wagner Labor Archives. Irish Repertory Theatre Records. AIA 080 Box 1, Folder 5. Barnes, Clive. 1973. Stage: Chemin de Fer. The New York Times, 27 November. https://www.nytimes.com/1973/11/27/arc hives/stage-chemin-de-fer-feydeau-farce-in-new-phoenix-produc tion-the.html. Accessed 2 June 2023.

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20. Sullivan, Dan. 1983. Burton and Taylor: Private Lives Review. The Los Angeles Times. https://www.latimes.com/entertainment/ arts/culture/la-et-cm-burton-and-taylor-20131016-story.html. Accessed 2 June 2023. 21. Rich, Frank. 1989. Review/Theater: Meet Me in St. Louis : Movie Brought to Stage. The New York Times, 3 November. https:// www.nytimes.com/1989/11/03/theater/review-theater-meetme-in-st-louis-movie-brought-to-stage.html. Accessed 2 June 2023. 22. Moore said she has acted in “just about all the one-acts Tennessee Williams ever wrote.” Isenberg, S. 1986. She’s Three People in One Week. Stages, October: 6; 37. Clipping files, New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, Billy Rose Theatre Division. TCLIP Moore, Charlotte [actress]. 23. Moore, Charlotte. Questions About Chapter 1. Email to the author, 19 July. 2023. 24. Riedel, Michael. 2015. 25. Moore, Charlotte. 2023. 26. Riedel, Michael. 2015. 27. Horwitz, Simi. 2019. Charlotte Moore. Backstage, 5 November. https://www.backstage.com/magazine/article/charlotte-moore37604/. Accessed 31 May 2023. 28. Hall of Fame—2019: Charlotte Moore. 2019. Irish America, March/April. https://irishamerica.com/2019/03/charlotte-moo re-2/. Accessed 23 June 2023. 29. Prologue, The Newsletter of the Irish Repertory Theatre Company. 2007. A Short Interview With Sive Director Ciarán O’Reilly. Vol. 12, Issue 1 (Fall): 1. Tamiment Library and Robert F. Wagner Labor Archives. Irish Repertory Theatre Records. AIA 080 Box 11, Folder 17. 30. Hurley, Joseph. 2011. The Life of O’Reilly—Ciarán, That Is. Irish Echo, 11 February. https://www.irishecho.com/2011/02/ the-life-of-oreilly-ciaran-that-is-2/. Accessed 21 June 2023. 31. Hickey, Neil. 2019. 32. Out and About. 2018. The Irish Examiner. https://irishexamine rusa.com/wp/?p=837. Accessed 23 July 2023. 33. Brunner, Jeryl. 2015.

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34. Ibid. 35. Klein, Alvin. 1991. Adding Irish Sensibility on Stage and in Films. The New York Times, 13 January. https://www.nytimes.com/ 1991/01/13/nyregion/theater-adding-irish-sensibility-on-stageand-in-films.html. Accessed 24 June 2023. 36. Irish Arts Center. 2023. About Irish Arts Center. https://irisharts center.org/about. Accessed 20 June 2023. 37. Irish Repertory Theatre ephemera, 1988–2012. Folder 1: Irish Rep: 1988–1999. Clipping files, New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, Billy Rose Theatre Division. 38. Ibid. 39. Brunner, Jeryl. 2015. 40. Ibid. 41. Irish Repertory Theatre. 1991. Program for Making History, 2– 30 April. Irish Repertory Theatre ephemera, 1988–2012. Clipping files, New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, Billy Rose Theatre Division. 42. William Butler Yeats Award. 2021. Council of Irish Associations of Greater Bergen County. https://www.bergencountyirish.org/ william-butler-yeats-award-winners. Accessed 24 July 2023. 43. Out and About. 2018. 44. Moore, Charlotte and Ciarán O’Reilly. Artistic Director and Producing Director of the Irish Repertory Theatre. Interview by the author. The Irish Repertory Theatre, 1 July. 2023. Transcript. 45. Ibid. 46. Moore said that of all the roles she would like to play, Amanda from The Glass Menagerie ranks high on her list. Riedel, Michael. 2015. 47. Liv, Wei Ming. Compiler. 2008. A History of the Irish Repertory Theatre, in Irish Repertory Theatre 20th Anniversary Gala Program, 9 June. Tamiment Library and Robert F. Wagner Labor Archives. Irish Repertory Theatre Records. AIA 080 Box 11, Folder 22. 48. Ibid.

CHAPTER 3

Opening Season: 1988–1989 and Season 2: 1989–1990: The Plough and the Stars, Whistle in the Dark, Yeats! A Celebration, and Philadelphia, Here I Come!

Season 1: 1988–1989: The Plough and The Stars , by Sean O’Casey; I Do Not Like Thee, Dr. Fell, by Bernard Farrell; Annual Benefit Gala: Yeats! A Celebration, by William Butler Yeats; A Whistle In The Dark, by Tom Murphy. Season 2: 1989–1990: Sea Marks , by Gardner McKay; English That For Me!, by Eamon Kelly; A Whistle In The Dark, by Tom Murphy; Endwords , by Chris O’Neill; Philadelphia, Here I Come! , by Brian Friel. Producing Director Ciarán O’Reilly and Artistic Director Charlotte Moore carefully planned the Irish Repertory Theatre’s inaugural season in 1988–1989. In June 1988, three months before Moore and O’Reilly performed together in an Off-Broadway Hudson Guild Theatre production of Hugh Leonard’s Summer, Broadway audiences had flocked to a revival of Sean O’Casey’s Juno and the Paycock, directed by Joe Dowling, which was first staged at the Gate Theatre in Dublin. According to Playbill ’s Ruthie Fierberg, this revival of Juno “hit it big on Broadway and audiences clamored for more of [O’Casey’s] work.”1 Moore and O’Reilly eagerly complied. Renting a small theatre, the 18th St. Playhouse on 145 W. 18th St., they staged their Off-Broadway production of O’Casey’s The © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2024 M. Szasz, Irish Repertory Theatre, New Directions in Irish and Irish American Literature, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-53545-1_3

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Plough and the Stars (1926). The profits from their production of Plough enabled them to then produce the Off-Broadway premiere of I Do Not Like Thee, Doctor Fell (1979), by Bernard Farrell, followed by the first of the Irish Rep’s annual benefit gala performances, entitled, Yeats! A Celebration.2 To conclude their opening season, the co-founders put on a production of Tom Murphy’s A Whistle in the Dark (1961). In 2019, thirty years after the Irish Rep began, Moore reflected on their challenging first season, by exclaiming, “We were flying by the seat of our pants, but we were lucky.”3 Moore transformed from actress into first-time director for the Irish Rep’s inaugural production of Plough and the Stars. O’Reilly played The Speaker, the off-stage voice of Irish poet and revolutionary, Patrick Pearse, whose rousing speeches in the play, which is set during the 1916 Easter Rising in Dublin, galvanize Jack Clitheroe, Lieutenant Langon, and Captain Brennan to give their lives for Ireland. The ending of Plough is unforgettable, as Jack’s wife Nora miscarries a child, and then has a mental collapse. In the final scene, neighbor Bessie Burgess (played by Paddy Croft in the Irish Rep production), who has been looking after Nora, is shot and killed by the English, while inside the Clitheroe’s apartment, after she pushes Nora to safety. Bessie calls out, “with an arrested scream of fear and pain,” telling Nora, “Merciful God, I’m shot, I’m shot! … Th’ life’s pourin’ out o’ me!”4 The audience is left watching the tragic image of Nora suffering so much from her own trauma of losing a child that she does not even notice Bessie dying (See Fig. 3.1). This first Irish Rep production ran from 9 September-15 October 1988, with a sold-out audience for the first preview, filling all seventy-four seats. A press release preceding the opening of Plough, dated 12 August 1988, carefully pointed out the Irish Rep’s initial emphasis on their new company’s casting of “native” Irish actors and actresses, while also including a bit of humor about Plough’s controversial Dublin premiere: Our production, with a cast mostly native born, carries on O’Casey’s legacy, with care, understanding and style. We meet Rosie Redmond, a lady of the night, and the character that caused the unholy riots at the Abbey Theater when the play was first produced in 1926. Back then it was the contention of some of the citizens of Dublin that there wasn’t and never had been any such thing as an Irish Prostitute!5

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Fig. 3.1 Paddy Croft as Bessie Burgess and Peter Rogan as Fluther in Irish Repertory Theatre’s 1988 inaugural production of The Plough and The Stars (Photo by Len Taveres, courtesy of Irish Repertory Theatre)

The Irish Rep program for Plough similarly emphasizes their cast of “native” Irish actors and actresses. More importantly, one sees the clear stirrings of a mission statement:

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The Irish Repertory Theatre was founded to offer the theatregoers an opportunity to view Irish and Irish American Drama, performed professionally with a native understanding. Our goal is to present four productions each year chosen from the classical and contemporary Irish theatre. The Plough and the Stars is our premier production.6

Reviews of the Irish Rep’s inaugural season are slim to none, so gauging the critical response to this production is a challenge.7 Audiences, however, clearly liked the production, which enabled Moore and O’Reilly to earn just enough money to continue their new company. In Season 9 (1996), and in Season 31 (2019), the company staged Plough and the Stars again, to great success. Brian Rohan, in his review of the 1996 production, accurately assesses the importance of O’Casey’s play: Not long after contributing to the 1916 rebellion in Dublin as an organizer of the Irish Citizen Army, Sean O’Casey wrote this play and The Shadow of a Gunman, both towering works of the Irish theater. Rarely has a combatant and first hand witness written such honest work for a mass audience.8

The audience for the Irish Rep’s inaugural production was most appreciative. In a 1992 article in Playbill, Moore reflected on the significance of this immediate community support, “That was the beginning of the Irish Repertory Theatre … we jam packed the theatre every night. You have no ideas of the appeal that O’Casey and the Irish Repertory Theatre had for people.”9 Roughly six months after Plough closed, from 9–15 April 1989, the Irish Rep held what would become their annual fundraising event: benefit performances. As Moore commented in 2015, “Raising money is tough. It’s always present; obligatory; omnipresent and tough.”10 Actress Katharine Hepburn introduced the first evening’s benefit, entitled Yeats! A Celebration. The suggested donation was $10.11 In her review of the benefit, the Irish Voice’s Melissa Devine exclaimed that, “the Yeats production sold out its entire run in four hours,” yet this statement is less dramatic when one considers that the benefit had only a seven performance run. Devine continued: The evening celebrates Ireland’s greatest poet in the year of the 50th anniversary of his death, celebrates him through his own words which

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Charlotte Moore has complied for an evening of poetry, music and songs.12

The seven gala performances were so well received that Joseph Papp, founder of the Off-Broadway Public Theater in 1967, invited Moore and O’Reilly to stage their Yeats! A Celebration at the Public’s Anspacher Theater, as another single night benefit on 17 April 1989. Performers for Yeats! A Celebration included Pauline Flanagan, Patrick Fitzgerald, Bernard Frawley, Paula Kenny, Kitty Sullivan, and O’Reilly, as well as harpist Deirdre Danaher. An anonymous reviewer in The Irish Voice praised the performance at the Public, calling it, “a roaring success by all accounts. According to one attendee, the sensitive treatment of Yeats and in particular the harp music ‘brought a tear to the eye of more than one member of the audience.’”13 Judging from the positive responses, the Irish Rep seems to have pushed all the right emotional buttons for its first benefit performances, an approach the company would repeat with even greater success in the future, most notably with their 1997 benefit, The Irish … and How They Got That Way, by Frank McCourt, as well as their 2003 benefit, Moore’s adaptation of the 1947 musical Finian’s Rainbow, by E.Y. Harburg, Fred Saidy and Burton Lane. After the Public performance, O’Reilly sent a check to Papp for $378.88, “for expenses,” and he also wrote a personal thank you letter to Mr. Warren Anchor, of the New York Shakespeare Festival (originally begun by Papp in 1954, and run by the Public Theater by 1989). O’Reilly wrote, “We deeply appreciate your making our Yeats evening possible … Mr. Papp should know he’s a star in the Irish community.”14 New York theatre giant Papp did not have Irish ancestry (he hailed from Jewish immigrant parents), but as Hasia R. Diner suggests in Being New York, Being Irish, Jewish and Irish immigrants who began to settle in 1820s New York City share many commonalities. The willingness of the Irish “to challenge American Protestantism paved the way for the flourishing of Judaism,” Diner states, which lends further credence and depth to O’Reilly’s compliment to Papp.15 The final production of the Irish Rep’s inaugural season was Tom Murphy’s A Whistle in the Dark, which is as thematically serious as The Plough and the Stars. Whistle is a violent, dysfunctional family drama set in Coventry, England, which revolves around the five Carney brothers, their controlling father Dada, and the eldest brother Michael’s English wife Betty. Fintan O’Toole perceptively calls this drama, “surely one of the

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most remarkable first full-length plays of modern times,” in which “violence is an expression of loyalty to a dying feudal code.”16 Moore again directed this production, and O’Reilly had a much larger role, playing the most destructive brother Harry Carney, “the big articulate bully of the family.”17 The Irish Rep would stage Whistle in the Dark twice more—in 1989 and 1996. Originally rejected by the Abbey Theatre in Dublin, Whistle premiered in London at the Theatre Royal in 1961 and went on to a successful West End run. The play had its American premiere in 1968 at the Long Wharf Theatre in New Haven, Connecticut, and its New York premiere in 1969 at the Off-Broadway Mercury Theater. Both of these U.S. productions were directed by Arvin Brown, former Artistic Director of the Long Wharf Theatre. The Irish Rep’s first production of A Whistle in the Dark, in June 1989, received positive reviews in the New York Post and the Daily News. Their second production of Whistle, in November 1989, received mixed reviews from the Village Voice and The New York Times, even though the director and the cast were exactly the same as in the previous season (staged only five months earlier). All four reviewers praised the play as “one of the most unrelenting of family dramas.”18 O’Reilly’s role as the vicious brother Harry and Moore’s direction were lauded in the opening season; in season two, both received mixed responses from Mel Gussow. In season one, Jerry Tallmer says O’Reilly portrayed Harry “brilliantly,” and Don Nelsen describes Moore as having “a sure grasp of the material,” praising how she “brought a gripping tale to the stage.”19 The season two production, according to Laurie Stone and Gussow, was not as strong. Stone appreciates the acting (the direction receives no comment), but she finds the play to be dated and sexist. She rightly fumes, “pointing up their sense of powerlessness, the men continually humiliate the sole woman—the wife of one of the brothers [Betty Carney, played by Jean Parker]; since she’s never given the chance to speak for herself, the play … comes out bashing her with similar absent-mindedness.”20 It is hard to argue with Stone’s assessment of this sexist play that focuses on male rage. In 2016, commenting on the Irish Rep’s decision to stage such a difficult play as A Whistle in the Dark, O’Reilly insisted, “We feel that you need to show everything to get at some sort of a kernel of truth about a place.”21 Gussow gives the most well-rounded assessment of both the play and the Irish Rep’s second season production, by comparing the Irish Rep’s version to a production he saw at the Abbey

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in the summer of 1989, noting that the Irish Rep’s revival, “is slighter in scale and emotional power. It touches the pulse—but not the heartbeat—of this compelling play.”22 He then praises the Irish Rep’s audacity to produce A Whistle in the Dark in their first season, suggesting that this daring production bodes well for the fledgling theatre company’s future: Mr. Murphy has continued to be prolific over the years, but his work is seldom performed in New York. With its revival, the Irish Repertory Theater [sic] helps to correct that oversight. The play is a worthy example of the company’s announced intention to establish an American home for classical and contemporary Irish theater.23

Gussow’s praise surely encouraged the Irish Rep to continue, even though O’Reilly and Moore were constantly searching for funding to support their young theatre company in their first two seasons. Following the success of Whistle, O’Reilly wrote to the Consul General of Ireland, Daithi O’Ceallaigh, on 22 June 1989, with an earnest request for his assistance with funding: I’d love to talk with you if you had any ideas about people who might support this venture. Our long term goal is to find a permanent home where we would produce four Irish plays each year and import at least two others from Ireland. [American producer and director] Harold Prince is helping us to get a grant from the New York State Council for the Arts … I believe this play [Whistle in the Dark], judging from the response we got, might be the catalyst that would make it all happen.24

The Irish Rep’s permanent home that O’Reilly envisioned in 1989 was five years away. He and Moore would have to wait until 1994, when they found the Stanwick Building, a former warehouse, to rent and renovate on 132 West 22nd St., and until 2007 before they could finally purchase three floors of the building. The Irish Rep’s second season, 1989–1990, opened with Sea Marks , written by Gardner McKay, and directed by Paul Weidner. Sea Marks (which the Irish Rep would stage again in 2014) is a sad tale about an Irish fisherman, Colm Primrose (played by Patrick Fitzgerald), and the woman Timothea Stiles (Madeline Potter), whom Colm falls in love with, after seeing her only once; their brief relationship in Liverpool ends when Colm returns to live in rural Ireland. The tone of the next show in the Irish Rep’s second season was much lighter: the American premiere of

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English That For Me!, a one-person show, written and performed by Irish actor and playwright Eamon Kelly, which ran from 1–18 October 1989. English That For Me originally premiered in June 1980 at the Peacock Theatre (the studio theatre in the Abbey Theatre complex in Dublin), where it was directed by Michael Cogan. Erik Pierstorff describes Eamon Kelly as a veritable wizard of words in English That For Me, explaining: The person who knew his material thoroughly and could hold his listeners spellbound with his narration was called ‘seanchaí’ in Irish … and he was a man of importance. He lives again in the Abbey Theatre. He is called Eamon Kelly, and he combines the primitive delight of storytelling with distinguished artistry.25 The Irish Rep promoted the production as “a captivating evening of tales revolving around Ireland’s hilarious use and abuse of the English language,” while The Irish Times terms the play as one of Kelly’s “own storytelling shows.”26 The Irish Rep’s next show in their second season continued to explore language, and particularly the Irish interpretations of language, through another one-person show called Endwords . Irish American brothers Chris and Vincent O’Neill adapted the writings of Irish novelist, poet, and playwright Samuel Beckett into Endwords, which opened in May 1990, with Chris performing, and Vincent directing. In 1990, the same year that he directed Endwords , Vincent O’Neill also co-founded the Buffalo, New York-based Irish Classical Theatre Company, and began his career as their Artistic Director, a position he held for nearly thirty years, from 1990–2019. The Irish Rep has staged five productions by or about Beckett, including Krapp’s Last Tape (1998), Endgame (2005 and 2023), A Mind-Bending Evening of Beckett , which featured Act Without Words , Play, and Breath (2013), and the American premiere of On Beckett (2018), another one-person show, conceived and performed by Bill Irwin, and based on writings by Beckett. By far the most successful production in Season Two was Philadelphia, Here I Come!, Brian Friel’s breakthrough 1964 play (which the Irish Rep produced again in 2005 and 2024, both directed by O’Reilly). A play about a young Irishman about to immigrate to America, Brian Friel’s play became the surprise runaway hit at the Gate Theatre in Dublin in 1964, during the seventh annual Dublin Theatre Festival. Philadelphia was also the first Friel play to appear on Broadway. Opening on 16 February 1966, the Broadway production ran nine months, followed by a long U.S. tour, and a London opening in 1967. The Broadway production

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received six Tony Award nominations, including Best Play, which immediately established Brian Friel as a major playwright. Writing in Theater Week in the summer of 1990, Margaret Spillane explains that since the Broadway premiere of Philadelphia, “American theatergoers have had a warm relationship with Friel.”27 Irish Actor Donal Donnelly, the original Gar Private in Dublin and New York (where he received a 1966 Tony nomination), also reflected on the heartfelt reception the play received from New York audiences: American audiences were far more receptive [than English audiences] to Friel’s detailed exploration of the painful difference between what is said and what is thought, about how the burden of history can inhibit the ability of people to speak.28

Donnelly candidly admitted that New York audiences’ love affair with Philadelphia made him feel “‘more integrated in two weeks than I have felt in London in twelve years.’”29 Twenty-five years later, in 1990, Irish Rep audiences echoed this same rapturous reception toward Friel’s play. A bittersweet memory play that reflects two American plays, Thornton Wilder’s Our Town (1938) and Tennessee Williams’ The Glass Menagerie (1944), Philadelphia takes place the evening before 25-year-old Gareth O’Donnell leaves claustrophobic Ballybeg (Friel’s fictional small Irish town, which is the setting for many of his plays) to move to America, where his talkative, domineering, and childless Aunt Lizzie and Uncle Con have promised him a home and a better future. In Philadelphia, we see the first of many of Friel’s inventive theatrical techniques, which splits the main character Gareth O’Donnell into two characters (and two actors): Gar Private and Gar Public. Friel calls this exploring “two views of the one man.”30 Public Gar represents one’s outward persona, “the Gar that people see, talk to, talk about,” while Private Gar is one’s inner self, “the unseen man, the man within, the conscience, the alter ego, the secret thoughts, the id.”31 Productions of Philadelphia in America, especially on the East Coast, have a special resonance with the large Irish American population. According to 2021 U.S. Census Bureau statistics, about 31.5 million Americans or 9.5% have Irish ancestry.32 While Boston has the largest number of Irish Americans in any city in the U.S. (roughly 20%), New York City’s Irish Americans comprise about 12.9% of the city’s population of approximately 8.4 million.33 In an article in Theater Week about

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the 1990 Irish Rep production, Joseph Hurley interviewed actresses Pauline Flanagan, who played Madge, the O’Donnell family housekeeper (Flanagan would reprise the role on Broadway four years later, in 1994), and Paddy Croft, who played Lizzy Sweeney, Gareth’s Irish American aunt. Flanagan, herself an Irish immigrant who arrived in the U.S. in 1950, emphasized the importance of Friel’s play in America: Any American production of Friel’s play is bound to contain men and women who have experienced painful personal leavetakings and difficult departures from home and from Ireland which, one way or another, parallel the wrenching separation for which the young Gar O’Donnell is preparing during the course of Philadelphia.34

Similar to the company’s first season’s emphasis on “native born” actors, this Irish Rep cast featured eleven actors and actresses born in Ireland, and two born in England. In addition to Pauline Flanagan as Madge and Paddy Croft as Aunt Lizzy, Ciarán O’Reilly played Gar Private, and Patrick Fitzgerald played Gar Public. W.B. Brydon played Gar’s stoic father, S.B. O’Donnell, and Frank McCourt played Gar’s financially strapped former teacher, Master Boyle. In 1996, six years after McCourt played this minor role in Philadelphia, he would publish Angela’s Ashes, his Pulitzer Prize winning memoir of growing up in Limerick. In 1997, the Irish Rep would stage their first of many performances of McCourt’s The Irish … and How They Got That Way, which became one of the company’s most successful shows. Philadelphia, Here I Come! opened at the TADA Theatre on West 25th St., and transferred to the South Street Theatre on West 18th St. Tickets cost $10. The production was quite successful, playing for 106 sold-out performances, with overwhelmingly positive reviews. Before the production opened, O’Reilly wrote to Frank Rich, then-Chief Theatre Critic for The New York Times, whom Elizabeth L. Woolman astutely calls, “the most influential Theatre critic in New York City,”35 inviting him to see the production, by touting the cast’s extensive experience, both in Dublin and New York: Our cast are veterans of the Abbey and Gate Theatres, Broadway and two of the original [1966] Broadway cast. It’s a smashing production … and we would be very disappointed to have you miss it … I would be delighted to leave seats aside for you.36

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While Rich appears to have missed O’Reilly’s invitation to review Philadelphia, many other reviewers embraced the production.37 Frank Scheck begins his review by boosting the confidence of the newly minted Irish Rep, exclaiming, “The Irish Repertory is a plucky little company that suddenly doesn’t seem so little,” thanks to their “ambitious, and highly laudable production” of Philadelphia.38 Almost all of the theatre reviewers praise O’Reilly’s performance as Gar Private. An unnamed writer in the Daily News states that O’Reilly “carries the work,” Aileen Jacobson compliments O’Reilly’s interpretation of Gar’s “more sardonic and voluble private self,” and Ericka Milvy says that O’Reilly’s Gar Private “embodies the spoken pain, the contempt, the fury, the humor, the passion … who voices Gareth’s inwardly shackled emotions.”39 Jerry Tallmer enjoys O’Reilly’s depiction of Private Gar’s “inner whirlwind,” and Wilborn Hampton appreciates O’Reilly’s “guileless charm and humor” as Gar’s alter ego.40 O’Reilly recollected his joyful experiences in this production, calling Philadelphia his “favorite play ever,” and noting that playing Private Gar was, “my favorite time in the theatre.”41 In the Irish Rep 2024 production of Philadelphia, O’Reilly both starred as Gar’s father S.B. O’Donnell and directed the show. This production captured the emotional core of the play, which centers on young Gar’s inability to find happiness, fulfilling work, or love in Ballybeg, and his subsequent decision to move to America. Throughout the play, we see how Gar’s relationship with his father S.B. appears strained at best. Gar never knew his mother, who died three days after he was born, and his desperation to know details about his mother from Madge cannot fill the hole left by her death. Gar’s life in Ballybeg is full of disappointment: his girlfriend Kate rejects him for another suitor who has more money, and his mates appear as big talkers, but we quickly learn that they are all insecure, inexperienced, and naive young men. As Erika Milvy notes beautifully, in the Irish Rep production, “the heart’s inability to be heard, as depicted by an invisible presence bellowing futilely, is painful to watch.”42 Pauline Flanagan also commented on the play’s underlying sadness, especially for Irish immigrants: I think it’s true for everybody, but certainly it’s true of Irish people—that their hearts are always there. They’re always in Ireland. No matter what … it makes me lonely, this play. It makes me lonely for Ireland.43

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As Margaret Spillane says about Friel’s playwriting, a comment that could also describe the Irish Rep’s impact, even just two years into its opening, Friel’s work provides the Irish, “with the means to articulate their own dreams and convictions within the powerful history of the Irish imagination.”44 By the summer of 1990, after only two seasons and eight productions, the Irish Repertory Theatre had firmly established itself. The company had already proven that it was a new, unique presence in the Off-Broadway Theatre scene. Significantly, the Irish Rep also discovered enthusiastic audiences and supportive New York City Theatre critics, who were eager to see more productions. Season Three was just around the corner.

Notes 1. Fierberg, Ruthie. 2019. 15 Actors Remember the Most Impactful Moments at Irish Rep. Playbill, 19 March. http://www.playbill. com/article/15-actors-remember-the-most-impactful-momentsat-irish-rep. Accessed 25 June 2023. 2. The Irish Rep production of I Do Not Like Thee, Doctor Fell opened at the Irish Arts Centre, 553 W. 51st Street, directed by Julian Plunkett Dillon, and ran from 20 January–5 February 1989. 3. Clement, Olivia. 2019. How Irish Rep Became One of OffBroadway’s Most Successful Companies. Playbill, 5 February. https://playbill.com/article/how-irish-rep-became-one-of-offbroadways-most-successful-companies. Accessed 17 July 2023. 4. O’Casey, Sean. 1957. Three Plays: Juno and the Paycock, The Shadow of a Gunman, and The Plough and the Stars, 215. New York: St. Martin’s. 5. Irish Repertory Theatre. 1988. Program for The Plough and the Stars, 15 September–9 October. Tamiment Library and Robert F. Wagner Labor Archives. Irish Repertory Theatre Records. AIA 080 Box 1, Folder 5. 6. Ibid, Folder 3. 7. There are no reviews of The Plough and the Stars or I Do Not Like Thee, Doctor Fell in either the Irish Repertory Theatre Records in the Tamiment Library, or in the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, Billy Rose Theatre Division, Collection of Newspaper Clippings of Dramatic Criticism, 1989–1990. An online

3

8.

9.

10.

11.

12. 13. 14.

15.

16. 17.

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search, conducted 16 July 2019, also revealed no reviews of these 1988 productions. Rohan, Brian. 1988. Away From the Post Office. Arts: 25. Tamiment Library and Robert F. Wagner Labor Archives. Irish Repertory Theatre Records. AIA 080 Box 1, Folder 5. Botto, Louis. 1992. A Princely Play. Playbill, Vol. 92, #5 (May): 40–43; quoted on 43. Folder #1: Irish Repertory Theatre Company: 1988–1999, in Irish Repertory Theatre ephemera, 1988–2012. Clipping files, New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, Billy Rose Theatre Division. Riedel, Michael. 2015. League of Professional Theatre Women, Interview with Charlotte Jean Montigue Moore, Artistic Director of the Irish Repertory Theatre, as part of the Promoting Visibility and Increasing Opportunities for Women in the Professional Theatre, 16 November. DVD. New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, Billy Rose Theatre Division, Performing Arts Research Collections, Theatre on Film and Tape Archive. Accessed 1 June 2017. Devine, Melissa. 1989. Joseph Papp: The Yeats Connection. Irish Voice, April 15. Tamiment Library and Robert F. Wagner Labor Archives. Irish Repertory Theatre Records. AIA 080 Box 1, Folder 7. Ibid. Ibid. O’Reilly, Ciarán. To Mr. Warren Anchor. Letter, 9 May. 1989. Tamiment Library and Robert F. Wagner Labor Archives. Irish Repertory Theatre Records. AIA 080 Box 1, Folder 7. Diner, Hasia R. 2018. How the Irish Challenged American Identity: An Immigrant Group’s History Lessons for Today. In Being New York, Being Irish: Reflections on Twenty-Five Years of Irish America and New York University’s Glucksman Ireland House, ed. Terry Golway, 82–87. Quoted on 87. Co. Kildare: Irish Academic Press. O’Toole, Fintan. 1989. Preface to A Whistle in the Dark and Other Plays, by Tom Murphy, ix. London: Methuen. Tallmer, Jerry. 1989. Ensemble Makes Whistle Sing. New York Post, 13 June: 28. New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, Billy Rose Theatre Division, Collection of Newspaper Clippings of Dramatic Criticism, 1989–1990.

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18. Gussow, Mel. 1989. A Whistle in the Dark. The New York Times, 17 November: C26. Ibid. 19. Tallmer, Jerry. 1989. Ibid. 20. Stone, Laurie. 1989. The Village Voice, 28 November: 133. Ibid. 21. Irish Repertory Theatre. 2023. About Irish Rep. https://irishrep. org/about/. Accessed 24 May 2023. 22. Gussow, Mel. 1989. New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, Billy Rose Theatre Division, Collection of Newspaper Clippings of Dramatic Criticism, 1989–1990. 23. Ibid. 24. O’Reilly, Ciarán. To Daithi O’Ceallaigh, Consul General of Ireland. Letter, 22 June. 1989. Tamiment Library and Robert F. Wagner Labor Archives. Irish Repertory Theatre Records. AIA 080 Box 1, Folder 8. 25. Pierstorff, Erik. 1990. Introduction to Two Nights of Storytelling with Eamon Kelly: English That For Me and Your Humble Servant, 9. Cork: Mercier. 26. Chris Boneau Public Relations. 1989. Press Release, Chris Boneau, Eva Patton, Bob Fennell, 449 W. 44 St., New York, New York. Tamiment Library and Robert F. Wagner Labor Archives. Irish Repertory Theatre Records. AIA 080 Box 1, Folder 9. The Irish Times. 2001. Late Starter Who Became the Abbey’s Greatest Storyteller, 27 October. https://www.irishtimes.com/news/ late-starter-who-became-the-abbey-s-greateststoryteller-1.334364. Accessed 31 May 2023. 27. Spillane, Margaret. A Field Day With Brian Friel. Theater Week, August 20–26: 29–31. Quoted on 29. Tamiment Library and Robert F. Wagner Labor Archives. Irish Repertory Theatre Records. AIA 080 Box 1, Folder 14. 28. Ibid. Quoted on 30. 29. Ibid. 30. Friel, Brian. 1965. Philadelphia, Here I Come!, 11. London: Faber and Faber. 31. Ibid. 32. United States Census Bureau. 2021. Happy St. Patrick’s Day to the One Out of 10 Americans Who Claim Irish Ancestry. https://www.census.gov/library/stories/2021/03/happy-saintpatricks-day-to-one-of-ten-americans-who-claim-irish-ancestry. html. Accessed 16 May 2023.

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33. Kliff, Sarah. 2013. The Irish American Population is Seven Times Larger Than Ireland. The Washington Post, 17 March. https:// www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2013/03/17/theirish-american-population-is-seven-times-larger-than-ireland/. Accessed 21 June 2023. 34. Hurley, Joseph. 1990. From Ballybunion to Off-Broadway. Theater Week, August 20–26: 25–27. Quoted on 27. Tamiment Library and Robert F. Wagner Labor Archives. Irish Repertory Theatre Records. AIA 080 Box 1, Folder 14. 35. Woolman, Elizabeth L. 2017. A Critical Companion to the American Stage Musical. London: Bloomsbury. Quoted on 164. 36. O’Reilly, Ciarán. To Frank Rich. Letter. 18 May 1990. Tamiment Library and Robert F. Wagner Labor Archives. Irish Repertory Theatre Records. AIA 080 Box 1, Folder 14. 37. New York Times theatre critic Wilborn Hampton reviewed the Irish Rep production of Philadelphia, Here I Come! on 13 June 1990. Hampton, Wilborn. 1990. A Boy Settles Accounts Before Leaving Ireland. New York Times, 13 June: C15. New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, Billy Rose Theatre Division, Collection of Newspaper Clippings of Dramatic Criticism, 1989–1990. 38. Scheck, Frank. 1990. Philadelphia Here I Come!. Backstage, June 1: 26A. New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, Billy Rose Theatre Division, Collection of Newspaper Clippings of Dramatic Criticism, 1989–1990. 39. The Playboy of the Western World. 1990. Daily News, May 27: 39. Jacobson, Aileen. 1990. Memorable Memory Play. Newsday, 19 June: 5. Milvy, Erika. 1990. The World According to Gar. The West Side Spirit, 24 July: 21. Ibid. 40. Tallmer, Jerry. 1990. Two Sides of the Same Lad. New York Post, 29 June: 27. Hampton, Wilborn. 1990. Ibid. 41. O’Reilly, Ciarán. Quick Update To Maria Szasz. Email, 22 May. 2019. 42. Milvy, Erika. 1990. New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, Billy Rose Theatre Division, Collection of Newspaper Clippings of Dramatic Criticism, 1989–1990. 43. Hurley, Joseph. 1990. Ibid. 44. Spillane, Margaret. 1990. Quoted on 31. Tamiment Library and Robert F. Wagner Labor Archives. Irish Repertory Theatre Records. AIA 080 Box 1, Folder 14.

CHAPTER 4

Grandchild of Kings: Harold Prince Takes the Helm, and Highlights From Seasons 3–7: 1990–1995

Season 3: 1990–1991: The Playboy of the Western World , by J.M. Synge, and Making History, by Brian Friel Season 4: 1991–1992: Grandchild of Kings , adapted by Harold Prince Season 5: 1992–1993: The Madame MacAdam Travelling Theatre, by Tom Kilroy; Joyicity, by Ulick O’Connor; Frankly Brendan, by Frank O’Connor and Brendan Behan; Seconds Out , by Young Irish Playwrights; My Oedipus Complex, by Frank O’Connor Season 6: 1993–1994: The Au Pair Man, by Hugh Leonard, and The Hasty Heart, by John Patrick Season 7: 1994–1995: Mother of all the Behans, by Peter Sheridan, and Alive, Alive Oh!, by Milo O’Shea and Kitty Sullivan The Irish Repertory Theatre Company’s seasons three through seven, 1990–1995, included productions of several classic Irish plays, as well as new work by contemporary Irish dramatists, including Young Irish Playwrights, a group of young people with special needs. Several productions stand out during these four early seasons: John Millington Synge’s dark comedy, The Playboy of the Western World in 1990, the New York premiere of Brian Friel’s Making History in 1991, Seconds Out by Young Irish Playwrights, and Hugh Leonard’s The Au Pair Man, both produced in 1993. © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2024 M. Szasz, Irish Repertory Theatre, New Directions in Irish and Irish American Literature, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-53545-1_4

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Synge’s satirical approach to parricide is notorious in The Playboy of the Western World. The original production is known for its “Playboy riots,” when Irish Nationalist audience members vehemently objected to Synge’s brutally realistic depiction of the Irish peasantry in the play, which was first performed at the Abbey Theatre in Dublin in January 1917. The rowdy audience of the first performance interrupted the play so forcibly that the actors could barely continue their lines. Lady Augusta Gregory, Irish playwright and co-founder of the Abbey Theatre with W.B. Yeats and Edward Martyn in 1899, described the raucous opening night: There was a very large audience on the first night … Synge was there, but Mr [sic] Yeats was giving a lecture in Scotland. The first act got its applause, and the second, though one felt that the audience were a little puzzled, a little shocked at the wild language. Near the end of the third act there was some hissing. We had sent a telegram to Mr [sic] Yeats after the end of the first act: ‘Play great success’; but at the end we sent another— ‘Audience broke up in disorder at the word shift.’1

The word “shift” refers to women’s undergarments. Synge’s hero Christopher Mahon speaks the line that so incensed the crowd in Act 3, “It’s Pegeen I’m seeking only, and what’d I care if you brought me a drift of chosen females, standing in their shifts itself maybe, from this place to the Eastern World.”2 The lurid implications of this line were too much for the Irish Nationalists in the audience, who exploded with shouts of disbelief and anger. While audiences had greatly changed in the 73 years that separated 1917 Dublin from 1990 New York City, the Irish Rep’s Playboy was still perfectly timed for Halloween, playing for 35 performances, from 25 October–2 December 1990. Charlotte Moore directed this production, which reviewers Stephen Holden and Don Nelsen describe as moving “swiftly” and “at a fast clip.”3 Ciarán O’Reilly played one of the major comic roles, the meek and simpering Shawn Keogh, the second cousin engaged to the heroine Pegeen Mike (Madeline Potter), who quickly dumps him for the much more exciting and daring outsider, Christopher Mahon (Patrick Fitzgerald). Alongside its black comedy, Playboy further defies convention by ending on a somber note, with Pegeen furiously rejecting Christy after she learns that he has lied about “killing his da,” and then ending the play with her famous, sorrowful lament, “Oh, my grief, I’ve lost him surely! I’ve lost the only Playboy of the Western

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World,” after she watches Christy walk determinedly out of both the pub and her life.4 Jan Stuart praises both the Irish Rep and its production, exclaiming: It’s always a kick when a neophyte institution overleaps a Brand Name and leaves it trailing in the dust. The underdog in question is Charlotte Moore’s Off-Broadway Irish Repertory Theatre, whose eloquent rendering of The Playboy of the Western World shames the currently touring production by the renowned Abbey Theater of Dublin.5

Calling the Irish Rep’s production of Playboy better than the Abbey’s is high praise, indeed. Less well received was the company’s second play by Brian Friel: the New York premiere of Making History, which ran 29 performances during April 1991. First produced by the Field Day Theatre Company (co-founded by Brian Friel and Irish actor Stephen Rea in 1980) in Northern Ireland, at Derry/Londonderry’s Guildhall in 1988, Making History tells the story of Hugh O’Neill, Earl of Tyrone, who led the Battle of Kinsale, a failed uprising of Irish and Spaniards against the English in 1591; his spirited English wife Mabel, who was twenty years younger than O’Neill; his friend Hugh O’Connell, and his biographer, Archbishop Peter Lombard. The play follows O’Neill from County Tyrone, Ireland, in 1591, to his exile in Rome twenty years later, in 1611. Friel explains Making History as, “a dramatic fiction that uses some actual and some imagined events in the life of Hugh O’Neill to make a story.”6 The Irish Rep’s program included some background about the lasting historical importance of O’Neill: Valor in battle was only one part of O’Neill’s towering reputation. Perhaps his greatest success was in using periods of peace to negotiate continued life for himself, his religion, and for Ireland with the greatest diplomat of the age, Elizabeth I of England. Due to his patience, sophistication, wisdom and boundless energy, he became one of the most powerful figures in the international politics of his time. Today, in Ireland and elsewhere, Hugh O’Neill is thought of as the quintessential Irishman, and his memory is loved with undiminished fervor.7

Depicting such a beloved historical figure on stage has its challenges; Friel’s characterization of O’Neill captures some of the Irishman’s complexity, though not in perhaps as dramatic a fashion as audiences

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would have liked. In Christopher Murray’s view, Making History explores the possibilities of how “the self or identity can be undermined once it is mythologized.”8 In a similar interpretation, Declan Kiberd suggests that Friel asks in the play, “what if the ultimate text to be creatively misinterpreted is that of history itself?”9 While the play is a gripping examination of how authors can drastically change and overly embellish factual accounts of history (symbolized by O’Neill’s biographer Archbishop Lombard), theatre critics in Derry/Londonderry and New York disliked its overtly talky structure. Moore directed her second Friel play with Making History, and O’Reilly played Hugh O’Donnell, O’Neill’s Irish compatriot. The Irish Rep rented the Samuel Beckett Theatre on W. 42nd Street for their production. Interestingly, this first New York production of Making History in April 1991 was heavily overshadowed by the upcoming New York production of Friel’s much stronger play Dancing at Lughnasa, which opened at the Abbey in 1990 and transferred to London’s National Theatre in 1991, winning the Olivier Award for Best Play. Friel’s seventh play on Broadway, Lughnasa opened at the Plymouth Theatre on 24 October 1991, and won the 1992 Tony Award for Best Play, giving Friel his greatest critical and commercial acclaim in New York. Its popularity quickly spread across American theatre, as during the 1993–94 theatrical season, Lughnasa became the “most widely produced play in American professional theatre.”10 (The Irish Rep produced Lughnasa in 2011, to honor the play’s 20th Broadway anniversary.) The anticipated Broadway impact of Lughnasa was already evident in the reviews of Making History, even though, at the time, Lughnasa was six months away from its Broadway opening. Reviewers repeatedly mention Friel’s other work, and note how they are eager for the fall arrival of Lughnasa. As an unnamed Variety reviewer comments, Making History “is a lesser effort” than both Philadelphia, Here I Come! and Dancing at Lughnasa, but at least the Irish Rep’s production “whets the appetite” for the upcoming New York premiere of Lughnasa, and provides a “serviceable between-Friel snack,” while audiences await Lughnasa in October 1991.11 Jumping forward to the Irish Rep’s Season 6, in 1993, Moore and O’Reilly both starred in the two-person play, The Au Pair Man, by Hugh Leonard, and directed by Brian Murray (who previously directed a production of Leonard’s play Summer in 1981, where Moore and O’Reilly met). Originally produced by the Gate Theatre in 1968 during

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the Dublin Theatre Festival, The Au Pair Man had its New York premiere at Lincoln Center in 1973, directed by Gerald Freedman, and starring Julie Harris and Charles Durning, a production that received four 1974 Tony Award nominations. The Au Pair Man is set in the top-floor apartment of an upper-class house in London. An allegorical comedy about the fraught relationship between England and Ireland, it tells the story of an aristocratic Englishwoman, Elizabeth Rogers, and a much younger, rough-hewn Irishman, Eugene Hartigan, who arrives to collect a bill from Rogers, and then quickly moves in as her unpaid companion. In exchange, she teaches him how to behave and speak as a gentleman, including how to enunciate his diphthongs (the plot has striking similarities to George Bernard Shaw’s 1913 play Pygmalion). Brian Parks amusingly describes the play as “a comedy of national co-dependence.”12 The crumbling set is also allegorical, as it begins in a state of disrepair, and parts of the set literally fall apart before the audience’s eyes, cleverly symbolizing the collapse of the British Empire. What is especially notable about this production is that Moore and O’Reilly not only played the leads; The Au Pair Man is also the only play they have starred in together at the Irish Rep since they co-founded the company in 1988. The 1993 Irish Rep production, including the set design by Alexander Solodukho, received mixed reviews. Aileen Jacobson reflects that the show is “deftly directed,” while John Simon has the opposite view, insisting Murray has “overdirected.”13 David Richards speaks for many reviews when he bemoans that the two characters, Englishwoman Rogers and Irishman Hartigan, are “shadowed with so much symbolic weight that they aren’t particularly believable as people.”14 Moore and O’Reilly’s performances also received mixed assessments, described as being both “engaging” by Aileen Jacobson and “gifted” by Irene Backalenick, while David Richards notes their lack of visible attraction to one another, lamenting that “between them few sparks fly.”15 While their chemistry on stage may not have worked well in this production, perhaps Brian Parks best forecasts the future when he writes that Moore and O’Reilly possess an “amiability,” which would consistently serve the co-founders well, both on and off stage, as they shepherded the Irish Rep through many decades of challenges. Grandchild of Kings was the company’s most daring show produced during Seasons 3–7. Adapted and directed by Harold Prince, Grandchild of Kings was the only production in the Irish Rep’s fourth season

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in 1991–1992 (the title of the play comes from a line in one of Sean O’Casey’s autobiographies). The Irish Rep’s website describes the play in glowing terms: “Through adapting legendary Irish playwright Sean O’Casey’s autobiographies for the stage, esteemed director Harold Prince transforms O’Casey’s life into a riveting theatrical experience,” an assessment most New York critics disputed.16 Staged in the East Village at the Joyce and Seward Johnson Theater for the New City, Grandchild of Kings had a nearly four-month run, from 1 February–31 May 1992, playing for 117 performances. While critics were not overly impressed, audiences clearly enjoyed the production, as its original run was extended, due to sold-out houses. The large cast included O’Reilly, who played a friend of young Sean’s, among other characters.17 Irish playwright Sean O’Casey (1880–1964) was born into extreme poverty in the Dublin slums. He was the last of thirteen children, eight of whom had already died in infancy. In Prologue, the quarterly newsletter of the Irish Rep, Moore describes the abundance of disease that O’Casey, his family, and neighbors all faced in this area of Dublin in the latter part of the 1800s: “infectious diseases and malnutrition were the chief causes of the high mortality rate—higher than in the Moscow of the Tsar and in the plagues and cholera of Calcutta.”18 After surviving a difficult childhood, O’Casey educated himself, and became a Socialist. He wrote prominently about Dublin’s working class, in twelve full-length plays, fifteen one-acts, four volumes of poems, as well as short stories, reviews, and articles. He also published a six-volume autobiography: Knock at the Door (1939), Pictures in the Hallway (1942), Drums Under the Window (1945), Inishfallen, Fare Thee Well (1949), Rose and Crown (1952), and Sunset and Evening Star (1954). O’Casey is most famous for his Dublin play trilogy: The Shadow of a Gunman (1923), Juno and the Paycock (1924), and The Plough and the Stars (1926). The Irish Rep has a long history of producing O’Casey’s Dublin trilogy, as well as work inspired by the playwright. Their O’Casey productions include Shadow of a Gunman (1999 and 2019), Juno and the Paycock (1995, 2013 and 2019), and Plough and the Stars (1988, 1995 and 2019). In addition to Grandchild of Kings , in 1998, they produced a one-man show starring Niall Buggy, called Song at Sunset , conceived and directed by Shivaun O’Casey, the playwright’s daughter. The Irish Rep describes Song at Sunset as “a funny and moving portrait” of O’Casey, “much of it from [Shivaun O’Casey’s] memory and private transcripts.”19

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Song at Sunset is almost a “part two” of Grandchild of Kings, as it, too, delves into and deeply illuminates O’Casey’s life and work. Producer and director Harold “Hal” Prince was a close friend of Moore and O’Reilly’s, and a giant, influential figure in the theatre world. In a 2015 interview with Michael Riedel, Moore discusses Prince as one of her most important mentors when she began her professional acting career; this mentorship continued when she and O’Reilly began the Irish Rep.20 During his sixty-four-year career in the American professional theatre, Prince won an unprecedented 21 Tony Awards. He was one of the early, key collaborators with American composer/lyricist Stephen Sondheim, and he and Sondheim pioneered the development of the Concept Musical, which director and historian Scott Miller incisively says “dominated musical theatre innovation in the 1970s.”21 Prince also directed Cabaret (1966), the landmark concept musical by John Kander and Fred Ebb, which Miller calls Prince’s “desire to break through to a new kind of socially responsible musical theatre.”22 Four years later, Prince directed Company (1970), with music and lyrics by Sondheim and a book by George Furth. Company is a groundbreaking, comedic concept musical about friendship, commitment, and marriage, focusing on the 35-yearold single Robert, who is under constant pressure from his friends to get married. Prince directed four more Sondheim musicals: Follies (1971), A Little Night Music (1973; which Moore auditioned for), Pacific Overtures (1976), and Sweeney Todd (1979). Prince became, to quote former New York Times Chief Theatre critic Ben Brantley, “a musical theatre revolutionary.”23 He also worked with composer Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber, directing Evita (1979) and The Phantom of the Opera (1988), which held the record for the longest running Broadway play or musical until its closing on 16 April 2023. In addition, he directed many operas, as well as a revival of Leonard Bernstein and Hugh Wheeler’s Candide in 1974 (originally performed in 1956 with a libretto by Lillian Hellman), and numerous other musicals, including Kiss of the Spider Woman (1993), with music by John Kander, lyrics by Fred Ebb and book by Terence McNally; and a controversial 1994 Toronto, Canada, revival of Show Boat , the undeniably problematic 1927 musical with music by Jerome Kern, and book and lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II; it was based on the 1926 Pulitzer prize winning novel Showboat , by Edna Ferber.

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Grandchild of Kings , Prince’s first foray into adaptation for the stage, takes place during the early years of O’Casey’s life: 1880–1910, when O’Casey was known as John Casside; he later changed his name to the Gaelic-sounding Sean O’Casey, which reflected his political awakening. David Richards describes the plot of Grandchild of Kings as “a leisurely chronicle of the Irish playwright’s birth, childhood and coming of age in turn-of-the-century Dublin.”24 An article by Louis Botto in the Grandchild of Kings Playbill explains the background behind Prince’s theatrical adaptation of the first two volumes of O’Casey’s autobiography: The Irish Repertory Theatre … has not known an empty seat since its inception, in 1988. The luck of the Irish continues with its current, most ambitious production, Grandchild of Kings … it took Prince two years to adapt O’Casey’s first two volumes—I Knock at the Door and Pictures in the Hallway—to a two act play … [which] has a cast of nineteen actors and four musicians—large for an Off-Broadway show.25

Prince’s Director’s Note in the Playbill offers a fascinating history of the play’s development. Prince’s wife Judy, a fan of Sean O’Casey, wrote a letter to the playwright when she was in high school in the mid-1950s, asking his opinion on her going to college. O’Casey wrote back from Torquay, Devon, England, in a letter dated 18 August 1956: I hope you and your young comrades have succeeded in choosing colleges for yourselves. I have nothing, dear Judy, vital or dead, to say in any selection of such an important choice. You see, I never experienced college, or high school, or unfortunately any school at all. The little I know, I taught myself—hard, hard job, but in many ways, a pleasant and profitable one … I should imagine that one of the finest things in a college—any college—is the coming together of young people to talk about science, art, literature, religion and politics; as only the young can talk: boldly and rashly and convincingly; shaping the life of the new generation to which they belong.26

Prince then explained that, “the Sean O’Casey letter was my wife’s dowry. It was followed years later by her gift to me of the six books which comprise his autobiography.”27 Moore recalled that after Judy gave her husband the six-volume autobiography for his birthday, Judy asked him, “Well, why don’t you put them on the stage?”28 Prince dedicated Grandchild of Kings to his wife, saying simply, “this project is for her.”29

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The Irish Rep’s set designer for Grandchild of Kings , Eugene Lee, boasts nearly as impressive a resume as Prince. Lee has designed sets on and Off-Broadway, as well as for film and TV. Since 1975, he has been the production designer for Saturday Night Live. Lee collaborated frequently with Prince, and won two Tony Awards for his set designs for Candide (1978) and Sweeney Todd (1979), and he also designed the set for Wicked (2003). He has won multiple Drama Desk Awards for his set designs. Moore praised Lee’s Grandchild of Kings set for its realism, exclaiming that his design “is marvelous … because as soon as people walk into the theatre, they feel as if they are in Dublin,” a realistic depiction that nearly every reviewer commented upon.30 Clive Barnes calls Lee’s set a “bustling piece of environmental theatre,” which mimicked the flexible style of his set for Candide.31 Known for its experimentation, environmental theatre is “radically incompatible with conventional stage performance.”32 This technique, which began in the 1960s, sought to “heighten audience awareness of theatre by eliminating the distinction between the audience’s and the actors’ space.”33 Critics enjoyed this environmental staging, with Jeremy Gerard praising Lee’s “signature environments, in which the audience surrounds a rough-hewn playing area and actors enter and exit across ramps and pathways through it all.”34 Frank Rich also compliments Lee’s “visual treat” of a set, and Edith Oliver particularly likes Lee’s design of “ramps for sidewalks, and windows and doors and rooms on all sides and overhead.”35 While critics complimented the set, with the exception of praise for actress Pauline Flanagan (who portrayed Sean O’Casey mother Sue), they were divided on the effectiveness of the nineteen members of the Irish Rep’s cast, who played more than eighty roles. As an example, three actors portrayed O’Casey at different ages: Padraic Moyles as young Johnny; Patrick Fitzgerald as adult O’Casey, and Chris O’Neill, as the oldest O’Casey, who is also the play’s narrator, looking back on the events that shaped his own life, much like Tom in Tennessee Williams’ The Glass Menagerie (1944), and Michael in Friel’s Dancing at Lughnasa (1990), which had opened on Broadway about four months prior to Grandchild of Kings . New York Theatre critics agreed that Prince was a superb director, but a less than stellar adaptor. Their criticisms recalled reflections about the Irish Rep’s production of Making History, as reviewers wrote that Prince’s adaptation was just not sufficiently dramatic. Melanie Kirkpatrick states that, “Mr. Prince the director has greater skills at his disposal than Mr.

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Prince the playwright,” and Frank Rich concurs, noting that the play’s main fault “is one of writing, not staging,” because Prince “simply has not succeeded in transforming … prose into drama.”36 Jeremy Gerard does not mince words when he insists, “a memoir is not a play,” calling Prince’s adaptation “deadly dull.”37 “Prince rarely shows us what makes O’Casey more compelling than any other moody, insecure artist,” Marc Robinson points out, and Howard Kissel agrees, wondering why we “never get very deeply into the life of a young man whose understanding of character and whose sense of the poetry of everyday Irish life would eventually thrill audiences all over the world.”38 There were exceptions, including critics who appreciated Prince’s inclusion of Irish music and dancing. “Singing was honored in Ireland,” wrote O’Casey, and Robinson admires how Prince adds, “generous helpings of music about loves lost and found, bereavement and betrayal, strife and success.”39 Similarly, Edith Oliver focuses on the “richness” of the play, saying that “every moment is alive with characters, with music and dancing, and with feelings that explode and vanish,” which helps create a memorable theatrical experience.40 Prominent audience members also described their enchantment with Prince’s adaptation. American actress and stage manager Elaine Steinbeck, author John Steinbeck’s widow, wrote a letter to thank Prince, dated 6 April 1992, describing how much she enjoyed the play: “I saw your show yesterday and I can’t tell you how long it has been since I have had such a marvelous experience in the theatre. Without a doubt, you are a great director and a master show-man.”41 American actress, singer, dancer, and comedian Carol Channing also wrote a letter of praise to Prince, saying, “I can’t forget your production. The characters are still with me. I wake up with them and go to sleep with them … the production was done with love. That must be why I can’t shake it and never want to.”42 Prince’s adaptation might not have captured enough drama for a completely satisfying play, but moments in Grandchild of Kings definitely stood out for audiences and critics alike. Grandchild of Kings was the first play in the Irish Rep’s four seasons to receive major theatrical nominations and awards, including four Outer Critics Circle Award nominations: Prince, for Best Director; Pauline Flanagan, for Best Actress (as O’Casey’s mother Sue), and Eugene Lee, for Best Scenic Design. In addition, Patrick Fitzgerald received the Clarence Derwent Award for his role as adult O’Casey.43 Significantly, the Irish Rep also received their first Drama Desk Award in 1992 for

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Grandchild of Kings, for “Excellence in Presenting Distinguished Irish Drama.” With these accolades in hand, Moore and O’Reilly began an extensive search for a theatrical performance space of their own, to continue to develop their company and grow their audience. During the following season, 1993–1994, they would look at approximately forty spaces before discovering the Stanwick Building on 132 W. 22nd Street, which would become their new home, at first temporarily, and then more permanently.

Notes 1. Whitaker, Thomas R., ed. 1969. Twentieth Century Interpretations of The Playboy of the Western World, 59. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall. 2. Synge, J.M. 1995. The Playboy of the Western World and Other Plays, ed. Ann Sadddlemyer, 143. Oxford: Oxford UP. 3. Holden, Stephen. 1990. Bragging of Patricide in Synge’s Playboy. The New York Times, 8 November: C28. Nelson, Don. 1990. Sing Praises for Synge’s Playboy. Daily News, 13 November: 49. New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, Billy Rose Theatre Division, Collection of Newspaper Clippings of Dramatic Criticism, 1990–1991. 4. The Playboy of the Western World and Other Plays. Quoted on 146. 5. Stuart, Jan. 1990. Irish Rep Puts Playboy in the Right Mood. Newsday, 31 October: 20. New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, Billy Rose Theatre Division, Collection of Newspaper Clippings of Dramatic Criticism, 1990–1991. 6. Friel, Brian. 1988. Making History Programme. Field Day Theatre Company. Ireland: Nicholson and Bass Limited. https://fieldday. ie/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/Making-History-Brian-FrielProgram.pdf. Accessed 2 June 2023. 7. Irish Repertory Theatre. 1991. Program for Making History, 2–30 April. Tamiment Library and Robert F. Wagner Labor Archives. Irish Repertory Theatre Records. AIA 080 Box 2, Folder 2. 8. Friel, Brian. 1999. Brian Friel : Plays 2: Dancing at Lughnasa, Fathers and Sons, Making History, Wonderful Tennessee and Molly Sweeney, xi–xii. Introduction by Christopher Murray. London: Faber and Faber. 9. Friel, Brian. 1988.

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10. FitzPatrick Dean, Joan. Dancing at Lughnasa, 73. Ireland Into Film Series. Cork: Cork UP. 11. Making History. 1991. Variety, 22 April: 58. Tamiment Library and Robert F. Wagner Labor Archives. Irish Repertory Theatre Records. AIA 080 Box 2, Folder 2. 12. Parks, Brian. 1994. The Au Pair Man. Variety, 22 February: 22. New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, Billy Rose Theatre Division, Collection of Newspaper Clippings of Dramatic Criticism, 1993–1994. 13. Jacobson, Aileen. 1994. A Comic Pairing: English, Irish Needs. Newsday, 11 February: 86. Simon, John. 1994. The Au Pair Man. New York, 28 February: 119. Ibid. 14. Richards, David. 1994. Theatre in Review. The New York Times, 16 February: C17. Ibid. 15. Jacobson, Aileen. 1994. Backalenick, Irene. 1994. The Au Pair Man. Backstage, 4 March. Richards, David. 1994. Ibid. 16. Irish Repertory Theatre. 1992. Grandchild of Kings . https:// irishrep.org/show/1991-1992-season/grandchild-of-kings/. Accessed 2 June 2023. 17. Irish Repertory Theatre. 1992. Grandchild of Kings Playbill, February–May. Tamiment Library and Robert F. Wagner Labor Archives. Irish Repertory Theatre Records. AIA 080 Box 2, Folder 15. 18. Prologue, The Newsletter of the Irish Repertory Theatre. 1999. Sean O’Casey. Vol. 3, Issue 4 (Spring): 1. Ibid, Box 6, Folder 19. 19. Prologue. 1998. Fáilte! Vol. 2, Issue 3 (Winter): 1. Ibid, Box 26, Folder 10. (I discuss Song at Sunset in Chapter 5). 20. Riedel, Michael. 2015. Interview with Charlotte Jean Montigue Moore, Artistic Director, as part of the Promoting Visibility and Increasing Opportunities for Women in the Professional Theatre, 16 November. Video recording. New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, Billy Rose Theatre Division, Performing Arts Research Collections, Theatre on Film and Tape Archive. Accessed 1 June 2017. 21. Miller, Scott. 2007. Strike Up the Band: A New History of Musical Theatre, 108. New York: Heinemann. 22. Ibid. Quoted on 103. 23. Brantley, Ben. 2017. A Prince’s Kingdom is Scattered to the Winds. The New York Times, 25 August: C1 and C2. Quoted on C2.

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25.

26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31.

32. 33. 34.

35.

36. 37. 38.

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New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, Billy Rose Theatre Division, Collection of Newspaper Clippings of Dramatic Criticism, 1991–1992. Richards, David. 1992. Sunday View: The Wedded Hiss of Albee Turns Verbal. The New York Times, 23 February: 5 and 35. Quoted on 5. Ibid. Botto, Louis. 1992. A Princely Play, in Grandchild of Kings Playbill, February–May: 40–45. Quoted on 40 and 43. Tamiment Library and Robert F. Wagner Labor Archives. Irish Repertory Theatre Records. AIA 080 Box 2, Folder 15. Prince, Harold. 1992. Director’s Note in Grandchild of Kings Playbill, February–May. Ibid. Ibid. Botto, Louis. 1992. Quoted on 40. Prince, Harold. 1992. Quoted on 40 and 43. Botto, Louis. 1992. Quoted on 40 and 43. Barnes, Clive. 1992. Portrait Without a Landscape. The New York Post, 17 February: 22. New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, Billy Rose Theatre Division, Collection of Newspaper Clippings of Dramatic Criticism, 1991–1992. Russell Brown, John, ed. 1995. The Oxford Illustrated History of the Theatre, 437. Oxford: Oxford UP. Environmental Theatre. 2009. https://www.britannica.com/art/ environmental-theatre. Accessed 11 June 2023. Gerard, Jeremy. 1992. Grandchild of Kings . Variety, 17 February: 74; 76. Quoted on 76. New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, Billy Rose Theatre Division, Collection of Newspaper Clippings of Dramatic Criticism, 1991–1992. Rich, Frank. Sean O’Casey in Dublin. The New York Times, 17 February: C13 and C16. Quoted on C13. Oliver, Edith. 1992. Dubliners. The New Yorker, 24 February: 82. Ibid. Kirkpatrick, Melanie. 1992. Grandchild of Kings . The Wall St. Journal, 13 March: A9. Rich, Frank. 1992. Quoted on C16. Ibid. Gerard, Jeremy. 1992. Quoted on 76 and 74. Rich, Frank. 1992. Quoted on C16. Ibid. Robinson, Marc. 1992. Sean as Cipher. Village Voice, 3 March: 89. Kissel, Howard. 1992. A Thin Slice of O’Casey’s Life. Daily News, 17 February: 29. Ibid. Robinson, Marc. 1992. Ibid.

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40. Oliver, Edith. 1992. Ibid. 41. Steinbeck, Elaine. To Hal Prince. Letter, 6 April. 1992. Tamiment Library and Robert F. Wagner Labor Archives. Irish Repertory Theatre Records. AIA 080 Box 2, Folder 16. 42. Channing, Carol. To Hal Prince. Letter. 1992. Ibid, Folder 15. 43. Clarence Derwent (1884–1959) was an English actor, manager and director, who served as President of Actors Equity in the U.S. from 1946–1952. The award in his name, given annually by Actors Equity Association, honors the best individual performances on Broadway and London’s West End.

CHAPTER 5

Renting a Home in Chelsea, and Highlights from Season 8: 1995–1996

Season 8: 1995–1996: Same Old Moon, by Geraldine Aron; Juno and the Paycock, by Sean O’Casey; Shimmer, by John O’Keefe; Frank Pig Says Hello, by Pat McCabe; A Whistle in the Dark, by Tom Murphy; 3rd Annual Gala: Yeats! A Celebration; Da, by Hugh Leonard. After looking at approximately 40 possible spaces for their own theatrical home, the Irish Rep finally found a more stable location for their company on 1 December 1994, when Charlotte Moore and Ciarán O’Reilly signed a twelve-year lease on three stories of the twelve story Stanwick Building on 132 West 22nd Street in Chelsea (see Fig. 2.1). In an article called “Brick by Brick, We Are Building Our New Home,” the co-founders discuss what led them to their new building: Seven years ago, in September of 1988, the Irish Repertory Theatre opened its doors at the seventy-four seat Eighteenth St. Playhouse with our production of Sean O’Casey’s The Plough and the Stars. Since then, our nomadic route has taken us to fourteen theatres and as many rehearsals halls as we performed productions of Irish classics and new works. In Dec. [sic] 1994 we signed a long-term lease in a former warehouse at 132 W. 22nd St. in Manhattan with the dream of opening our own space at last. In the early summer of 1995, with the help of God, our architect, Craig

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2024 M. Szasz, Irish Repertory Theatre, New Directions in Irish and Irish American Literature, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-53545-1_5

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Morrison, and the blessing of the New York City Building Department, we will open our permanent home.1

Built in 1913, and once used as a warehouse to store chemicals and pharmaceuticals, the Stanwick was designed by Frederick Charles Zobel, a New York architect and builder who designed “several features of skyscraper construction” in commercial buildings from 1890–1922.2 The Irish Rep faced an uphill climb to renovate three floors of a “5,249-square foot raw space with dirt floors” into a lobby, dressing rooms, a workshop, administrative offices, a rehearsal studio, and two performance spaces.3 An article compiled by Wei Ming Liv, called “A History of The Irish Repertory Theatre,” for the company’s 20th Anniversary Gala program in 2008, explains the team effort involved in renovating the Stanwick Building: “The company sent out flyers and made many phone calls to members of the local Irish community. The response was tremendous— a flood of funds, labor and construction materials.”4 Redmond Burke, a teacher at the School for Cooperative Technical Education school on 96th Street in Manhattan, is an example of this outpouring of community support. Burke agreed to work on the Irish Rep construction project with his eighteen trade school students, after “asking us if we had money to pay for the materials,” O’Reilly recalls, “and we said yes!”5 Alongside the generosity of the community, other prominent donors made this purchase possible. The Irish Rep’s program for Same Old Moon, their first production in their new space, makes a point to thank two donors in particular: We were planning our eighth season and possibilities of theatre rental were sparse, expensive and discouraging. It was time to settle down. The new space was discovered in the classified section of the New York Times … we gratefully acknowledge the generosity of W. Scott and Nancy McLucas.6

In 1981, philanthropist W. Scott McLucas and his wife Nancy established the One World Foundation, which supports artists around the world. Maggie FitzRoy, a writer for The Florida Times-Union, provides more background on the McLucases and their One World Foundation, including their assistance to the Irish Rep, even before they helped fund the purchasing of the Stanwick:

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[W. Scott McLucas] has produced many plays in New York City, sponsored a promising American ballet choreographer in France, and created a professional symphony orchestra in Vence, France … In the mid-1980s, [One World] foundation leased a theater on West 42nd Street in New York City, and offered it to the artistically promising Irish Repertory Theater for its productions … McLucas became a member of the Irish Rep Board of Directors in 1995.7

The Irish Rep had a monumental year in 1995: not only did they remodel and move into their new performance spaces, but they also created a fifteen-member Board of Directors (which included McLucas), a three-member Advisory Board, as well as a Director of Development.8 Such expansion of the company required extensive fundraising. The annual gala benefit in spring 1995, held at the Golden Theatre, honored Irish playwright and novelist Oscar Wilde. Entitled “A Wilde Night on Broadway,” and hosted by British-American actress Lynn Redgrave, the benefit’s main goal was to “help raise money for the hitherto nomadic Irish Rep for new Off-Broadway theatres it’s building in a one-time warehouse on West 22nd St.”9 As the renovations began, Moore glibly describes what she and O’Reilly envision the two theatres will look like in their new space, “one is a studio space for developing new work and the other, a mainstage theater we hope to open in early summer [1995] if we are not in jail.”10 Despite Moore’s financial worries, she and O’Reilly remained out of jail. The massive remodeling took six months, beginning on New Year’s Day in 1995. Moore and O’Reilly credit their “young and hungry architect,” Craig Morrison, and their very patient landlord, Marty Zeiger, whom they called “such a good guy,” for shepherding them through the intensive remodeling process.11 On 5 September 1995, the Irish Rep opened the doors of their new theatres: a 140-seat mainstage, on street level, and a 50-seat black box studio theatre downstairs (see Fig. 5.1). Moore directed the inaugural production on their mainstage: the American premiere of Same Old Moon, by Geraldine Aron, which ran from 14 September–15 October 1995, with Madeline Potter as the lead, Brenda Barnes, and O’Reilly playing a variety of ensemble roles in the show. First produced in 1984 in Galway by the Druid Theatre Company, and directed by one of Druid’s co-founders and Artistic Director Garry Hynes, Same Old Moon is a memory play that traces the life and family

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Fig. 5.1 The Stanwick Building, 132 W. 22nd St., July 2023. Irish Repertory Theatre rented three floors of the Stanwick Building in late 1994. (Photo by the author)

of aspiring Irish writer Brenda Barnes, who was born in Dublin in 1941. The play begins and ends in the 1980s when Barnes has moved back to Galway to live with her mother and her aunt, following the death of her father. Same Old Moon is a semi-autobiographical look back at Aron’s life, beginning in her childhood, at about age nine, and ending in her 40 s, with a focus on her strained relationship with her reprimanding parents. It is notable that after eight seasons, Same Old Moon was the Irish Rep’s first play by an Irish female dramatist.12 New York theatre critics wrote mixed reviews of the play and Moore’s direction, with Alexis Greene summing up many reviewers’ overarching frustration with the uninvolving structure of the play, noting, “the vignette-like scenes rarely

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explore Brenda’s thought-processes.”13 While the majority of the critics may have not been impressed with the play, they praised the Irish Rep’s new theatrical space. Quentin Crisp dryly comments, “the play has no plot,” and Clive Barnes agrees, reflecting, “it would be nice to report that the play was as handsome and effective as the theater, but … it is less than remarkable.”14 Jan Stuart calls Same Old Moon “episodic and overreaching,” but she likes the new performance space, which she terms a “handsome new home in Manhattan’s Flatiron District.”15 Jeremy Gerard emphasizes the “lovely new 99 seat theatre in Chelsea,” and Clive Barnes concurs, declaring that the Irish Rep has “found a grand new home.”16 Nicely aligning with the Irish Rep’s first play by an Irish woman dramatist, which was also directed by a woman (Moore), the program for Same Old Moon includes a note from the first female President of Ireland, Mary Robinson, who served as President from 1990–1997. Robinson wrote, “I am very pleased to send our greetings to the Irish Repertory Theatre to mark the opening of the new theatre in New York City.”17 Two years after this production of Same Old Moon, following Robinson’s seven years as President of Ireland, she became the United Nations High Commissioner on Human Rights, a position she held from 1997–2002. Same Old Moon was followed by a solid production of Sean O’Casey’s Juno and the Paycock, which ran for a month, from 10 November–10 December 1995. Critics were mostly positive in their remarks. Juno was the second O’Casey play the company produced, following The Plough and the Stars in their opening season. Juno takes place in 1922, right after the Irish Civil War begins. It focuses on the Boyle family: the unemployed, alcoholic blowhard “Captain” Jack Boyle; his long-suffering wife Juno, who is the sole supporter of the family; their ambitious daughter Mary, and their traumatized son Johnny (who begins the play having lost an arm in the struggle for Ireland’s independence), along with Joxer Daly, the n’eer-do-well friend of the Captain’s, who continually takes advantage of the Boyle family. The Boyles learn near the end of Act 1 that they will receive a large inheritance from a cousin; they then spend lavishly in Act 2, only to never receive the money in Act 3. One of the great Irish tragedies, the play ends with a pregnant Mary being abandoned by her lover Charles Bentham, Johnny shot dead for being an Informer about a fellow IRA volunteer, and the Captain returning home from another drinking spree, sputtering on the floor of his tenement home, about “th’ whole worl’s in a terrible state o’ chassis!,” blithely unaware of his family’s being torn apart.18 Ronald Gene Rollins, in Sean O’Casey’s Drama:

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Verisimilitude and Vision, places the arc of O’Casey’s Dublin play trilogy into perspective: O’Casey’s basic dramatic intention in this trilogy emerges … as an attempt to throw into high and sharp relief the encompassing anarchy, a pervasive disorder that threatens ruin, not to one man (The Shadow of a Gunman), or to one family (Juno and the Paycock), but to an entire city (The Plough and the Stars ).19

The Irish Rep has thoroughly explored this fascinating disorder running through all of O’Casey’s major plays, in multiple productions of O’Casey’s work. In 2019, they staged “The Sean O’Casey Season,” including productions of all of his Dublin trilogy, as well as “The Sean O’Casey Reading Series,” with free readings of all of O’Casey’s plays written from 1928–1964.20 Hungry to promote their upcoming production of Juno, Moore and O’Reilly wrote to Peter Marks in the New York Times, on 8 November 1995, urging Marks to mention Juno in his weekly theatre column. They also included details about a thrilling historical aspect of their production and a teasing comment at the end: The last time we had a mention in your Friday column we sold the Yeats night [their inaugural benefit in April 1989] out in 24 hours … and it saved our necks. If you can do it, it would be wonderful … We’ve got lots of stuff worthy of mention, but best of all is this: We wheedled an ancient cabinet out of a local Irish musician who had it sent over from The Abbey [Theatre in Dublin] many years ago for sentimental reasons. When we cleaned it up we discovered, almost indiscernible, but unmistakable, scrawled across the back … JUNO … and we think it’s from the original [1924] production at the Old Abbey—saved from the Abbey fire [in 1951] which destroyed everything else! It’s now living on our set with some other precious pieces from famous productions of JUNO. Isn’t that something! We’re trying not to be reverent. Both of us hope you’ll come to this. Moreover, if you don’t your life is in danger.21

Moore and O’Reilly’s mischievous last line in this letter did not seem to influence Marks, whose theatrical column on Friday, 10 November 1995, the opening night of the Irish Rep’s production of Juno, neglected to mention their production.22

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Moore again directed, and Pauline Flanagan played Juno, alongside W.B. Brydon as Captain Boyle. Critics mostly recommended the production, with only Wilborn Hampton criticizing Moore’s direction, noting that she missed “the underlying menace” of Joxer Daly, and lamenting that the production as a whole suffered from the blunting of “its razorsharp edge.”23 Michael Musto, Dan Isaac, and D.L. Lepidus disagreed, with Musto writing, “as directed by Charlotte Moore, the Rep actors capture their characters’ grit, bluster and nobility.”24 Lepidus lauded the play, as well as the new performance space, describing the Irish Rep as “a beautiful little gem of a theater [which] is a comfortable place to visit, particularly when the work therein is of such a high quality.”25 Reviewers may often disagree on the merits of each production, but the Irish Rep’s new theatrical home seemed to please everyone. The Irish Rep took a daring new direction after Juno, when they broke with their previous tradition of focusing mainly on older Irish plays (with the exceptions of Brian Friel’s Philadelphia, Here I Come! in Season One and Making History in Season Two) with the one-person show Shimmer, by the American playwright John O’Keefe, which became the inaugural production in their studio space, the W. Scott McLucas Theatre, which ran from 30 November–17 December 1995. Originally produced in 1988 in San Francisco, starring the playwright O’Keefe, Shimmer received Off-Off and Off-Broadway productions in 1989. David Elliott directed the Irish Rep’s production, which starred Jud Meyers. While the playwright hails from an Irish background, and O’Keefe describes himself as “basically an Irish storyteller,” Shimmer does not take place in Ireland.26 Based on O’Keefe’s childhood of growing up in multiple brutal Midwestern juvenile detention centers, it takes place in a similarly violent American juvenile detention center in the mid-1950s, though O’Keefe chillingly insists that the detention centers he experienced as a youth were “much more brutal” than what he portrays in the play.27 Shimmer tells the story of two boys (played by one actor) who create a fantasy world and their own language called “shimmer,” in order to survive their grueling time in the detention center.28 An equally contemporary play followed Shimmer: a touring production of Pat McCabe’s Frank Pig Says Hello. This black comedy is McCabe’s own adaptation of his celebrated, disturbing novel The Butcher Boy (1992), which won the Irish Times Irish Literature Prize for fiction, and was shortlisted for the Booker Prize. The play premiered at the Dublin Theatre Festival in 1992, followed by productions at the Gate Theatre

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in Dublin, London’s Royal Court Theatre, and the Old Museum Arts Centre in Belfast in 1993. Set in a small, rural Irish border town during the 1960s, Frank Pig tells the gruesome story of the disturbed youth Francie Brady, his dysfunctional family life, and his subsequent mental collapse into violence. An Irish Rep press release was careful to avoid emphasizing the darkness and grisly violence in the play, describing it instead as “a funny yet moving story of a boy who takes on the persona of a pig.”29 The Co-Motion Theatre Company, based in Dublin, brought the first New York production of Frank Pig to the Irish Rep from 23 January–18 February 1996. Joe O’Bryne directed, with David Gorry playing Piglet and Sean Rocks as Frank. While reviewers lavished compliments on the two actors, Gorry and Rocks, who originated their roles in Dublin, the main criticism was similar to Grandchild of Kings: the adaptation did not do justice to the original material. In Amy Reiter’s view, “unlike his powerful and absorbing book, McCabe’s stage adaption is remote and confusing.”30 Francine Russo and Ben Brantley concur, with Russo lamenting that the Irish actors, “give roaring tour-de-force performances in this inventive but failed adaptation.”31 Brantley goes into more depth: The simplest and most obvious route to have taken in bringing this novel to the stage would have been a monologue: Mr. McCabe’s prose has a cadenced musicality that begs to be spoken aloud. Instead the author has reconceived this work in a more purely theatrical manner, as a sort of hallucinogenic music-hall routine, performed by two actors who represent the work’s title character, Frank, as the boy he was, and the narrator who remembers him … the novel draws you into terrifyingly complete identification with the boy; onstage, he remains at a slightly clinical remove.32

Such a glaring distance between audience and actors could account for the reviewers’ and audience’s lack of enthusiasm for this play. Nonetheless, the Irish Rep’s decision to stage Same Old Moon, Shimmer and a touring production of Frank Pig, signaled that they were open to including more contemporary writers in their future productions. This promising new trend has continued: during the company’s 34th season, in July 2022, twenty-six years after hosting the touring production of

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Frank Pig, O’Reilly directed his first musical when the company staged another version of this story: the world premiere of The Butcher Boy: A New Musical, by Asher Muldoon. The last two productions in the company’s eighth season included the well-received revival of their 1989 production of A Whistle in the Dark, by Tom Murphy, again directed by Moore, and starring O’Reilly as the cruel brother Harry, which ran from 23 February-31 March 1996. The final production of the 1995–1996 season was their first production of Da, by Hugh Leonard, directed by Moore, starring O’Reilly as son Charlie and Brian Murray as Da, which ran from 18 June–4 August 1996.33 Da was first produced at the Dublin Theatre Festival in 1973; its American premiere took place the same year, at the Hudson Guild Theatre. Da won four Tony Awards for its 1978 Broadway production, including Best Play. Bea Lewis gives audiences a sneak peek into both the Irish Rep’s production of Da and their new building: Not only is the revival [of Da] outstanding, but so is everything about the newly refurbished permanent home of the Irish Rep … the lobby, with its hardwood floors and dark green walls, is elegant; the seats in the theatre, which holds 140 people, are comfortable.34

Lewis’ cheerful description provides a fitting overview of the Irish Rep’s successful first season in their new theatrical spaces. The company rented three floors of the Stanwick Building for thirteen years, from late 1994–2007. In a 1995 article, Brian Scott Lipton further explained the impetus for the Irish Rep’s brand new home: What the company wasn’t comfortable with was moving around from theatre to theatre. Over the years, Irish Rep had rented space all over town, making it a challenge for fans to find them season after season. Building a permanent home seemed the only—if costly—solution. Biting the bullet, enlisting funds from everyone from grandma to HUD [U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development], and recruiting volunteer construction help from high school students and fellow thespians, Irish Rep has succeeded in their biggest production ever—a gorgeous twotheatre complex at 132 West 22 St. that will house plays, readings and special events.35

O’Reilly adds to Lipton’s comments when he stated simply that by 1995, the Irish Rep, “really needed to have a place that we call home.”36

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By the end of their eighth season in 1996, with a home base now firmly established on three floors of the Stanwick Building, the Irish Rep’s future looked more stable and promising than ever.

Notes 1. Brick by Brick, We Are Building Our New Home. 1995. Irish Repertory Theatre Program for “A Wilde Night On Broadway,” 3 April: 3. Tamiment Library and Robert F. Wagner Labor Archives. Irish Repertory Theatre Records. AIA 080 Box 4, Folder 12. 2. Zobel, Frederick C. Obituary. 1943. The New York Times, 21 November. https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/ 1943/11/21/issue.html. Accessed 9 August 2022. 3. Irish Repertory Theatre 20th Anniversary Gala Program. 2008. Campaign for a Permanent Home. 9 June. Tamiment Library and Robert F. Wagner Labor Archives. Irish Repertory Theatre Records. AIA 080 Box 11, Folder 22. 4. Liv, Wei Ming, compiler. 2008. A History of the Irish Repertory Theatre. Irish Repertory Theatre 20th Anniversary Gala Program, 9 June. Ibid. 5. Moore, Charlotte and Ciarán O’Reilly. Artistic Director and Producing Director of the Irish Repertory Theatre. Interview by the author. The Irish Repertory Theatre, 1 July. 2023. Transcript. 6. Irish Repertory Theatre Program for Same Old Moon. 1995. The Story, 14 September–15 October: 7. Ibid, Box 3, Folder 19. 7. FitzRoy, Maggie. 2012. One World Arts Foundation, Founded by Ponte Vedra Beach’s Scott McLucas, Supports Artists Near and Far. The Florida Times-Union, 10 August. https://www. jacksonville.com/story/news/2012/08/10/one-world-founda tion-founded-ponte-vedra-beachs-scott-mclucas/15858097007/. Accessed 26 June 2023. One World Foundation had supported the Irish Rep since 1989, when it was an Associate Producer for Philadelphia, Here I Come! This foundation has had various titles, from One World Foundation to One World Arts Foundation; in February 1992, One World Arts Foundation, Inc., was a producer of the Irish Rep’s Grandchild of Kings. Tamiment Library and Robert F. Wagner Labor Archives. Irish Repertory Theatre Records. AIA 080 Shared Tamiment Box 008: Poster Collection 1990–91, Folder 1.

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8. As of July 2023, W. Scott McLucas is no longer a Board Member, but remains a part of the Irish Rep’s Advisory Council. The Irish Repertory Theatre Company. 2023. Board of Directors. https:// irishrep.org/about/board-of-directors/. Accessed 26 July 2023. 9. Celebrities Will Go Wilde. 1995. New York Post, 31 March: 22. New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, Billy Rose Theatre Division, Collection of Newspaper Clippings of Dramatic Criticism, 1995–1996. 10. Ibid. 11. Moore, Charlotte and Ciarán O’Reilly. Artistic Director and Producing Director of the Irish Repertory Theatre. Interview by the author. The Irish Repertory Theatre, 1 July. 2023. Transcript. 12. During their previous season, in 1995, the Irish Rep produced Alive, Alive, Oh!, a musical revue of skits, Irish music and songs and readings from Irish plays, written and performed by the Irish singer Kitty Sullivan, along with her husband, Irish actor Milo O’Shea. The production received mixed reviews. 13. Greene, Alexis. 1995. Same Old Moon. TheaterWeek, 9 October: 14. New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, Billy Rose Theatre Division, Collection of Newspaper Clippings of Dramatic Criticism, 1995–1996. 14. Quentin, Crisp. 1995. Same Old Moon. New York Native, 23 October: 22. Barnes, Clive. 1995. Moon Never Rises to Occasion. New York Post, 4 October: 37. Ibid. 15. Stuart, Jan. 1995. A New Moon On Catholic Memories. Newsday, 26 September: B2. Ibid. 16. Gerard, Jeremy. 1995. Same Old Moon. Variety, 25 September: 104. Barnes, Clive. 1995. Ibid. 17. Robinson, Mary, President of Ireland. 1995. Irish Repertory Theatre Program for Same Old Moon. Program Note. 14 September–15 October: 1. Tamiment Library and Robert F. Wagner Labor Archives. Irish Repertory Theatre Records. AIA 080 Box 3, Folder 19. 18. O’Casey, Sean. 1957. Three Plays: Juno and the Paycock, The Shadow of a Gunman, The Plough and the Stars, 73. New York: St. Martin’s. 19. Rollins, Ronald Gene. 1979. Sean O’Casey’s Drama: Verisimilitude and Vision, 14. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press.

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20. The Irish Rep opened their first season in 1988 with The Plough and the Stars; they produced Plough again in 1997 and 2019. Following their 1995 production of Juno and the Paycock, they staged Juno again in 2013 and 2019. The company also produced The Shadow of a Gunman in 1999 and 2019. 21. Moore, Charlotte and Ciarán O’Reilly. To Peter Marks at the New York Times. Letter, 8 November. 1995. Tamiment Library and Robert F. Wagner Labor Archives. Irish Repertory Theatre Records. AIA 080 Box 4, Folder 1. 22. Marks, Peter. 1995. On Stage and Off. The New York Times, 10 November: 56. https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmach ine/1995/11/10/026328.html?pageNumber=56. Accessed 18 May 2023. 23. Hampton, Wilborn. 1995. Cajoling Wife and Layabout Husband. The New York Times, 19 November: 18. New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, Billy Rose Theatre Division, Collection of Newspaper Clippings of Dramatic Criticism, 1995–1996. 24. Musto, Michael. 1995. Juno: Oh, Bliss! O’Casey! Daily News, 27 November: 27. Isaac, Dan. 1995. Juno and the Paycock. Backstage, 24 November: 36. Lepidus, D.L. 1995. And a Bit o’ Green. The Westsider, 14 December: 19. Ibid. 25. Lepidus, D.L. 1995. Ibid. 26. Holden, Stephen. 1989. Detention Stories From One Who Lived There. The New York Times, 14 July. https://www.nytimes.com/ 1989/07/14/theater/stories-of-a-detention-farm-from-one-wholived-there.html. Accessed 26 June 2023. 27. Ibid. 28. Neither the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts nor the Irish Repertory Theatre Records at the Tamiment Library at NYU contained reviews of the Irish Rep’s production of Shimmer. An online search, conducted 26 June 2023, also did not find any reviews of this production. 29. Morrison, James L.L., Public Relations. To Critic/Journalist: Frank Pig Says Hello. Letter, 15 January. 1995. Tamiment Library and Robert F. Wagner Labor Archives. Irish Repertory Theatre Records. AIA 080 Box 4, Folder 3. 30. Reiter, Amy. 1996. Frank Pig Says Hello. Backstage, 2 February: 48. New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, Billy Rose

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31. 32. 33.

34.

35.

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Theatre Division, Collection of Newspaper Clippings of Dramatic Criticism, 1995–1996. Russo, Francine. 1996. Frank Pig Says Hello. Village Voice, 20 February: 72. Ibid. Brantley, Ben. 1996. Losing a Friend and Finding Violence. The New York Times, 29 January: C15. Ibid. The revival of A Whistle in the Dark received two positive reviews from New York Theatre critics. Two later Irish Rep productions of Da (in 1996 and 2015) also received positive reviews. Lewis, Bea. 1996. Two Adventurous Suburbanites Spend a Day Off-Broadway. Hot Seats: Your Free Guide to Over 75 Off and Off-Off Broadway Theatres, Vol. 3, No. 1. Alliance of Resident Theatres, New York: 1; 15. Quoted on 15. Tamiment Library and Robert F. Wagner Labor Archives. Irish Repertory Theatre Records. AIA 080 Box 2, Folder 10. Lipton, Brian Scott. 1996. The Mainstage, Ciarán O’Reilly. Encore: The Off-Broadway and Resident Theatre Magazine: 6. Ibid, Box 4, Folder 5. Brunner, Jeryl. 2020. When Lightning Strikes! Podcast. #10: Charlotte Moore and Ciarán O’Reilly (Irish Repertory Theatre), 19 May. https://broadwaypodcastnetwork.com/when-lightningstrikes/10-charlotte-moore-and-ciaran-oreilly-irish-repertory-the atre/. Accessed 21 June 2021.

CHAPTER 6

The Irish … and How They Got That Way: Highlights from Seasons 9–15: 1996–2003

Seasons 9–15, 1996–2003, included 43 productions: Season 9: 1996–1997: The Importance of Being Earnest , by Oscar Wilde; My Astonishing Self , by Donal Donnelly; The Yeats Plays, by William Butler Yeats; The Plough and the Stars, by Sean O’Casey; The Nightingale and Not the Lark and The Invisible Man, by Jennifer Johnston; Annual Gala: The Irish … and How They Got That Way, by Frank McCourt; Mass Appeal, by Bill C. Davis; Wait ‘til I Tell You, by Carmel Quinn Season 10: 1997–1998: The Irish … and How They Got That Way, by Frank McCourt; Major Barbara, by George Bernard Shaw; Rafferty Rescues the Moon, by June Anderson; Song at Sunset , conceived by Shivaun O’Casey; Long Day’s Journey Into Night, by Eugene O’Neill; Annual Gala: Celebrating the Irish Peace Referendum Season 11: 1998–1999: The Shaughraun, by Dion Boucicault; Krapp’s Last Tape, by Samuel Beckett; Oh, Coward!, by Roderick Cook; The Happy Prince, by Oscar Wilde; The Shadow of a Gunman, by Sean O’Casey; Annual Gala: How the Irish Saved Civilization: A Benefit for the Irish Repertory Theatre; Dear Liar, by Jerome Kitty Season 12: 1999–2000: Invasions and Legacies, by Tommy Makem; Eclipsed , by Patricia Burke Brogan; The Irish … and How They © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2024 M. Szasz, Irish Repertory Theatre, New Directions in Irish and Irish American Literature, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-53545-1_6

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Got That Way, by Frank McCourt; The Country Boy, by John Murphy; Our Lady of Sligo, by Sebastian Barry; Don Juan in Hell, by George Bernard Shaw Season 13: 2000–2001: The Hostage, by Brendan Behan; The Importance of Being Oscar , by Micheál MacLiammóir; The Picture of Dorian Gray, by Oscar Wilde, and adapted for the stage by Joe O’Bryne; A Life, by Hugh Leonard; The Irish … and How They Got That Way, by Frank McCourt Season 14: 2001–2002: Save It For the Stage: The Life of Reilly, by Charles Nelson Reilly and Paul Linke; The Streets of New York, by Dion Boucicault, adaptation and songs by Charlotte Moore; That and the Cup of Tea, by Carmel Quinn and Sean Fuller; The Matchmaker, by John B. Keane, and adapted for the stage by Phyllis Ryan; An Evening in New York with W.B. Yeats and John Quinn, adaptation by Neill Bradley and Paul Kerry; Pigtown, by Mike Finn; Annual Gala: The Playboy of the Western World, by J.M. Synge Season 15: 2002–2003: Bailegangaire, by Tom Murphy; A Celtic Christmas, arranged by Charlotte Moore; bedbound, by Edna Walsh; The Love-Hungry Farmer, by John B. Keane and adapted for the stage by Des Keogh; Foley, by Michael West; Peg O’ My Heart, by J. Hartley Manners, songs by Charlotte Moore; Annual Gala: Concert Version of Finian’s Rainbow, by E.Y. Harburg, Burton Lane and Fred Saidy, adapted by Charlotte Moore With their home base firmly established in three floors of the newly renovated Stanwick Building, the Irish Repertory Theatre launched its ninth season in the fall of 1996 with Oscar Wilde’s comic masterpiece, The Importance of Being Earnest , which critics have called a “perfect” comedy since its London debut in 1895. Subtitled “A Trivial Comedy for Serious People,” Earnest is Wilde’s delightful mockery of Victorian society’s strict mores. Michael Feingold reminds us that underneath the play’s puffball surface lies a deeper criticism of the absurdities that ran rampant during Victorian England, “Repeatedly said to be based on good breeding and ideals, the play’s world is in fact based wholly on money and selfishness; part of Wilde’s joke is to treat these last amoral obligations equal to the others in value.”1 Wilde’s featherlight, endlessly witty comments on society’s hypocrisies throughout Earnest have ensured the comedy’s long-standing popularity.

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In addition to their 1996 production of Earnest, the Irish Rep has produced three plays by Wilde, and two plays about Wilde: The Happy Prince, a stage adaptation of Wilde’s 1888 short story for children, by Gabriel Lewis and Michael Greenlake (1999); Joe O’Bryne’s stage adaptation of Wilde’s 1891 novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray (2000); The Importance of Being Oscar, by Micheál MacLiammóir (2001), and the world premiere of My Scandalous Life (2011), by Thomas Kilroy, a play about Wilde’s lover, Lord Alfred Douglas, known as Bosie. Tony Walton, one of New York City’s “most sought-after set and costume designers,” made his directorial debut with the Irish Rep’s production of Earnest.2 During his long career in design for stage and film, Walton received sixteen Tony nominations, and won three: Best Scenic Design for Pippen (1973), House of Blue Leaves (1986), and a revival of Guys and Dolls (1992). He also received five Drama Desk Awards and four Oscar nominations, winning an Oscar for Best Art Direction for All That Jazz in 1979, directed by Bob Fosse (an award Walton shared with co-designer Philip Rosenberg). He also won an Emmy, for Outstanding Art Direction of Death of a Salesman in 1985, a made-forTV film production directed by Volker Schlöndorff (Walton shared this Emmy with co-designers Robert J. Franco and John Kasarda). After Charlotte Moore called Walton and asked him to direct Earnest, he replied, “‘Charlotte, this is the greatest comedy ever written in the English language. I can’t start out doing that!’” Moore replied, “‘Well, I’m going to keep on your case.’”3 After Walton finally relented, reviewers of Earnest praised Walton’s set, costumes and (mostly) his direction of Wilde’s play, offering differing views about the production’s acting. D.L. Lepidus reminds us, “rare indeed is a production directed by the set designer,” calling Walton’s set and costume designs, as well as his direction of Earnest, “most satisfying.”4 Clive Barnes and John Simon agree, with Barnes writing that Walton, “has celebrated his spree on the directorial town with bubbling champagne gusto,” and Simon exclaiming that Walton, “can, it seems, do everything. He has picked the funniest comedy in the English language … designed its sets winsomely, devised its costumes saucily, and, in his directorial debut, staged it pungently. If only he could also have played all the parts!”5 Alas, that wish was beyond even Walton’s extended resume. Several reviewers mention the limitations posed by the company’s small mainstage. Vincent Canby praises Walton’s scenic designs, which “transform a small, awkward playing area on West 22nd Street into a

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fashionable bachelor’s London digs, the garden of a fine manor in Hertfordshire and the same manor house’s morning room,” while Greg Evans offers the optimistic view that Walton’s “elegant set designs of Victorian London homes give no indication of either the Irish Rep’s limited space or funds.”6 The company’s 2014 renovations of its theatrical spaces would solve some of the space limitations of its small main stage. Ben Brantley coyly suggests that, “One would think that a comedy in which the superficial is everything would be a natural choice for a man who, as a costume and set designer, specialized in surfaces,” but concedes that the production is “unsteady if luscious looking.”7 David Sheward gives us winsome descriptions of the lusciousness of Walton’s costume designs, commenting that Melissa Errico’s Act 2 costume for Gwendolyn looked “like a hot fudge sundae … her sleeves are puffs of whipped cream, trimmed in chocolate brown, topped by cherry red lips, luxuriant brown hair, and a fluffy white hat.”8 Errico’s performance as Gwendolyn received accolades not just for her luxurious costumes; she also earned a Drama Desk nomination for Best Actress. After Earnest, Walton directed and designed three more shows for the Irish Rep: Major Barbara (1997), The Devil’s Disciple (2007), and Candida (2010), all by Irish playwright and activist, George Bernard Shaw. Walton also designed several other shows for the company, including Seamus Heaney’s The Burial at Thebes (2016).9 In 1997, the year after Walton directed Earnest, and prior to his directing plays by Shaw, the Irish Rep’s first foray into the life and work of Shaw began with the one-person show, My Astonishing Self , adapted by Michael Voysey, and portrayed by Irish actor Donal Donnelly. Similar to the structure of the Irish Rep productions of Grandchild of Kings (1992) and Song at Sunset (1997), which explore Sean O’Casey’s life and work through the playwright’s own words, My Astonishing Self focuses on the life, philosophy (and, to a lesser extent, the plays) of Shaw, from age 19 when he moved from Dublin to London, to near the end of his life at age 94. In an interview with Donnelly, Pat Connelly explains the background of the play: ‘It’s a very personal kind of introduction to Shaw,’ Donnelly said of the play. ‘All is borrowed from the plays, criticism, prefaces and letters [by Shaw].’ Neither he [Donnelly] nor [adapter Michael] Voysey tried to improve on Shaw’s own words. As Donnelly declared, ‘You can’t improvise Mr. Shaw.’10

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Prior to performing My Astonishing Self at the Irish Rep’s studio theatre in 1997, Donnelly had been touring this show around the world since the late 1970s. Many New York critics celebrated the emphasis on Shaw’s far-reaching intellect in the play. D.L. Lepidus refers to Shaw as having “one of the greatest minds” of the twentieth century, and Peter Marks concurs, noting that most of the play, “concentrates on Shaw’s most extraordinary attribute, his brain … the elegant elasticity, the expansive embrace of Shaw’s curiosity is always apparent. The play is a reminder of a kind of existence that has fallen out of fashion, a life of the mind.”11 As Donnelly reminds us, “Italy produced Michelangelo and Leonardo … England produced Shakespeare, Germany produced Goethe, Norway produced Ibsen, and … Ireland produced … MY ASTONISHING SELF !”12 Reviewers agreed with Donnelly’s enthusiasm, voicing admiration of both the play and Donnelly’s adept performance as Shaw. Connelly says the actor, “has the look, and the brogue to carry [the impersonation of Shaw] off with striking authenticity.”13 Clive Barnes calls Donnelly’s performance, “beautifully acted and a charming, at times moving, portrayal of a man, who, despite all of his bad intentions, was one of the most engaging figures of the 20th Century.”14 Lepidus emphasizes that Donnelly has been performing on New York theatre stages for close to thirty years, yet insists, “I can however, recall no performance by the wonderful actor which matches the one he is now giving at Irish Repertory Theatre in My Astonishing Self ,” advising audiences that they will “be riveted,” and undoubtedly, they were, as the show ran for almost two months, from 23 January to 19 March 1997.15 After My Astonishing Self closed, in the spring of 1997, Ciarán O’Reilly expanded his role from co-founder, Producing Director and actor to firsttime director with a pair of one-acts by Irish novelist and playwright Jennifer Johnston: The Nightingale and Not the Lark and The Invisible Man, performed in the W. Scott McLucas Studio Theatre. Nine years after the company’s founding in 1988, these one-acts became Irish Rep’s second production by an Irish female dramatist. Born in 1930 in Dublin, Jennifer Johnston is most famous for her novels, including Shadows on Our Skin (1977), which was shortlisted for the Booker Prize for Fiction. Eileen Kearney and Charlotte Headrick describe Johnston’s “several noteworthy plays that demonstrate her sharp humor and insights into characterization.”16 All of Johnston’s work has

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been staged by Irish theatres. The Abbey Theatre produced The Nightingale and Not the Lark in 1979 and The Invisible Man in 1987; these plays finally received their American premiere with the Irish Rep’s 1997 production. The Nightingale and Not the Lark tells the story of Mamie (played by Paddy Croft) who tries to warn a young neighbor Janet (Elizabeth Whyte) not to marry an actor, while Mamie’s ghost of her actor husband (Tony Coleman) visits her in a mirror. Tony Coleman also had a role in The Invisible Man, as Mack, a dresser (and possible lover) for actor Tony (W.B. Brydon), who reflects on his life and his argumentative parents as he prepares to play the lead in King Lear. Reviewers offered divided assessments of these one-acts, frequently applauding the acting and O’Reilly’s direction, but questioning the plays themselves. Lepidus calls the one-acts “dramatically dull,” while D.J.R. Bruckner insists that O’Reilly and his cast found a “haunting depth” in both short pieces.17 The Irish Rep’s third major production by a female dramatist arrived two years later, with a 1999 production of Eclipsed, written by Patricia Burke Brogan, and directed by Charlotte Moore.18 Set in the “Interior of Convent-Laundry,” in St. Paul’s Home for Penitent Women in Killmacha, Ireland, in 1992 and 1963, Eclipsed tells the story of Rosa (played by Erika Rolfsrud), raised by adoptive parents in the U.S., who returns to the laundry in 1992 to search for information on her mother, Brigit (Amy Redmond).19 The play flashes back to scenes in the laundry in 1963, focusing on Rosa’s mother Brigit, along with three other unmarried mothers: Cathy (Aedin Moloney), Nellie-Nora (Fiona Walsh) and Mandy (Rosemary Fine), who live under the thumb of the sympathetic Sister Virginia (Heather O’Neill) and the unrelentingly cruel Mother Victoria (Terry Donnelly). A hushed-up aspect of Irish history that occurred from the Potato Famine in the 1840s to the early 1970s, the Magdalene Laundries hid pregnant, unmarried Catholic women, whose “babies were taken from them and adopted by Catholic families abroad, often in the United States.”20 The Irish Rep describes more about the shameful history behind these laundries: In the nineteenth century there were at least twenty-three refuges for ‘fallen women’ in Ireland. Fourteen of these ‘refuges’ were in Dublin. Others were attached to convents. (There were similar laundries in England, Scotland and Italy.) These young women, having embarrassed

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their families by their indiscretion, were thrown out of their homes and signed in by their families. There was no legal recourse for these imprisonments and many of these unfortunate young women spent the rest of their lives locked away in sweatshop conditions, and were freed only in death.21

Eclipsed tells the haunting story of four of these trapped women. To help audiences understand the play, the Irish Rep interviewed the playwright, Patricia Burke Brogan, who reflects how her own experience as a nun in the early 1960s, when she was assigned to a Magdalene Laundry in Galway, eventually led to the writing of Eclipsed: “‘I had become a novitiate when I was very young and had very high ideals,’” Burke Brogan recalls.22 While Burke Brogan did not take her final vows as a nun, choosing to marry and become a painter, poet and playwright instead, the Irish Rep nonetheless asks the dramatist more about her links to the character of Sister Virginia, “I can’t help but think that since the character of Sister Virginia sounds so authentic, that she might be drawn from your own experience,” to which the playwright responds, “‘Well, partly, but not wholly, of course. Sister Virginia was much braver than I was.’”23 Burke Brogan recalls that as a novitiate, after she found out why the women were in the laundry, she “‘was in shock.’”24 To tell these women’s stories, she wrote Eclipsed, and dedicated the play, “In memory of the Magdalenes.”25 In the Playbill, Moore explains why she chose to direct this play, offering comments that are particularly interesting in the context of a woman directing a play written by an Irish woman, and about Irish women: This play interested me mainly for two reasons: It’s about women, and it’s not about ‘the troubles’! It’s about what happens to young women locked away in a bitter and loveless existence, their lives and experiences invisible. Betrayed, forgotten and disowned, they become increasingly dependent on one another and live a life somewhere between fantasy and desperation. This disturbing picture of women kept from their children, immature and spoon fed by the Church is, to me, particularly fascinating because it is based in truth. Its theme is universal and its subject matter is painful—how society treats its unwanted mothers. The cloister in which this Magdalene laundry is set is fictitious, but the repression, the judgement and the compassion stem from a very harsh reality.26

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First produced by Punchbag Theatre Company in Galway in 1992, Eclipsed has won numerous international awards, including the 1992 Edinburgh Festival Fringe First award, and the Moss Hart Memorial Theatre Award in 1994. The play has toured Ireland, and has been performed in Scotland, England, Italy, and the U.S. Its first U.S. production took place in 1994, in Worcester, Massachusetts, where it was produced by the Worcester Forum Theatre; this was followed by a Seattle Fringe Festival production in 1995. The Irish Rep’s production of Eclipsed was the New York premiere. This was a daring play for the Irish Rep to tackle, especially considering how few plays by Irish women they had produced by 1999. The Irish Rep’s production of Eclipsed received a slim number of mixed reviews. John Simon appreciates the play, lamenting that all the four cloistered, unmarried women had “was their desperate camaraderie,” while Anita Gates reflects that the production was “sensitively directed,” with a stellar cast that “makes the characters’ highly charged emotions believable, born of a terrible desperation.”27 The paucity of reviews remains puzzling. As an example of the lengthy and thoughtful reviews this play has received in Ireland, The Irish Times ’ Michael Finlan writes: … the play picks away at a scab to reveal the vicious subcutaneous reality beneath the hypocrisies that were spread across Irish society … it would not be a bad idea to frog-march every one of our T.D.’s [Teachtaí Dálas, a member of Dáil Éireann, the lower house of the Oireachtas or the Irish Parliament] particularly the male majority, into the theatre to see it.28

Patricia Burke Brogan may have been disappointed about the lack of extensive critical consideration of her play’s New York premiere, as the playwright insists her play is “a social document as well as a powerful dramatic piece” that needs to be performed for “all cultures and must be remembered as part of human history.”29 In expanding the meanings behind the title Eclipsed, Burke Brogan points out, “women have been eclipsed in their lives and in their experiences … the real history of women has not been written.”30 While critics were not effusive in their reviews, the company’s staging of Eclipsed in 1999 was still a milestone in the history of this important work, as well as the Irish Rep’s expanding repertoire of contemporary plays, and especially plays written by Irish and Irish American women.

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While Eclipsed attracted little critical discussion, Irish actor Niall Buggy enjoyed repeated praise for starring in two one-person Irish Rep shows in 1998 and 2001. In 1998, Buggy played Sean O’Casey in the American premiere of Song at Sunset , conceived and directed by O’Casey’s daughter Shivaun, and in 2001, Buggy portrayed Oscar Wilde in The Importance of Being Oscar, written by Micheál MacLiammóir, and directed by Moore. Reviewers highly commended Buggy’s versatile performances as “a fine Irish actor” in both productions, especially Song at Sunset.31 O’Casey’s only daughter, Shivaun, was born in 1939 in Devon, England. She studied scenic design at The Central School of Arts and Crafts and acting at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London, and co-founded Drama Centre London. Shivaun made her directorial debut in 1987 with an Off-Broadway production of Happy Days, by Samuel Beckett, performed at the Samuel Beckett Theater, starring Aideen O’Kelly as Winnie, a production that Beckett himself advised. In 1991, Shivaun founded the O’Casey Theatre Company in Derry/Londonderry, Northern Ireland. She wrote Song at Sunset based on her father’s letters, writings, autobiographies, plays, and recordings, explaining that the play “came about as a desire to create a one-man show about my father, Sean O’Casey, for Niall Buggy.”32 Shivaun muses that Buggy is somehow able to channel her father through his performances, ‘I often hear my father’s voice when Niall is performing. Niall doesn’t look like him, of course, but somehow the spirit is there, the fight and life of the man.”33 Long before Niall Buggy embodied O’Casey at the Irish Rep, he joined the Abbey Theatre in 1964 at age 16. Buggy has achieved great acclaim as an actor, on stage and screen, performing in London, Australia, Ireland, Northern Ireland, Scotland, and New York City. He originated the role of Casimir in Friel’s Aristocrats in London in 1988, and reprised this role in the play’s Off-Broadway premiere in 1989, produced by the Manhattan Theatre Club, earning TimeOut, Clarence Derwent, Drama Desk and Obie awards. In 1995, he received an Olivier Award for playing Brian in Dead Funny, by Terry Johnson. He has also performed in Friel’s adaptation of Uncle Vanya (1998 Irish Times Theatre Award), and Conor McPherson’s The Weir (1999). D.J.R. Bruckner gives a taste of the New York Theatre critics’ positive responses to Buggy’s portrayal of O’Casey in Song at Sunset :

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Where do all those people come from, filling the stage when there is only one man on it, in Song at Sunset … Out of the slightest gestures, movements, glances and intonations of the Irish actor Niall Buggy, whose ability to shift characters faster than eye or ear can detect seems to expand with each play he takes on … the experience is like getting the chance to hear [Spanish and Puerto Rican cellist] Pablo Casals play Bach suites.34

In 2001, three years after being lauded for his portrayal of O’Casey, Buggy returned to the Irish Rep to star in another one-person show, portraying yet another significant Irish playwright: Oscar Wilde, in The Importance of Being Oscar, by Micheál MacLiammóir. The Importance of Being Oscar focuses on Wilde’s notorious conviction in 1895 for homosexuality, imposed under a former British law called “gross indecency,” and his sentencing to two years’ hard labor at Wandsworth Prison in southwest London. MacLiammóir and his partner Hilton Edwards were incredibly influential in Irish theatre. They co-founded the only Gaelic-speaking theatre in the world, An Taibhdhearc Gaillimhe, the National Irish Language Theatre of Ireland, in Galway in 1928. They also co-founded the Gate Theatre in Dublin in 1928, and MacLiammóir wrote and originated the role of Wilde in The Importance of Being Oscar, which he played for fifteen years, from 1960–1975, both on tour and in Dublin. The Importance of Being Oscar’s previous New York City production occurred on Broadway in the spring of 1961, starring MacLiammóir as Wilde; the Irish Rep’s 2001 production coincided with the centenary of Wilde’s death. Barlow-Hartman Public Relations describes the importance of both the play and Buggy’s crucial role: “Ireland’s most acclaimed actor—Niall Buggy—gives us Ireland’s most popular playwright, Oscar Wilde.”35 In Robert Dominguez’s view, Buggy perfectly embodied Wilde’s colorful personality, “Wilde’s wit, flamboyance and florid prose—and the tragic circumstances of his fall—are dramatized through a forceful performance by veteran Irish actor Niall Buggy.”36 In striking comparison to the limited number of mixed reviews of Eclipsed, Buggy’s dexterous solo performances as both O’Casey and Wilde certainly impressed Irish Rep reviewers. The Irish Rep’s most significant production between 1996 and 2003, from a financial, touring, and publicity perspective, was The Irish … and How They Got That Way, by Pulitzer Prize winning author Frank McCourt. A relatively simple show to stage, the cast of The Irish consists

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of four actors and two musicians, who discuss the history of Ireland, and the struggles and triumphs of Irish Americans, through thirty-five musical numbers, alongside excerpts from diaries, letters, and newspaper clippings, with a set composed mainly of luggage, “suggestive of departure, exile and memory.”37 In Joseph Hurley’s succinct assessment, the show is “Frank McCourt’s unpretentious little stage scrapbook of the Irish experience on both sides of the Atlantic,” with Act 1 taking place in Ireland, and Act 2 in America.38 The show begins and ends with the line, “We are the music makers.”39 One of America’s greatest lyricists, E.Y. “Yip” Harburg, lyricist and co-book writer of Finian’s Rainbow (1947), commented about the underlying power of songs, which perfectly describes the songs in The Irish … and How They Got That Way: The magic in song only happens when the words give destination and meaning to the music and the music gives wings to the words … words make you think thoughts. Music makes you feel a feeling. But a song makes you feel a thought … songs have been the not-so-secret weapon behind every fight for freedom, every struggle against injustice and bigotry … songs are the pulse of a nation’s heart ….40

Judging from the popularity of The Irish, this show definitely reached audiences’ hearts. The Irish has the most extensive production history of any Irish Rep show. Its journey began as the company’s annual benefit gala performance on 19 May 1997, directed by Moore, and hosted by comedian and actress Rosie O’Donnell. It became an immediate hit. The production was so popular, it returned for a longer run on the Irish Rep’s mainstage in September of that same year, running through 2 November 1997, when it moved across the street to the Chelsea Playhouse, where it ran almost two more months, from 20 November 1997 to 25 January 1998. The company then re-staged the show on their mainstage in the summer of 1998, when it ran for nearly four more months, from 10 June– 18 October. The Irish Rep sagely produced The Irish again for another gala performance, called How the Irish Saved Civilization: A Benefit for the Irish Repertory Theatre on 7 June 1999, which included members of the Riverdance Company.41 Six months later, the show returned for over another month’s run, from 28 December 1999 through 6 February 2000. In the summer of 2001, the show reopened on their mainstage. The Irish also became the first production that the company toured nationally, with roughly month-long stops in Boston in March 1998 and

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San Francisco in January 1999. A March 1999 production in Chicago ran for over a year. In the fall of 2010, the Irish Rep produced the play again on its mainstage, a year after McCourt’s death. Ten years later, in July 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic, which shut down live performances, the Irish Rep reconfigured the show into an online gala called The Irish (Rep)… and How We Got That Way: A Celebration of Endurance and Perseverance through Hard Times featuring The Irish … and How They Got That Way. The enthusiasm for The Irish was so overwhelming that Moore and O’Reilly considered multiple other performance possibilities, including productions in London and Australia, as well as a 1998 White House performance, as part of their St. Patrick’s Day celebrations.42 They also explored broadcasting the production on PBS, cable or broadcast television, home video, in-flight entertainment on Aer Lingus, Irish television, television around the world, pay-per-view, education/library venues, and writing a book about the show.43 While only a broadcast of The Irish occurred on the New York Public Television station WNET and PBS stations nationwide in October 1998, Varèse Sarabande Records, Inc., released the original cast album, with musical arrangements by Rusty Magee, directed by Moore, and performed by Terry Donnelly, Bob Green, Donna Kane, Rusty Magee, Ciarán O’Reilly, and Ciaran Sheenan, with a special appearance by Frank McCourt. The difference between audiences’ and critics’ reactions toward The Irish is similar to the responses to Les Misérables, the 1985 blockbuster musical by Alain Boublil and Claude-Michel Schönberg. While audiences around the world have embraced Les Mis, critics have remained aloof and dismissive. For all of its immense popularity with audiences, The Irish received mixed reviews. The most common criticism focused on deriding the show, in Howard Kissel’s phrase, as “a church-basement pageant,” with reviewers also lamenting that The Irish pales in comparison to Angela’s Ashes. They characterized the show as far more heavy-handed and didactic than McCourt’s heralded 1996 memoir of his rough and tumble childhood in Limerick. Yet critics have also agreed that The Irish teaches its audiences quite a bit about the history of the Irish and Irish Americans, both intellectually and emotionally, and they admit that hearing such history lessons told through a variety of Irish music and songs proves especially enjoyable. Ben Brantley reminds us that McCourt’s twenty-seven-year career teaching in the New York City Public Schools filters through the whole

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show, commenting, “It’s definitely the instructor who dominates here,” though he appreciates Sigmund Freud’s astringent comment on the Irish, “This is one race of people for whom psychoanalysis is of no use whatsoever.”44 Howard Kissel admits that the “eye-witness accounts of the Great Famine that sent the Irish here in the 1840s are expectedly harrowing,” and Clive Barnes speaks for the majority of the critics when he praises the wide variety of music and songs, which give the production “its real flavor … folk, pop, traditional, music hall—ranging from Brigadoon to U2.”45 Another Harburg comment about the power of songs as a reflection of the heartbeat of a nation again reflects the songs in The Irish: Give me the makers of the songs of a nation and I care not who makes the laws … [the song] is the pulse of a nation’s heart. A fever chart of its health. Are we at peace? Are we in trouble? Are we floundering? Do we feel beautiful? Do we feel ugly? Are we hysterical, violent? Listen to our songs.46

Alongside Harburg’s eloquent description of the power of songs to reflect a country’s mood, one of the most profound reflections about The Irish comes from Long Island’s PBS station, WLIW TV Channel 21, which points out that the show: … remind[s] the audience that prejudice and racism are still realities faced by Irish Americans every day. ‘No Irish Need Apply’ recalls the struggle Irish immigrants had finding work in America; ‘Give My Regards to Broadway’ [a song from the 1904 musical Little Johnny Jones , written by Irish-American actor and composer George M. Cohan] the accomplishment of the Irish in the theatre and performing arts … it tells us of the Irish on both sides of the American Civil War and those who were drafted in 1863 because they did not have the $300 required to buy their way out of the draft.47

Audience enthusiasm for The Irish clearly overcame the lukewarm critical reception, and even the most curmudgeonly critics had to agree with Linda Winer and Lepidus, who praise the Irish Rep for being “a respected Off-Broadway theater,” which has become “quite a strong repertory company.”48 The success of The Irish … and How They Got That Way only cemented this assessment (see Fig. 6.1). Before the Irish Rep opened their 14th Season in late September 2001, they were nearing the end of their fifth production of The Irish … and

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Fig. 6.1 The Irish … and How They Got That Way (1997) (Back left to right: Bob Green on fiddle, Ciarán O’Reilly singing, Marion Tomas Griffin on guitar, Ciaran Sheehan singing, Terry Donnelly singing, and Rusty Magee on piano. Photo ©Carol Rosegg)

How They Got That Way. On the beautifully clear morning of Tuesday, September 11, 2001, New York City came under siege by four coordinated terrorist attacks led by the Wahhabi group Al-Qaeda. The most damaging terrorist attack in history was also the worst event in history for American firefighters (343 died) and law enforcement officers (72 died). Four planes, all of which left from airports in the East, bound for California, were hijacked by 19 members of al-Qaeda. Two of the planes, American Airlines Flight 11 and United Airlines Flight 175, were flown into the North and South towers of the World Trade Center in New York City, about 2.5 miles from the Irish Rep. Within one hour and 45 minutes of the first plane hitting the first tower, both 110-story World Trade Center towers collapsed. Enormous quantities of toxic debris and fires resulted in damage or collapse of all other buildings in the World Trade Center complex. The third plane, American Airlines Flight 77, crashed into the Pentagon, which led to a partial collapse of the west side of the Pentagon. The fourth plane,

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United Airlines Flight 93, first flew toward Washington, D.C., but eventually crashed into a field in Stonycreek Township, Pennsylvania. The passengers on Flight 93 heard about the other plane crashes while on board, and decided to attack the hijackers, thereby sacrificing their own lives for others. In total, 2,977 people died; over 25,000 were injured, and an undocumented number have suffered significant long-term health issues. Of the nearly 3,000 lives lost, roughly 1/6th had Irish heritage. According to the now-defunct website, IrishTribute.com, September 11, 2001, “may well go down as the bloodiest day in the history of the Irish people. An estimated 1,000 people of Irish descent or Irish birth were lost in the violent events on that day.”49 Immediately after the tragedy, the Irish Rep reflected: In the days following September 11, we wept through the disbelief, the shock, and the anger along with the rest of the city and country—and along with the rest of our city and our country we will not only survive, we will grow and flourish … the attack on our city stunned and saddened us. We closed our doors and grieved … But when Mr. Giuliani [then New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani] asked the city to resume its life, we bit the bullet and reopened with the rest of the theatre community. We collected money for our policemen and firefighters and their families and we continue to volunteer our help ....50

The New York Theatre community closed for two days after 9/11, reopening on 13 September 2001. One of the many ways the Irish Rep offered assistance to those in need was by joining forces with Friends in Theater Company, led by Executive Producer Philip Accorso, to “raise money doing what we know and love.”51 Soon after 9/11, the company staged a benefit performance of The Irish for Rescue Company One, which was established in 1915, and was the first company to arrive at the Twin Towers on the morning of 9/11. Rescue Company One lost eleven firefighters that day.52 Part of the grieving process of surviving trauma can include retelling stories of those lost. The Fall 2001 issue of Prologue, the Irish Rep’s quarterly newsletter, relates a moving story of the impact 9/11 had on Irish American families in New York City, which Moore and O’Reilly heard from then-New York Governor George Pataki at the Flax Trust Ball on 4 October 2001:

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A distraught Irish mother of one of the missing firefighters telephoned Brian Cowan, Ireland’s Minister For Foreign Affairs, and asked him to personally intercede in the search for her son. She told him that her son could be identified by his gold Claddagh ring. When the minister passed on her message he was told sadly that over 200 gold Claddagh rings had been recovered from the wreckage so far [their italics]. During the final nine performances of Frank McCourt’s The Irish … and How They Got That Way, we collected $4100 in donations from our generous audiences to aid in the relief effort. We presented a check to our local fire company, Ladder 3, which lost most of their equipment and twelve men on September 11.53

Claddagh rings are “traditional Irish symbols of friendship, love and loyalty,” and were originally brought to the U.S. by Irish immigrants in the 1800s.54 These rings are still worn by Irish Americans, often as wedding rings, or reflections of Irish heritage. Ireland has also paid tribute to those who perished during the 9/11 attacks, such as the memorial in County Kildare: a small, limestone-carved replica of the Twin Towers, which was unveiled in September 2003. This Irish 9/11 memorial, surrounded by native Oak trees, includes “a special tribute to Sean Tallon,” a young Irish American firefighter who died in the Twin Towers; his father was born in Donadea, in the north of County Kildare.55 Determined to push onward after such a horrifying start to the fall of 2001, the Irish Rep continued their 14th Season with a November production of Dion Boucicault’s lively melodrama, The Poor of New York, which Moore adapted into “a sweetly funny confection of a musical,” called The Streets of New York.56 Moore directed the show and also wrote thirteen new songs for the production. Boucicault’s play premiered in 1857 in New York City, where it was an immediate hit, in part due to its “sensation scenes,” including a tenement fire, and a real fire engine that rushes to the rescue on stage. Reflecting on why she chose to adapt and direct Boucicault’s melodramatic masterpiece following 9/11, Moore explains, “Mr. Boucicault’s love of the bravery of New York and his devotion to the high code of honor of the people of New York in extremis seems particularly specific and appropriate to our time.”57 Just two months post-9/11, Boucicault’s inspiring portrayal of New York could not have come at a better moment for audiences. The production earned two Drama League nominations, for Distinguished Production of a Musical and Best Actress in a Musical (Kristin Maloney, for her portrayal of the heroine Alida).

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After a tumultuous 2001, the next step for the Irish Rep was an unexpected opportunity to purchase the three floors of the Stanwick Building, which they had been renting since 1994. The company began pursuing this extensive financial venture in earnest in 2004.

Notes 1. Feingold, Michael. 1996. The Importance of Being Earnest . Village Voice, 5 November: 93. New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, Billy Rose Theatre Division, Collection of Newspaper Clippings of Dramatic Criticism, 1996–1997. 2. Raymond, Gerard. 1996. Setting the Scene: Tony Walton Turns Director. Theatre Week, 11 November: 50–51. Quoted on 50. Tamiment Library and Robert F. Wagner Labor Archives. Irish Repertory Theatre Records. AIA 080 Box 4, Folder 15. 3. Ibid. 4. Lepidus, D.L. 1996. Irish Rep in the Zone With Being Earnest: See Anne Frank and Me. The Westsider, 12 December: 19. New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, Billy Rose Theatre Division, Collection of Newspaper Clippings of Dramatic Criticism, 1996–1997. 5. Simon, John. 1996. Not Oscar Material. New York, 11 November: 78. Barnes, Clive. 1996. Gleeful Walk on Wilde Side. New York Post, 25 October: 48. Ibid. 6. Canby, Vincent. 1996. The Importance of Being Earnest . The New York Times, 3 November. Evans, Greg. 1996. The Importance of Being Earnest. Variety, 28 October. Ibid. 7. Brantley, Ben. 1996. Making Mountains of the Miniscule. The New York Times, 25 October: C1; C37. Quoted on both pages. Ibid. 8. Sheward, David. 1996. The Importance of Being Earnest . Backstage, 8 November: 48. Ibid. 9. The Irish Rep has produced seven plays by Shaw, beginning in 1997. In addition to the three productions that Tony Walton directed and designed, the company also staged Don Juan in Hell in 2000, and Mrs. Warren’s Profession in 2006, both directed by Charlotte Moore. In 2012, the Irish Rep collaborated with the Gingold Theatrical Group, with David Staller adapting and directing Man and Superman.

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10. Connelly, Pat. 1997. G.B. Shaw’s Brogue is Real Thing at NY’s Irish Rep. Montreal Gazette, 8 March: D15. Tamiment Library and Robert F. Wagner Labor Archives. Irish Repertory Theatre Records. AIA 080 Box 4, Folder 20. 11. Lepidus, D.L. 1997. My Astonishing Self : Shaw of My Dreams. The Westsider, 19 February: 22. Marks, Peter. 1997. The Man Behind the Brain. The New York Times, 24 January: C3. New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, Billy Rose Theatre Division, Collection of Newspaper Clippings of Dramatic Criticism, 1996–1997. 12. Prologue, the Newsletter of the Irish Repertory Theatre Company. 1997. Vol. 1, Issue 2 (Winter): 2. Tamiment Library and Robert F. Wagner Labor Archives. Irish Repertory Theatre Records. AIA 080 Box 4, Folder 21. 13. Connelly, Pat. 1997. Ibid, Folder 20. 14. Barnes, Clive. 1997. Donnelly Is One to Watch, For Shaw. The New York Post, 29 January: 38. New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, Billy Rose Theatre Division, Collection of Newspaper Clippings of Dramatic Criticism, 1996–1997. 15. Lepidus, D.L. 1997. Ibid. 16. Kearney, Eileen and Charlotte Headrick, eds. 2014. Irish Women Dramatists: 1908–2001, 231. Syracuse: Syracuse UP. 17. Bruckner, D.J.R. 1997. In Two Works by Irish Novelist, Actors Mourn Their Losses. The New York Times, 22 April: C13. Lepidus, D.L. 1997. The Nightingale and Not the Lark and The Invisible Man. The Westsider, 24 April: 14. New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, Billy Rose Theatre Division, Collection of Newspaper Clippings of Dramatic Criticism, 1996–1997. 18. In late October 1997, the Irish Rep staged a puppet show called Rafferty Rescues the Moon, written by June Anderson, with music by Larry Kerwin, which was designed and directed by Bob Flanagan and Akira Yoshimura. 19. Burke Brogan, Patricia. 1991. Eclipsed, 14. Galway: Wordonthestreet, 1991. 20. Kearney, Eileen and Charlotte Headrick, eds. 2014. Quoted on 171. 21. Prologue. 1999. The Magdalene Home Laundries: A Little History. Vol. 4, Issue 1 (Fall): 1–2. Quoted on 1. Tamiment Library

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22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27.

28.

29. 30. 31.

32.

33.

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and Robert F. Wagner Labor Archives. Irish Repertory Theatre Records. AIA 080 Box 7, Folder 2. Prologue. 1999. A Conversation With The Playwright. Ibid. Ibid. Ibid. Burke Brogan, Patricia. 1991. Quoted on 9. Moore, Charlotte. 1999. Director’s Note. Irish Repertory Theatre Playbill for Eclipsed, 16 October-19 December. Ibid. Simon, John. 1999. Eclipsed. New York, 29 November: 137. Gates, Anita. 1999. Mothers for a Moment, Then Cloistered Forever. The New York Times, 3 November: E5. New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, Billy Rose Theatre Division, Collection of Newspaper Clippings of Dramatic Criticism, 1999–2000. Barlow-Hartman Public Relations. Rev. of Eclipsed, by Michael Finlan in the Irish Times, 21 February 1999. Fax, 4 October. 1999: 1–7. Quoted on 4. Tamiment Library and Robert F. Wagner Labor Archives. Irish Repertory Theatre Records. AIA 080 Box 7, Folder 2. Burke Brogan, Patricia. 1999. The Author About the Play: Resonances From History. Ibid. Quoted on 7. Ibid. Quoted on 6. O’Toole, Fintan. 1998. Song Plays Out Unevenly. Daily News, 24 January: 31. New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, Billy Rose Theatre Division, Collection of Newspaper Clippings of Dramatic Criticism, 1997–1998. Prologue. 1998. Song at Sunset : The Story of Sean O’Casey. Vol. 2, Issue 3 (Winter): 1. Tamiment Library and Robert F. Wagner Labor Archives. Irish Repertory Theatre Records. AIA 080 Box 26, Folder 10. Two Distinct Voices for the Sound of Sean. 1997. The Herald [Glasgow, Scotland], 14 March. https://www.heraldscotland. com/news/12333991.two-distinct-voices-for-the-song-of-sean/. Accessed 12 July 2022. Bruckner, D.J.R. 2001. Just About Everyone O’Casey Ever Knew. The New York Times, 27 January: E3. New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, Billy Rose Theatre Division, Collection of Newspaper Clippings of Dramatic Criticism, 1997–1998. Pablo Casals (1876–1973) is regarded as one of the greatest cellists of all time.

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35. Barlow-Hartman Public Relations. Niall Buggy Stars in The Importance of Being Oscar. Fax, 4 January. 2001. Tamiment Library and Robert F. Wagner Labor Archives. Irish Repertory Theatre Records. AIA 080 Box 8, Folder 4. 36. Dominguez, Robert. 2001. Not Wild, But Earnest. Daily News, 5 February: 34. New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, Billy Rose Theatre Division, Collection of Newspaper Clippings of Dramatic Criticism, 2000–2001. 37. Barnes, Clive. 1997. Irish a Blarney Good Show. New York Post, 3 October: 47. Ibid, Collections of Newspaper Clippings of Dramatic Criticism, 1997–1998. 38. Hurley, Joseph. 1998. McCourt Gem Enters Home Stretch in New York. Irish Echo, 14–20 January: 24. Tamiment Library and Robert F. Wagner Labor Archives. Irish Repertory Theatre Records. AIA 080 Box 6, Folder 6. 39. McCourt, Frank. “The Musicmakers,” recorded May 1997, on The Irish … and How They Got That Way, CD, Varèse Sarabande, 2006. 40. Meyerson, Harold, and Ernie Harburg. 1995. Who Put the Rainbow in The Wizard of Oz? Yip Harburg, Lyricist, iii. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. 41. Irish Repertory Theatre. 1999. Playbill for How the Irish Saved Civilization: A Benefit for the Irish Repertory Theatre, 7 June. Tamiment Library and Robert F. Wagner Labor Archives. Irish Repertory Theatre Records. AIA 080 Box 7, Folder 1. 42. For possible London and Australia productions, see faxes from the Irish Rep, dated 10 February 1998 and 21 August 1998; for inquiry into a 1998 White House St. Patrick’s Day production, see a letter from Jean Kennedy Smith, Ambassador to Ireland, to Ciarán O’Reilly, 17 February. 1998. Ibid, Box 6, Folder 9. 43. The Irish Repertory Theatre. Marketing/Business Plan. Fax. 1998. Ibid. 44. Brantley, Ben. 1997. Remember ‘Galway Bay,’ And ‘No Irish Need Apply’? The New York Times, 3 October: E5. New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, Billy Rose Theatre Division, Collection of Newspaper Clippings of Dramatic Criticism, 1996–1997. 45. Kissel, Howard. 1997. Irish Re-Gaels Us With Celtic Lore. Daily News, 3 October: 49. Barnes, Clive. 1997. Ibid. 46. Meyerson, Harold and Ernie Harburg. 1995. Quoted on iii.

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47. The Irish … And How They Got That Way, By Frank McCourt at the Irish Repertory Theatre. 1997. WLIW-TV Channel 21. Tamiment Library and Robert F. Wagner Labor Archives. Irish Repertory Theatre Records. AIA 080 Box 6, Folder 9. 48. Winer, Linda. 1997. This Time Around, The Irish Aren’t Charming and Lyrical. Newsday, 3 October: B26. Lepidus, D.L. 1997. Irish Wit. The Westsider, 30 October: 17. New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, Billy Rose Theatre Division, Collection of Newspaper Clippings of Dramatic Criticism, 1996–1997. 49. Rohan, Brian. 2021. Remembering the Irish and Irish Americans Lost During the 9/11 Attacks. Irish Central, 9 September. https://www.irishcentral.com/news/community/irish-americ ans-911. Accessed 7 July 2022. 50. Prologue, 11 September. 2001. Vol. 6, Issue 1 (Fall): 1. Tamiment Library and Robert F. Wagner Labor Archives. Irish Repertory Theatre Records. AIA 080 Box 8, Folder 20. 51. Accorso, Philip, Executive Producer of Friends in Theater Company. To the Irish Rep. Letter, 1 November. 2001. Ibid, Box 8, Folder 19. 52. Ibid. 53. Prologue, 11 September. 2001. The Heartbreaking Story of the Many Claddagh Rings Found Amongst the Wreckage of the Twin Towers. Ibid, Folder 20. 54. Claddagh Rings. 2001. Claddaghrings.com. https://www.cladda ghrings.com/irish-symbol-of-friendship-loyalty-and-love-at-gro und-zero/#:~:text=911%20Memorial%20in%20Ireland&text=In% 20September%202003%2C%20a%20911,their%20lives%20during% 20the%20attacks. Accessed 7 July 2022. 55. Ibid. 56. Collins-Hughes, Laura. 2022. Scoundrels and Their Just Desserts. The New York Times, 4 January: C4. Author’s own collection. (The Irish Rep revived Moore’s adaptation of The Streets of New York in early January 2022). 57. Moore, Charlotte. 2001. Why Boucicault? Why Music? Why Now?: Artistic Director Charlotte Moore on Adapting Boucicault. Prologue. Vol. 6, Issue 1 (Fall): 1. Tamiment Library and Robert F. Wagner Labor Archives. Irish Repertory Theatre Records. AIA 080 Box 8, Folder 20.

CHAPTER 7

Purchasing Their Home in Chelsea and Highlights from Seasons 16–22: 2003–2009

Seasons 16–22: 2003–2009, contained 41 productions: Season 16: 2003–2004: The Colleen Bawn, by Dion Boucicault; Christmas with Tommy Makem, by Tommy Makem; Eden, by Eugene O’Brien; Finian’s Rainbow, by E.Y. Harburg, Burton Lane and Fred Saidy, adapted by Charlotte Moore; Let’s Put on a Show, with Jan and Mickey Rooney; Annual Gala: the American premiere of the film Bloom (2003), written and directed by Sean Walsh, in honor of the 100th anniversary of Leopold Bloom’s walk through Dublin in 1904, starring Stephen Rea as Bloom and Angeline Ball as Molly; based on Ulysses, by James Joyce Season 17: 2004–2005: Triptych, by Edna O’Brien; Philadelphia, Here I Come!, by Brian Friel; She Stoops to Conquer, by Oliver Goldsmith; Endgame, by Samuel Beckett; After the Ball, by Noël Coward; Annual Gala: A Cabaret of Stars Season 18: 2005–2006: Mr. Dooley’s America, by Philip Dunne and Martin Blaine; The Field, by John B. Keane; George M. Cohan, Tonight!, by Chip Deffaa and George M. Cohan; The Bells of Christmas, conceived by Ciarán O’Reilly; Mrs. Warren’s Profession, by George Bernard Shaw; Beowulf , adaptation and lyrics by Lindsey Turner, music and lyrics by Lenny Pickett; You Don’t Have to Be Irish, by Malachy McCourt; Annual Gala: A Cabaret of Stars II

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Season 19: 2006–2007: Tom Crean—Antarctic Explorer, by Aidan Dooley; Gaslight , by Patrick Hamilton; Defender of the Faith, by Stuart Carolan; Meet Me in St. Louis, book by Hugh Wheeler, songs by Hugh Martin and Ralph Blane; Irish One Acts: Great White American Teeth, by Fiona Walsh and Swansong, by Conor McDermottroe; The Hairy Ape, by Eugene O’Neill; Annual Gala: Honoring Angela Lansbury and Marian Seldes Season 20: 2007–2008: Sive, by John B. Keane; The Devil’s Disciple, by George Bernard Shaw; Take Me Along, book by Joseph Stein and Bob Russell, lyrics and music by Bob Merrill; Prisoner of the Crown, by Richard F. Stockton, additional material and original concept by Richard T. Herd; Around the World in 80 Days, by Mark Brown, based on the novel by Jules Verne; Annual Gala: dinner at the Pierre Hotel, featuring performances by company members, and a 20th Anniversary video Season 21: 2008–2009: The Master Builder, by Henrik Ibsen, adapted by Frank McGuinness; Confessions of an Irish Publican, adapted by Des Keogh from the writings of John B. Keane; Aristocrats, by Brian Friel; The Yeats Project, by W.B. Yeats; The Rivalry, by Norman Corwin; After Luke & When I Was God, by Cónal Creedon; New Works Reading Series; Annual Gala: Honoring Philip J. Smith, Chairman of the Shubert Organization Season 22: 2009–2010: The Emperor Jones , by Eugene O’Neill; Ernest in Love, book and lyrics by Anne Croswell, music by Lee Pockriss; Candida, by George Bernard Shaw; White Woman Street, by Sebastian Barry; Annual Gala: A Concert Reading of Brigadoon, book and music by Alan J. Lerner and music by Frederick Loewe; The Irish … and How They Got That Way, by Frank McCourt; New Works Reading Series. In 2003, Charlotte Moore and Ciarán O’Reilly learned that the Stanwick Building would be converted from rental properties into condominiums. In just three years, in 2006, the company’s lease on the Stanwick would be due for renewal. The co-founders began to consider buying their theatrical home, with an initial “anticipated” price of between $3.5–4 Million.1 They described these ambitious plans in the September 2005 program for their production of Philadelphia, Here I Come!:

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In 2006, upon expiration of its current lease, The Irish Repertory Theatre will have the chance to purchase outright its present facilities. This acquisition will be a critical factor in The Irish Repertory Theatre’s growth—and even survival—as a world class ensemble theatre and a valued participant in New York City’s cultural scene.2

Playwrights, directors, producers, actors, and others in the professional theatre world joined in, raising voices of support. The program for Philadelphia includes an impassioned note written by the playwright Brian Friel, emphasizing the critical importance of the Irish Rep’s purchasing the Stanwick: For seventeen years the Irish Repertory Theatre has offered excellent theatre to thousands of New Yorkers, some with Irish connections, some without. And because that excellence has been pursued with dedication and so selflessly, and because the best theatre involves an experience of the spirit, the ground they occupy has now been made sacred by them. They have made their space hallowed. It would be unthinkable if 132 W. 22nd St. were to slip from them and become secularized. It must remain under their wonderful guardianship.3

Director and producer Harold “Hal” Prince also stepped up to rally donors for the Irish Rep’s future, saying the company “is a treasure—a national treasure which must be preserved.”4 O’Reilly echoed Friel and Prince’s statements, by noting, “New York should have an Irish theater for all time. It’s the capital of the world, in terms of theater, and the Irish should have a place in that.”5 The Irish Rep program for Gaslight in the summer of 2007 emphasized the far-reaching impact of purchasing their theatrical space: Owning our own permanent performance home together will help secure the Theatre’s long-term institutional future. It will free the creative directors, management team, and volunteer leadership to focus on producing great theater. Ownership will allow long-term institutional planning, development of our audience market, and consideration of new initiatives, including touring, transfer production and expansion of education programs.6

Mark Blankenship framed purchasing the Stanwick in a larger perspective, writing that the Irish Rep’s owning their own theatrical home

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could, “permanently elevate the company from idiosyncratic downtown survivors to one of Off-Broadway’s permanent institutions.”7 Former Jujamcyn Theaters President Rocco Landesman added his support of the Irish Rep becoming a lasting Off-Broadway company, stating, “They’re a company with a tremendous amount of artistic integrity. Most companies seem to constantly look for the possibility to transfer to Broadway; but they’ve stuck to their mission without too much concern for transfers and commercial runs.”8 Landesman’s comments are astute, as the Irish Rep has remained almost entirely focused on bringing Irish and Irish American Drama to the Off-Broadway community, rather than frequently searching for more lucrative opportunities to transfer their productions to Broadway. In 2006, the Irish Rep launched their “$6 million capital campaign” to purchase their theatrical home.9 After extensive fundraising and multiple grants, including receiving $2.25 Million from New York City’s Department of Cultural Affairs; $1 Million from the Office of the Mayor [then Mayor Michael Bloomberg]; $1 Million from Time Equities’ principal owner Francis Greenburger; $750,000 from the New York City Council; $500,000 from the Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer; $50,000 from Assembly member Richard N. Gottfried’s office; more than $250,000 from the Irish Rep’s Board of Directors, and a $100,000 Jujamcyn grant, the Irish Rep purchased three floors of the Stanwick Building for $5.5 Million. On 15 February 2007, Moore and O’Reilly signed the papers granting them the deed to 132 W. 22nd St. They now owned “two units, consisting of the mainstage theatre, studio theatre, dressing rooms, workshops, administration offices, and rehearsal studio.”10 In honor of Greenburger’s generous gift, the Irish Rep named their mainstage theatre the Francis J. Greenburger Mainstage.11 The same year that they purchased the Stanwick, the Irish Rep won the Jujamcyn Theaters Award, the most prestigious award the company had received to date. Jujamcyn Theaters began in the late 1950s, and the name pays tribute to “Judy, James and Cynthia Binger, grandchildren of the company’s founder [James H. Binger]. The Binger family sold the company to Rocco Landesman in 2005.”12 In 2023, Jordon Roth is president of Jujamcyn Theaters, and Landesman is president emeritus. Created in 1984, the annual Jujamcyn Theaters Award is given “to a resident theater organization that has made an outstanding contribution to

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the development of creative talent to the theater.”13 Landesman again lauded the company in his announcement of the award: For nearly two decades, The Irish Repertory Theatre has achieved distinction because it has been true to a unique mission, one that is sometimes lost on our increasingly global world. As New York becomes ever more peopled with new and different immigrant groups, it’s important to remember that there was a time, not so long ago, when it was the Irish, along with the Italians and the Jews, who were building a new America. The Irish brought poetry, passion, a thirst for independence and a lust for life that spoke most brilliantly through the words of their dramatists. The Irish Rep has given voice to these words, and to the words of the next generation, even including the Irish American playwright we claim as our own—Eugene O’Neill [Jujamcyn Theaters owns and operates five Broadway theatres, including one named for Eugene O’Neill]. From Synge and O’Casey to modern masters like Brian Friel, The Irish Rep does the work, and most important, does it with authenticity, with authority. This makes them a priceless resource in a city dedicated to celebrating each culture that puts down roots here.14

In 2008, one year after winning the Jujamcyn award, the Irish Rep raised their capital campaign from $6 Million to $20 Million, to cover the cost of renovating their two theatres, as well as rehearsal and administrative spaces; they also planned to establish an endowment, to further secure their future. The company explained its long-term goals during its June 2009 Annual Benefit, by describing its revised campaign for a permanent home in three phases: “Phase one of the dream was realized when we purchased our facilities [in 2007] … Phase Two is the facility renovation scheduled to begin in 2010 … the third phase of the campaign is the establishment of an operating endowment/cash reserve fund.”15 Buoyed by professional and community support, the Irish Rep’s extensive renovations of their theatrical space would occur in 2014; until then, they produced plenty of intriguing Irish and Irish American theatre.

Theatrical Highlights: Seasons 16–22: 2003–2009: When the idea of purchasing the Stanwick was in its beginning stages, the Irish Rep opened their 16th season in 2003 with Edna O’Brien’s Triptych. O’Brien is best known for her novels, including The Country Girls trilogy: The Country Girls (1960), The Lonely Girl ( 1962), and Girls in Their

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Married Bliss (1964), all of which were banned by the Irish censorship board due to their frank discussion of sexuality. In addition to her novels, O’Brien has written seven plays, along with children’s books, nonfiction, poetry, a screenplay, and a memoir. The Irish Rep describes O’Brien’s plays as resembling her novels; both showcase “the same honest feminine portrayal that has attracted both acclaim and controversy throughout her award-winning career.”16 In 2019, O’Brien received the David Cohen Prize for Literature, in honor of her lifetime achievement in writing, an award known as the U.K. and Ireland’s version of the Nobel Prize in Literature. Triptych received its first production in December 2003, by the Magic Theatre in San Francisco. Nine months later, the September 2003 Irish Rep production, directed by David Jones, became the play’s New York debut, which is especially appropriate, since New York City is the play’s setting. An all-female play, Triptych concerns a wife, daughter, and mistress’s rivalry for an (unseen) male writer’s attention and affection. The Irish Rep cast included Margaret Colin as wife Pauline, Carrie Specksgoor as Pauline’s daughter Brandy, and Ally Sheedy as mistress Clarissa. A flyer for this production describes O’Brien’s three female characters as having “passions for the same man,” while each character “confronts the ways that love simultaneously entraps and liberates.”17 Reviews were not especially positive, of either the play or the production. David Rooney comments that while O’Brien usually creates strong female characters, Triptych “instead offers three women behaving indecorously over an unworthy man and, despite no end of overreaching literary references and florid speeches, it fails to disguise the heart of an overripe melodrama.”18 Triptych, the Irish Rep’s fourth production of a play by an Irish woman, was not as well received as their most recent production of a play by an Irish female dramatist: Eclipsed, by Patricia Burke Brogan, in 1999. The messy romantic entanglements in Triptych are not as dramatically gripping as the lives of the unfortunate women sentenced to the Magdalene Laundries in Eclipsed, which certainly explains some of the unenthusiastic reactions to Triptych. In contrast to Triptych’s tepid reviews, three Irish Rep productions between 2003–2009 stand out in terms of positive critical reaction, as well as commercial success: Finian’s Rainbow (2003), with a book by E.Y. Harburg and Fred Saidy, lyrics by Harburg and music by Burton Lane, and adaption/direction by Moore, along with The Hairy Ape (2007)

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and The Emperor Jones (2009), both by Eugene O’Neill, and directed by O’Reilly. Similar to the Irish Rep’s 1997 Gala performance of The Irish … and How They Got That Way, Finian’s Rainbow began as an original concert version adapted by Moore, for their 10th Annual Benefit Gala, held on 2 June 2003, and hosted by Lauren Bacall. This performance was so popular that the Irish Rep brought the show back the following spring to their mainstage, where it ran for about three months, from 4 April–11 July 2004. Originally opening on Broadway in 1947, Finian’s Rainbow is an unusual satirical musical comedy, that contains “mischievous lessons in equality and racial harmony.”19 In a vital progressive step for Broadway, it was the first musical to include an integrated chorus, made up of black and white sharecroppers (twenty years prior, in 1927, Show Boat , by Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein II, became the first Broadway musical to include a black and a white chorus on stage at the same time, though the two choruses remained separate on stage). The Irish Rep program for Finian’s Rainbow quotes Harburg, on his depiction of equal rights: Here’s a show that was written in 1946. 1946. There had been no such song as ‘We Shall Overcome.’ There was no Martin Luther King. There was just a downright lack of civil rights for a minority of people whose skins were black … Why should there be a thing like racism? It’s so idiotic. How could we reduce this thing to absurdity? Now you see how one thing leads to another—in order to show this folly, I used a dramatic form that will help us laugh this prejudice out of existence—the musical play.20

Finian’s Rainbow centers around a version of the stereotypical “stage Irishman,” an Irish immigrant named Finian, and his daughter Sharon, who arrive in the fictional southern town of Rainbow Valley, Missitucky, with high hopes of becoming rich. The source of this optimism lies in Finian’s pot of gold, which he stole from leprechauns in his Irish hometown of Glocca Morra. Finian is determined to plant the gold in the ground, where he is sure it will increase its value. One of the most likable characters is Finian’s foil, Og, an energetic leprechaun, who follows Finian and Sharon to Rainbow Valley to reclaim his crock of gold. An unlikable foil is the racist Senator Billboard Rawkins, whose name is a clever merging of two notoriously racist members of Congress from Mississippi, Senator Theodore G. Bilbo (1877–1947) and Congressman John

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E. Rankin (1882–1960). Rawkins undergoes a magical “transformation” from a white man into a black man in the musical, after Sharon makes a wish over the crock of gold, saying, “I wish to God he were black,” so Rawkins would realize what a racist state he has created.21 On Broadway in 1947 (and in the 1968 film with Fred Astaire as Finian, and Keenan Wynn as Rawkins), the actor playing Rawkins used blackface in this scene. Today, this scene is played by two actors; nonetheless, it remains a difficult moment, especially given its offensive staging history. Finian’s Rainbow was a surprise hit in 1947, running 725 performances, and garnering three Tony Awards, for David Wayne as Best Featured Actor in a Musical (Og), Max Meth for Best Conductor/ Musical Director, and Michael Kidd for Best Choreography (Kidd was a co-Tony winner with Agnes de Mille for her choreography of Brigadoon). 1947 was also the first year of the Tony Awards, which were named after Antoinette Perry (1888–1946), a director, actor, and co-founder of the American Theatre Wing, which created and sponsors the Tonys. Harburg was a legendary American songwriter, who wrote the words to over 600 songs during his over fifty-year career as a librettist and lyricist. He is most famous for writing the lyrics for The Wizard of Oz (1939), including “Over the Rainbow.” He was known for his longstanding support of racial and gender equality, and for his sly social commentary. In Harburg’s own words, “the lyricist, like any artist, cannot be neutral. He should be committed to the side of humanity.”22 Yip’s son Ernie, and his wife Deena R. Harburg operate the Yip Harburg Foundation, which carries on Yip’s commitment to humanity by supporting “a world of ‘free and equal people,’” by actively promoting “social justice, equal educational opportunity and learning through musical theatre.”23 When the Irish Rep considered adapting Finian’s Rainbow, they first asked for permission from Ernie Harburg. Luckily, the Harburg Foundation’s aim to “preserve and enhance the works of E.Y. Harburg through the development of new works and revivals of his standard works” fit nicely into Moore’s adaptation.24 In a 2003 letter from Ernie Harburg to Moore, Ernie generously writes that he was, “very much looking forward to seeing your new Finian’s Rainbow script. I think we are going to have a great collaboration.”25 This joint venture between the Irish Rep and the Harburg Foundation worked out well. Prior to the show opening, the Irish Rep interviewed Ernie about the progressive social message in his father’s show. Ernie recollected:

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When I was a boy, I once said to Yip, ‘you started with ‘Brother Can You Spare a Dime’ [a song Harburg wrote with composer Jay Gorney, which became one of the most famous songs about the Great Depression; it first appeared in the 1932 musical revue Americana] and you never got back to such a serious, nail-on-the-head message again.’ Well, I got a five hour answer! I couldn’t even go out and play ball! But he quoted W.S. Gilbert (of Gilbert and Sullivan) [English librettist and composer team who created fourteen comic opera between 1871-1896]: ‘You have to gild the philosophic pill,’ so no matter what you want to say politically, in theatre and in musical theatre, you have to guild it to cover it up—make it entertaining, not preachy. ‘Never lead with your chin’ he said. ‘Never be so direct as to bore people.’26

As his father reminded him, Ernie emphasizes the importance of humor in Finian’s Rainbow as a way for audiences to connect with the show’s underlying social message. Ernie quoted a 1947 reviewer, who commented that in Finian’s Rainbow, “prejudice is brought to trial at the bar of laughter.”27 The satire in the show helps balance the heaviness of the racism, such as this exchange between Og and Rawkins: Rawkins: Og: Rawkins: Og: Rawkins: Og: Rawkins: Og:

Rawkins:

Og: Rawkins: Og: Rawkins:

Can’t you see I’m black? Yes, and I think it’s very becoming. But I’m a white man, dammit, as white man! At least, I was a few weeks ago. Well that’s a coincidence. I was green a few weeks ago. Don’t you find an occasional change of color interesting? No, I don’t … You needn’t get so excited, mister. I think it’s just ridiculous making such a fuss about a person’s color. You moron! Don’t you realize what it means to be black? But you’re still a human being. You can still smell bee honey and listen to bird music. A rose is still a rose, despite the color of your nose. But you can’t get into a restaurant. You can’t get on a bus. You can’t buy yourself a cold beer on a hot day. (With disgust ) You can’t even go into church to pray. Who says you can’t? The law says you can’t. The law? Mmm … that’s a silly law. Is it a legal law? Of course it’s legal. I wrote it myself.28

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The audience surely enjoys the irony underlying Senator Rawkins’ predicament in this scene, while also being reminded of the terrible impact of segregation and racism. The Irish Rep’s sixteen-week run of Finian’s completely sold out, and reviewers wrote numerous positive reviews of Moore’s adaptation, as audiences in 2004 continued to appreciate Yip’s commitment to humor and social justice. Reviewers had two major assessments: first, the book of the musical feels too clunky and dated for contemporary audiences, which is the reason (in 2004) that the show had not been revived on Broadway since 1960; second, listening to Lane and Harburg’s songs, such as “How Are Things in Glocca Morra?” and “Old Devil Moon” is pure joy. Howard Kissel says that Harburg and Saidy’s book is “racially tricky” to perform in the twenty-first century, but Moore’s adaptation “solved this problem quite wittily,” thanks to a narrator (played by David Staller), who skips over the awkwardness of the original book, and helps the audience understand the multiple twists and turns of the plot.29 Ben Brantley speaks for most of the critics when he states, “no Broadway score is quite as beguiling from beginning to end,” especially when sung by the talented Melissa Errico as Sharon, whose “gleaming soprano” sends the songs “into the stratosphere where such numbers belong.”30 Jen Hendricks enthusiastically agrees, as she exclaims that by the reprise of “Look to the Rainbow,” audiences might “be misty-eyed with emotion … the strong ensemble cast work and the vision of director Charlotte Moore provides this Finian [sic] with its own brand of magic in yet another banner year for the Irish Rep.”31 A particularly telling letter of praise came from Alvin Deutsch, who describes himself as “the attorney for the Harburgs”: I have seen any number of productions and readings [of Finian’s Rainbow]. Yours is far and away the best ever. You eliminated much of the polemic and produced a Finian’s [sic] full of sweetness and charm— thereby enhancing the humor of the book and the genius of the score. The interlocutor was a key element to your genius—and the cast plu perfect. Thank you.32

After these positive reviews poured in, the production received several Off-Broadway award nominations: three Drama League Nominations, for Distinguished Revival of a Musical, Best Actress in a Musical (Melissa Errico as Sharon), and Best Actor in a Musical (Malcolm Gets as Og);

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two Lucille Lortel Nominations, for Best Revival and Best Choreography; one Drama Desk Nomination for Outstanding Revival of a Musical, and a Joe A. Callaway Award Nomination for Moore for Best Director. Similar to their recording of an original cast CD after the success of The Irish … and How They Got That Way in 1997, the Irish Rep began preparation for a recording of Finian’s Rainbow. Suddenly, they found themselves in a sticky situation. In early June 2004, Broadway theatre producer and lawyer David Richenthal wrote this admonishment to O’Reilly and Moore: I must insist that you not proceed with your plan to make a cast album of Finian’s Rainbow. I am told by Lynn Lane [composer Burton Lane’s widow] that you do not have the right to do so; the Estate of Burton Lane wishes to preserve these rights so that a Broadway production with Melissa Erico [sic] can make such a recording unencumbered by your planned recording. I am in the midst of making a deal for the Broadway rights, which would include exclusive recording rights for an album.33

O’Reilly’s friendly, tactful and reasonable email reply reads: Melissa Errico is devastated at the idea that this [the Irish Rep CD recording] may not go forward. She was a major player in putting all this together and you must certainly realize how much work has gone into this. I know you are interested in having Melissa in your production. Why don’t you use this as a tool to show your investors why this score and these songs with this star belong on Broadway? We know you are a decent man and a man of taste. I don’t believe you would want to go into something by destroying that which inspired you in the first place.34

On 7 June 2004, much to the frustration of Richenthal, and thanks to the “extraordinary generosity” of actors Sarah Jessica Parker and Matthew Broderick, the Irish Rep recorded a CD of their Finian’s Rainbow production, with delightfully whimsical cover art by Tony Walton.35 After the recording, the Irish Rep tried to find investors to help transfer their production to Broadway, to open in the spring or fall of 2005. O’Reilly wrote to at least eight producers, inquiring if they might be interested in reading Moore’s adapted script and hearing the CD. O’Reilly also wrote to actor Alan Alda, offering him the role of Finian.36 In addition, the company made plans to transfer the production to the Westport Country Playhouse in Westport, CT, in the summer of 2005, as the

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first show to reopen the Playhouse after its 18-month renovation. While the Broadway transfer did not occur, the Irish Rep’s version of Finian’s Rainbow was indeed the inaugural production in 2005 for the newly remodeled Westport Country Playhouse’s 75th Season. Five years later, on 29 October 2009, the first Broadway revival of Finian’s Rainbow in 49 years opened at the St. James Theatre, with David Richenthal as lead producer, and Warren Carlyle as director and choreographer. The revival starred Kate Baldwin as Sharon, Jim Norton as Finian, and Christopher Fitzgerald as Og. The production, which was well reviewed and received three Tony Award nominations, ran only 92 performances. One can only speculate whether Moore’s adapted script would have fared better in a Broadway production. In 2007 and 2009, the Irish Rep produced two classic plays by Eugene O’Neill, both directed by O’Reilly: The Hairy Ape and The Emperor Jones , which were as successful as Finian’s Rainbow. From 1988 to 2024, the Irish Rep has produced five plays by O’Neill, four of which have been directed by O’Reilly. Prior to The Hairy Ape, Moore directed Long Day’s Journey Into Night in 1998, which received an Obie Award for Best Actor (Brian Murray as James Tyrone), and a Drama Desk Nomination for Best Actress in a Play (Frances Sternhagen as Mary Tyrone). In 2012, O’Reilly directed Beyond the Horizon; in 2017, O’Reilly again directed The Emperor Jones , and in the company’s digital season in 2020–2021, during the worst of the COVID-19 pandemic, O’Reilly directed a virtual production of A Touch of the Poet , which the cast later performed live in February 2022. The Irish Rep calls O’Neill “our first great American playwright.”37 His complex plays explore “characters being driven by forces they cannot understand or conquer,” which one sees in both Hairy Ape and Emperor Jones .38 The author of 47 plays, O’Neill won a Nobel Prize for Literature in 1936, as well as four Pulitzer Prizes, for Beyond the Horizon (1920), Anna Christie (1922), Strange Interlude (1928) and Long Day’s Journey Into Night (awarded posthumously in 1957). Originally performed in 1922 in Greenwich Village by the Provincetown Players, The Hairy Ape was one of the first plays to introduce Americans to expressionistic theatre techniques; it was also one of O’Neill’s favorite plays. The play tells the tragic story of Yank, a laborer who takes great pride in his job of stoking the engines of an ocean liner with coal, until a young, wealthy daughter of a steel business owner, Mildred Douglas, journeys to the bowels of the ship, where she calls Yank a “filthy

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beast,” and faints after seeing him hard at work, sweating profusely and covered with coal dust.39 After the ship docks, Yank dazedly walks the streets of Manhattan, processing Mildred’s insult, and searching for his place in the world, only to discover he belongs nowhere. The final, brutal scene finds Yank visiting the Bronx Zoo, where he tries to shake hands with a gorilla, which immediately crushes him to death, and then the gorilla escapes into the night. O’Neill points out that audiences frequently missed the meaning behind the symbolism of the play: People think I am giving an exact picture of the reality. They don’t understand that the play is expressionistic. Yank is really yourself, and myself … But apparently, very few people seem to get this … no one has said, ‘I am Yank. Yank is my own self!’ Yet that is what I meant him to be. His struggle to ‘belong’ to find the thread that will make him a part of the fabric of life—we are all struggling to do just that. One idea I had in writing the play is to show that the missing thread, literally ‘the tie that binds’ is understanding of one another.40

O’Neill’s comment reflects the deeper implications in the classicism in The Hairy Ape, as well as in his own similarly powerful one-act, The Emperor Jones , which revolves around Brutus Jones, an African American convicted of murder, who escapes from a chain gang in the American South, journeys to a Caribbean Island, and declares himself emperor over the native people, boldly insisting, “I’m boss, here, now!”41 When the play begins, the native people loudly voice their distrust of their emperor, forcing Jones to flee into the jungle, running for his life. The Emperor Jones premiered in 1920, two years prior to Hairy Ape, at the Provincetown Playhouse, in New York City’s East Village. Somewhat akin to Finian’s Rainbow, the play has been considered unrevivable, due to what Carol Rosegg calls O’Neill’s “unsubtle depiction of his angry black male hero,” who speaks in an offensive dialect, and uses pejorative language.42 The Hairy Ape and The Emperor Jones parallel one another in their psychological exploration of one man’s collapse. Ben Brantley says the Irish Rep’s production of Emperor Jones reminds us that, “the wall between human reason and animal instinct is far frailer than we like to pretend,” a reflection that applies to both of O’Neill’s one-acts.43 Emperor Jones was an even bigger hit than Hairy Ape, selling out its

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two-month run in the fall of 2009. Near the end of 2009, the production transferred to the Soho Playhouse, where it ran for an additional six weeks. Reviews of Hairy Ape and especially Emperor Jones were overwhelmingly positive. The evocative set, lighting, and sound designs for both shows stood out in every review. As Neil Genzlinger says about Hairy Ape, “this production is all about image and sound.”44 Eugene Lee, the set designer for Grandchild of Kings in 1992, returned to the Irish Rep for Hairy Ape, creating what Robert Simonson calls an “evermorphing, symbolically two-tiered set,” which Simonson declares must be the Irish Rep’s “most ambitious scenic design in years,” with such a low ceiling for Yank and his fellow coal stokers that they have to stoop like primates to feed the furnaces. Hairy Ape reviewers also praised Brian Nason’s lighting and sound designers Zachary Williamson and Gabe Wood, for their “nightmarish soup of flash and noise,” which “viscerally communicate” Yank’s mental and physical collapse.45 Greg Derelian’s portrayal of the tortured Yank impressed reviewers, along with O’Reilly’s direction (critics’ reservations include bemoaning the Irish Rep’s small playing space, and the company’s lack of finances). Gwen Orel perceptively points out that while the play’s ape symbolism primarily refers to the stokers below deck, it also “invokes the ugly cartoon caricatures stereotyping the Irish that persisted well into the twentieth century,” further exclaiming that Yank’s rejection by society is “unrelenting—and unforgettable,” as it not only breaks him, it also breaks “the hearts of the audience.”46 The Irish Rep’s production of The Hairy Ape resonated deeply with critics and audiences alike. Reviewers for Emperor Jones wrote equally positive comments, especially about John Douglas Thompson’s imposing, electric performance as Brutus Jones, and the eerie, life-size puppets and haunting masks, both created by Bob Flanagan, who is known for his “spell-binding puppetry.”47 Brantley declares that this Emperor Jones “is quieter and stealthier” than any previous production he had seen, noting that Thompson “makes it impossible not to identify with Jones.”48 Christopher Isherwood praises how Thompson “limns a stark trajectory from swaggering arrogance to utter abjection with a ferocity that pins you to the back of your chair.”49 Mark Peikert writes evocatively of Flanagan’s terrifying puppets and masks:

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But the brilliant part of the Irish Rep’s take on the play is utilization of macabre masks and puppets to recreate Jones’ increasingly surreal hallucinations … they’re the apparitions in everyone’s nightmares, the faceless creatures taunting you as you try to find your way into the deepest part of the dark woods. That Jones never does is justice; that we get to go along for the wild and frightening ride is great theater.50

Terry Teachout might speak for the majority of the theatre critics when he writes, “I’ve never seen a bad show at the Irish Rep, but this revival is special even by that company’s high standards … don’t miss The Emperor Jones . I doubt you’ll ever see it done better.”51 This production of The Emperor Jones received eleven Off-Broadway award nominations, the most of any Irish Rep show to date. The show won three awards: the O’Neill Credo Award and the Joe A. Callaway Award for Best Director for O’Reilly, and the Joe A. Callaway Award for Best Performance for John Douglas Thompson. The final performance of The Emperor Jones was on 31 January 2010, at the Soho Playhouse. The following November, the Irish Rep celebrated the installation of six striking, commissioned windows in their lobby, created by stained glass artist Peadar Lamb (the son of Irish actors Peadar Lamb and Geraldine Plunkett), funded with the patronage of Tina Santi Flaherty. Prologue, the Irish Rep’s newsletter, explains the background of the windows: Celebrating Irish and Irish American theater, the 100-square-foot installation in six separate windows is the largest commission ever completed by the artist. It will be on permanent display above the façade of the Theatre. This vibrant, evocative work, commissioned by The Irish Rep in 2007, is a contemporary exploration of the primal influences that have shaped Irish and Irish American drama over the centuries. Using images of the written word of such stage masters as O’Neill, O’Casey and Synge, as well as leading contemporary Irish playwrights such as Friel, Murphy and McPherson, Lamb’s illuminated landscape reflects a tradition as rich as the source of his inspiration.52

Lamb himself further describes the details in his imaginative, colorful window designs: The content of the piece is based on a number of plays, with some images referencing more than one play. In some instances, this is reflected in a

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feeling or quality rather than a reference to a specific play … the final panel celebrates the ‘performer’ with the audience in the foreground … the tattooed figure celebrates all the great playwrights from both the past and the present.53

Lamb created unforgettable stained glass windows for the Irish Rep’s lobby, which really need to be seen in person to be appreciated fully (see Fig. 7.1). By the end of their successful 22nd Season in the summer of 2010, the Irish Rep’s capital campaign was well on its way, with the immediate goal of raising enough money to remodel their entire theatrical space. These major renovations would begin in 2014.

Fig. 7.1 Irish Repertory Theatre’s stained glass windows in their lobby, created by Peadar Lamb. Pictured above is the final panel, which, in Lamb’s words, “celebrates the ‘performer’ with the audience in the foreground.” The Cockerel, with its chest out on the right, is from the third panel, referencing the Mad Hens in Bailegangaire (1985), by Tom Murphy, and Cock-a-Doodle Dandy (1949), by Sean O’Casey (Photo by the author)

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Notes 1. Prologue, The Newsletter of the Irish Repertory Theatre Company. 2004. The Time is Now! Irish Rep Announces ‘Dream’ Campaign to Purchase Space on 22nd Street. Vol. 9, Issue 3 (Spring): 1. Tamiment Library and Robert F. Wagner Labor Archives. Irish Repertory Theatre Records. AIA 080, Box 10, Folder 17. 2. Irish Repertory Theatre. 2005. Program for Philadelphia, Here I Come!, 14 July–25 September. New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, Billy Rose Theatre Division. Irish Repertory Theatre Ephemera, 1988–2021. Folder 2005–06 and 2006–07. 3. Friel, Brian. 2005. Note in the Irish Repertory Theatre Program for Philadelphia, Here I Come!, 14 July–25 September. Ibid. 4. Prologue. 2006. The Irish Repertory Theatre Announces $6 Million Capital Campaign. Vol. 10, Issue 5 (Summer): 1; 5. Quoted on 5. Tamiment Library and Robert F. Wagner Labor Archives. Irish Repertory Theatre Records. AIA 080 Box 11, Folder 1. 5. Prologue. 2004. Quoted on 5. Ibid. Box 10, Folder 17. 6. Irish Repertory Theatre. 2007. Program for Gaslight , 9 May–8 July. New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, Billy Rose Theatre Division. Irish Repertory Theatre Ephemera, 1988–2021. Folder 2003–04 and 2004–05. 7. Blankenship, Mark. 2007. Raising Ire. Village Voice, 14 March: 47. Tamiment Library and Robert F. Wagner Labor Archives. Irish Repertory Theatre Records. AIA 080 Box 2, Folder 10. 8. Ibid. 9. Prologue. 2006. Vol. 10, Issue 5 (Summer): 1; 5. Quoted on 1. Ibid, Box 11, Folder 1. 10. Prologue. 2007. Vol. 11, Issue 3 (Spring): 1. New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, Billy Rose Theatre Division. Irish Repertory Theatre Ephemera, 1988–2021. Folder 2003–04 and 2004–05. 11. Irish Repertory Theatre. 2007. Program for Gaslight , 9 May8 July. Prologue. 2007. Vol. 11, Issue 3 (Spring): 1. Ibid and Tamiment Library and Robert F. Wagner Labor Archives. Irish Repertory Theatre Records. AIA 080 Box 11, Folder 14.

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12. Paulson, Michael. 2023. Two Broadway Landlords Plan to Merge Operations. The New York Times, 15 February: C1, C2. Quoted on C2. Author’s own collection. 13. Prologue. 2007. Irish Rep Winner of the 2007 Jujamcyn Theaters Award. Vol. 11, Issue 3 (Spring): 2. Ibid. 14. Ibid. 15. Irish Repertory Theatre. 2009. Campaign For a Permanent Home. Program for the 21st Annual Benefit Gala, 2 June. Ibid, Box 12, Folder 7. 16. Prologue. 2004. Worlds Collide in New York Premiere of Triptych. Vol. 9, Issue 1 (Fall): 1. Ibid, Box 10, Folder 10. 17. Irish Repertory Theatre Company. 2003. Flyer for Triptych, 28 September-14 November. Ibid. 18. Rooney, David. 2004. Triptych. Variety, 7 October. https://var iety.com/2004/legit/reviews/triptych-1200530452/. Accessed 27 July 2023. 19. Prologue. 2004. Strike Gold with Finian’s Rainbow! Vol. 8, Issue 3 (Spring): 1. Tamiment Library and Robert F. Wagner Labor Archives. Irish Repertory Theatre Records. AIA 080 Box 10, Folder 8. 20. Harburg, E.Y. “Yip.” 2003. Irish Repertory Theatre Program for 10th Annual Gala Benefit, June 2. Ibid. 21. Harburg, E.Y., and Fred Saidy. 1947. Finian’s Rainbow, 73. New York: Berkley. 22. Meyerson, Harold, and Ernie Harburg. 1995. Who Put the Rainbow in The Wizard of Oz? Yip Harburg, Lyricist, iii. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. 23. Yip Harburg Foundation. 2022. Mission Statement. https://yip harburg.com/foundation/mission/. Accessed 28 July 2023. 24. The Harburg Foundation, New York, New York. 2003. Major Aims of the Harburg Foundation. 13 November. Tamiment Library and Robert F. Wagner Labor Archives. Irish Repertory Theatre Records. AIA 080 Box 10, Folder 6. 25. Harburg, Ernie. Director of the Yip Harburg Foundation. To Charlotte Moore. Letter. 30 July 2003. Ibid. 26. Prologue. 2004. An Interview with Ernie Harburg. Vol. 8, Issue 3 (Spring): 1–2. Quoted on 2. Ibid, Box 10, Folder 8. 27. Ibid. 28. Harburg, E.Y., and Fred Saidy. 1947. Quoted on 95–96.

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29. In 1999, Rodger Hess produced Finian’s Rainbow in Coconut Grove, Florida, hoping to bring the production to Broadway, but it never made it. In Hess’ view, “Everyone always points to the racial stuff as the problem with updating the book … But what I felt was really difficult in there are five or six different stories that take place at once. We could never simplify it.” Moore’s narrator seems to have accomplished this task. Zinoman, Jason. 2004. It’s a Long Way to Glocca Morra. The New York Times, 18 April: 2.6. New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, Billy Rose Theatre Division. Collection of Newspaper Clippings of Dramatic Criticism, 2003–2004. Kissel, Howard. 2004. Now, Color It Perfect. New York Daily News, 16 April. Tamiment Library and Robert F. Wagner Labor Archives. Irish Repertory Theatre Records. AIA 080 Box 10, Folder 6. 30. Brantley, Ben. 2004. Setting a Leprechaun Loose Down in Missitucky. The New York Times, 19 April: E5. New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, Billy Rose Theatre Division. Collection of Newspaper Clippings of Dramatic Criticism, 2003–2004. 31. Hendricks, Jen. 2004. Finian’s Rainbow. Show Business, 28 April: 14. Ibid. 32. Deutsch, Alvin. To Charlotte Moore and Ciarán O’Reilly. Letter, 28 April. 2004. Tamiment Library and Robert F. Wagner Labor Archives. Irish Repertory Theatre Records. AIA 080 Box 10, Folder 6. 33. Richenthal, David. To Ciarán O’Reilly and Charlotte Moore. Letter, 5 June. 2004. Ibid. 34. O’Reilly, Ciarán. To David Richenthal. Email, 6 June. 2004. Ibid. 35. Harburg, E.Y., Fred Saidy, and Burton Lane. CD Liner notes. Irish Repertory Theatre Cast Recording of Finian’s Rainbow, Ghostlight Records, 2004, CD. 36. The Irish Rep reached out to at least eight producers about their interest in funding a Broadway transfer of Finian’s Rainbow, including John McColgan, Gary McAvay, Ken Gentry, Freddie Gershon, Nicholas Howey, Stephen Kane, Eric Nederlander and Rodger Hess. O’Reilly, Ciarán. To John McColgan, Tryone Productions, Dublin. Letter, 7 September. 2004. See also: Producers Approached RE Finian’s Rainbow. Fax, 22 April. 2004. Tamiment Library and Robert F. Wagner Labor Archives. Irish Repertory Theatre Records. AIA 080 Box 10, Folder 9.

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37. Irish Repertory Theatre. 2006. Program for The Hairy Ape, 29 September–November 19. Ibid, Box 11, Folder 10. 38. Prologue. 1998. Eugene O’Neill. Vol. 2, Issue 4 (Spring): 1. Ibid, Box 5, Folder 15. 39. O’Neill, Eugene. 2006. The Hairy Ape. Irish Repertory Theatre, dir. Ciarán O’Reilly. Videorecording. New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, Billy Rose Theatre Division, Theatre on Film and Tape Archive. Accessed 6 June 2017. 40. Mullett, Mary R. 1922. The Extraordinary Story of Eugene O’Neill. Excerpts reprinted from American Magazine (November) in Prologue, Vol. 11, Issue 1 (Fall 2006): 1; 3. Quoted on 3. Tamiment Library and Robert F. Wagner Labor Archives. Irish Repertory Theatre Records. AIA 080 Box 11, Folder 10. 41. O’Neill, Eugene. 2009. The Emperor Jones . Irish Repertory Theatre, dir. Ciarán O’Reilly. Videorecording. New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, Billy Rose Theatre Division, Theatre on Film and Tape Archive. Accessed 5 June 2017. 42. Windman, Matt. 2009. The Emperor Strikes Back. Am New York, 24 December: 11. Rosegg, Carol. 2009. The Emperor Jones . Time Out New York, 22 October: 124. New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, Billy Rose Theatre Division, Collection of Newspaper Clippings of Dramatic Criticism, 2009–2010. In another worrisome link to Finian’s Rainbow, the Wooster Group performed a production of The Emperor Jones in Europe, the U.S. and Hong Kong, beginning in 1992, with a white actress (Kate Valk) playing Jones in blackface, a production which became, in Ben Brantley’s apt phrase, “a stinging depiction of black culture perceived through a white world’s distorting, contemptuous and uneasy gaze.” Brantley, Ben. 2009. Absolutely Corrupt: An Emperor Who Makes a Show of Power. The New York Times, 19 October: C5. New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, Billy Rose Theatre Division, Collection of Newspaper Clippings of Dramatic Criticism, 2009–2010. 43. Ibid. 44. Genzlinger, Neil. 2006. Top-Deck Visitor Unnerves ‘Beast’ in the Belly of a Ship. The New York Times, 16 October: E5. Ibid, 2006– 2007. 45. Simonson, Robert. 2006. The Hairy Ape. Time Out New York, 12 October: 169. Ibid.

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46. Orel, Gwen. 2006. The Hairy Ape. Backstage East, 19 October: 11. Ibid. 47. A Mind-Bending Evening of Beckett. 2013. Irish Repertory Theatre Company Flyer. 16 October-1 December. Tamiment Library and Robert F. Wagner Labor Archives. Irish Repertory Theatre Records. AIA 080 Box 20, Folder 22. 48. Brantley, Ben. 2009. 49. Isherwood, Christopher. 2009. Some Plays Can Twinkle Without Stars. The New York Times, 8 November: 30. Ibid. 50. Peikert, Mark. 2010. Ruling Off-Broadway. New York Press, 6–12 January. Ibid. 51. Teachout, Terry. 2009. Eugene O’Neill Uncensored. The Wall Street Journal, 23 October. Ibid. 52. Prologue. 2010. New Windows Beautify Our Lobby. Vol. 22, Issue 1 (Winter): 5. Tamiment Library and Robert F. Wagner Labor Archives. Irish Repertory Theatre Records. AIA 080 Box 12, Folder 11. 53. Lamb, Peadar. 2010. Drama Through the Window. Irish Repertory Theatre. Leaflet. Author’s own collection.

CHAPTER 8

From Renovation and Reopening to a Global Pandemic, Plus Highlights from Seasons 23–34: 2010–2022

Season 23: 2010–2011: St. Nicholas , by Conor McPherson; Banished Children of Eve, by Kelly Younger, adapted from the novel by Peter Quinn; Molly Sweeney, by Brian Friel; A Child’s Christmas in Wales, by Dylan Thomas; My Scandalous Life, by Thomas Kilroy; The Shaughraun, by Dion Boucicault; 2011 Gala: Camelot in Concert, book and lyrics by Alan Jay Lerner, music by Frederick Loewe; Tryst, by Karoline Leach; New Works Reading Series ˙ Season 24: 2011–2012: NOCTÚ , conceived by Breandán de Gallaí; Dancing at Lughnasa, by Brian Friel; A Child’s Christmas in Wales, by Dylan Thomas; Beyond the Horizon, by Eugene O’Neill; Give Me Your Hand, A Poetical Stroll Through the National Gallery of London, by Paul Durcan; 2012 Gala: Oliver! in Concert, music, lyrics and book by Leonard Bart; Man and Superman, by George Bernard Shaw; New Girl In Town, book by George Abbott, music and lyrics by Bob Merrill; New Works Reading Series Season 25: 2012–2013: Celebrating the 25th Anniversary Season: The Freedom of the City, by Brian Friel; It’s a Wonderful Life, adapted by Anthony E. Palermo; A Celebration of Harold Pinter, starring Julian Sands, and directed by John Malkovich; The Songs I Love So Well, starring Phil Coulter; Airswimming , by Charlotte Jones; Donnybrook!, book by Robert E. McEnroe; music and lyrics by Johnny Burke; For Love, by Laoisa Sexton; Who’s Your © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2024 M. Szasz, Irish Repertory Theatre, New Directions in Irish and Irish American Literature, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-53545-1_8

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Daddy?, by Johnny O’Callaghan; 25th Anniversary Gala: Something Wonderful!: music and lyrics by Rodgers and Hammerstein; Gibraltar, by Patrick Fitzgerald; The Weir, by Conor McPherson; New Works Reading Series Season 26: 2013–2014: Tribute to Seamus Heaney; Juno and the Paycock, by Sean O’Casey; A Mind-Bending Evening of Beckett, by Samuel Beckett; It’s a Wonderful Life, adapted by Anthony E. Palermo; Transport, book by Thomas Keneally, music and lyrics by Larry Kirwan; 2014 Gala: The Spectacular Songs of Lerner and Loewe; Sea Marks, by Gardner McKay; New Works Reading Series Season 27: 2014–2015: The Season in Union Square: Farewell Benefit at W. 22nd Street: Meet Me at the Square; Port Authority, by Conor McPherson; A Christmas Memory, based on the short story by Truman Capote, book by Duane Poole, music by Larry Grossman, lyrics by Carol Hall; Da, by Hugh Leonard; The Belle of Belfast, by Nate Rufus Edelman; Annual Benefit Gala: Yeats–The Celebration; The Weir, by Conor McPherson; New Works Reading Series Season 28: 2015–2016: Tribute to Brian Friel; The Quare Land, by John McManus; A Child’s Christmas in Wales, by Dylan Thomas; The Burial At Thebes, by Seamus Heaney; A Celebration of Harold Pinter, with Julian Sands; 2016 Gala: Finian’s Rainbow In Concert, music Burton Lane, book by E.Y. Harburg and Fred Saidy, lyrics by E.Y. Harburg, adapted by Charlotte Moore; Shining City, by Conor McPherson (Homecoming Production); Quietly, by Owen McCafferty; New Works Reading Series Season 29: 2016–2017: Afterplay, by Brian Friel; Finian’s Rainbow, music by Burton Lane, book by E.Y. Harburg and Fred Saidy, lyrics by E.Y. Harburg; The Pigeon in the Taj Mahal, by Laoisa Sexton; The Dead, 1904, based on the novella by James Joyce, adapted by Paul Muldoon and Jean Hanff Korelitz; Crackskull Row, by Honor Molloy; The Emperor Jones, by Eugene O’Neill; Rebel in the Soul, by Larry Kirwan; 2017 Gala: Sondheim At Seven; Woody Sez: The Life & Music of Woody Guthrie, devised by David M. Lutken with Nick Corley and Darcie Deaville, Helen Jean Russell and Andy Teirstein; The Aran Islands, by J.M. Synge, adapted by Joe O’Byrne; New Works Reading Series Season 30: 2017–2018: The Home Place, by Brian Friel; Off the Meter, On the Record, by John McDonagh; It’s A Wonderful Life,

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adapted by Anthony E. Palermo; The Dead, 1904, based on the novella by James Joyce, adapted by Paul Muldoon and Jean Hanff Korelitz; Jimmy Titanic, by Bernard McMullan; Disco Pigs, by Enda Walsh; Three Small Irish Masterpieces, by W.B. Yeats, Lady Gregory, and John Millington Synge; The Seafarer, by Conor McPherson; 2018 Gala: Alan Jay Lerner—A Centennial Celebration; Woman and Scarecrow, by Marina Carr; On A Clear Day You Can See Forever, by Alan Jay Lerner; New Works Reading Series Season 31: 2018–2019: Celebrating 30 Years: Wild Abandon, by Leenya Rideout; On Beckett, conceived and performed by Bill Irwin with writings by Samuel Beckett; Two by Friel, by Brian Friel; A Child’s Christmas in Wales, by Dylan Thomas, adapted by Charlotte Moore; The Dead, 1904, based on the novella by James Joyce, adapted by Paul Muldoon and Jean Hanff Korelitz; The Sean O’Casey Season: The Shadow of a Gunman, Juno and the Paycock, and The Plough and the Stars; The Sean O’Casey Reading Series; 2019 Gala: Celebrating 30 Years; YES! Reflections of Molly Bloom, from the novel Ulysses , by James Joyce, adapted for stage by Aedín Moloney and Colum McCann; Love, Noël, written and devised by Barry Day; Little Gem, by Elaine Murphy; New Works Reading Series Season 32: 2019–2020: Kingfishers Catch Fire, by Robin Glendinning; Dublin Carol , by Conor McPherson; Pumpgirl, by Abbie Spallen; The Scourge, by Michelle Dooley Mahon, in association with Wexford Arts Centre; London Assurance, by Dion Boucicault; Lady G: Plays and Whisperings of Lady Gregory, by Lady Augusta Gregory, additional material by Ciarán O’Reilly; Incantata, by Paul Muldoon, in association with Galway International Arts Festival and Jen Coppinger Productions; Irish Rep Online: Summer Online Season: Molly Sweeney, by Brian Friel, A Performance on Screen; The Gifts You Gave to the Dark, by Darren Murphy; YES! Reflections of Molly Bloom, from the novel Ulysses by James Joyce, adapted by Aedín Moloney and Colum McCann, A Performance on Screen; 2020 Gala: The Irish (Rep)…and How We Got That Way: A Celebration of Endurance and Perseverance through Hard Times featuring The Irish…and How They Got That Way; The Weir, by Conor McPherson, A Performance on Screen; Love, Noël, written and devised by Barry Day, A Performance on Screen; Postponed Due to

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COVID-19: The Smuggler, by Ronán Noone; A Touch of the Poet, by Eugene O’Neill Season 33: 2020–2021: Irish Rep Online—Digital Fall Season: Belfast Blues, written and performed by Geraldine Hughes; Give Me Your Hand, A Poetical Stroll through The National Gallery of London, Poems by Paul Durcan; A Touch of the Poet, by Eugene O’Neill; On Beckett / In Screen, Conceived and Performed by Bill Irwin; Meet Me in St. Louis, book by Hugh Wheeler, songs by Hugh Martin and Ralph Blane, adapted by Charlotte Moore, A Holiday Special in Song and on Screen; Irish Rep Online: The Aran Islands, by J.M. Synge, adapted by Joe O’Byrne; John Cullum: An Accidental Star, conceived by John Cullum and Jeff Berger, written by David Thompson, in association with Vineyard Theatre and Goodspeed Musicals with Jeff Berger; Little Gem, by Elaine Murphy; The Man Who Wanted to Fly, A New York Film Premiere starring Bobby Coote; Digital Summer Season: 2021 Online Gala: The Indomitable Irishry; Ghosting, by Jamie Beamish and Anne O’Riordan, A Theatre Royal, Waterford and Throwin Shapes Production; The Cordelia Dream, by Marina Carr Season 34: 2021–2022: George M. Cohan Tonight!, by George M Cohan, Chip Deffaa, and Jon Peterson, An Abridged Performance on Screen; Bikeman, by Tom Flynn, produced by Robert Cuccioli, in honor of the 20th Anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, an Immersive Audio Event; Angela’s Ashes: The Musical, produced by Pat Moylan, music and lyrics by Adam Howell, book by Paul Hurt, based on the book by Frank McCourt; Autumn Royal , by Kevin Barry; A Girl is a Half-formed Thing , by Eimear McBride, adapted by Annie Ryan; The Streets of New York, by Dion Boucicault; Made By God, by Ciara Ní Chuirc; A Touch of the Poet, by Eugene O’Neill; Two By Synge, by J.M. Synge; 2022 Gala: A Celebration of the Musicals of Harold Prince; Belfast Girls , by Jaki McCarrick; YES! Reflections of Molly Bloom, from the novel Ulysses , by James Joyce, adapted by Aedín Moloney and Colum McCann; The Butcher Boy, A New Musical, with book, music, and lyrics by Asher Muldoon, based on the novel by Pat McCabe In the fall of 2010, the Irish Repertory Theatre’s 23rd Season began with St. Nicholas , by Conor McPherson, and directed by Alex Dmitriev.

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St. Nicholas was the company’s first play by McPherson, which ushered in a long and fruitful relationship with McPherson and his work. In 2016, Ciarán O’Reilly explained that he and Charlotte Moore had developed “a terrific rapport with Conor, whom we think is one of Ireland’s top living playwrights.”1 O’Reilly has directed six well-received productions of McPherson’s work: The Weir in 2013 and 2015, Port Authority in 2014, Shining City in 2016, The Seafarer in 2018, and Dublin Carol in 2019. Season 23 also included a lauded version of Brian Friel’s Molly Sweeney, and the world premiere of Thomas Kilroy’s My Scandalous Life. Reviewers mainly disliked My Scandalous Life, directed by John Going, a play told from the perspective of Oscar Wilde’s lover Lord Alfred Douglas, known as “Bosie,” played by Des Keogh. Set in 1944, Bosie looks back on his eventful life, including renouncing his relationship with Wilde, his unhappy marriage to Olive Custance (unseen, who dies during the play), and the mental illness that plagued their son Raymond (also never seen). Kilroy’s play makes an interesting contrast to Molly Sweeney, as both are memory plays, where characters speak about events in the past that changed their lives for the worse. Reviewers contended that My Scandalous Life could not hold a candle to Molly Sweeney, in terms of writing, staging, directing, and performing. Karl Levett was not alone in insisting that the depressing nature of My Scandalous Life caused audiences to fervently wish “for Oscar to brighten the proceedings” with his entertaining, witty comments, but unfortunately for audiences, Oscar remains merely a character in Bosie’s memories.2 In contrast, reviewers praised Molly Sweeney, directed with “economy and sensitivity” by Moore, and starring Geraldine Hughes as Molly (Tony nominee for Friel’s Translations in 2007), Jonathan Hogan as her alcoholic, self-serving eye surgeon Mr. Rice, and O’Reilly as Molly’s earnest, patronizing, and ultimately destructive husband Frank.3 Molly Sweeney was the company’s fifth Friel play since 1988’s Philadelphia, Here I Come!, and the first New York revival since its Off-Broadway premiere in 1996, when the Roundabout Theatre Company imported a Gate Theatre production from Dublin, directed by Friel. Similar in structure to Friel’s Faith Healer (1979), Molly Sweeney is a three person play built around monologues, a format that Ken Jaworowski called “risky,” given many theatregoers’ preference for spectacle.4 In Molly Sweeney, the three characters alternate telling their side of the story to the audience, instead of directly to one another. Terry Teachout praised the production for

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being, “so good that it actually made me shiver—repeatedly. To see Molly Sweeney in the Irish Rep’s modest, cozy little theater is to feel the inestimable privilege of keeping the closest possible company with a veritable wizard of storytelling, seen here at the height of his singular powers.”5 In a testimony to Friel’s ability to leave his audiences thinking, Jaworowski reflected that “the play’s ending applause is only the beginning” of its lingering impact.6 Seasons 24 and 25, from 2011–2013, included a celebration of the Irish Rep’s 25th Anniversary in 2013, as well as their sixth and seventh productions of Friel plays, beginning with a highly-regarded fall 2011 production of his most famous autobiographical work, Dancing at Lughnasa, in honor of the play’s 20th Broadway anniversary. Moore directed the production, with O’Reilly playing the narrator Michael, who looks back on the summer of 1936 in County Donegal, when he was a sevenyear-old boy living with his unmarried mother Chris, her four sisters and their brother, Father Jack, who has recently returned from 25 years of missionary work in Uganda, where he embraced native ceremonies and traditions. Joe Dziemianowicz calls the production “a richly satisfying revival,” with a “first rate cast,” each of whom has “sensitive and distinctive performances.”7 A year later, in 2012, the Irish Rep staged the New York premiere of Friel’s most controversial and overtly political play, The Freedom of the City, directed by O’Reilly (in 1978, O’Reilly played Constable B in an Irish Arts Center production of Freedom, which was his first role in New York City professional theatre). Freedom is based on Bloody Sunday, when the British army shot twenty-six unarmed Northern Irish civilian civil rights marchers (fourteen of whom died) in Derry/ Londonderry on 30 January 1972. The Irish Rep’s production of Freedom garnered mixed reviews; David Rooney compliments O’Reilly for keeping a “firm handle on the narrative’s time-shuffling structure,” as well as “a stinging clarity,” which allows Friel’s “undercurrent of sorrowful anger” about his three main characters’ senseless loss of life to take center stage.8 Season 25 also included two plays by female playwrights, performed in the studio theatre: the 2013 American premiere of Charlotte Jones’ first play, Airswimming (directed by John Keating and co-produced by Fallen Angel Theatre Company), and For Love, by Laoisa Sexton, and directed by Tim Ruddy (which premiered in New York City as a part of the Origin 1st Irish Theatre Festival in September 2012). Similar to Patricia Burke Brogan’s Eclipsed (produced by the Irish Rep in 1999), but set in 1920 England, Airswimming is based on a true story of two

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women, “Miss Kitson and Miss Baker” (named Dora and Persephone in the play, and portrayed in the Irish Rep production by Aedín Moloney and Rachel Pickup), who adopt alter-egos to survive a fifty-year incarceration in the Institution for the Criminally Insane in England, for having illegitimate children.9 In sharp contrast to the restrictive atmosphere of Airswimming, For Love is set in contemporary Dublin, where Irish women’s sexuality is refreshingly celebrated, instead of shamed. Sexton’s play takes place after the fall of the Celtic Tiger (a period of economic growth in Ireland, which lasted from the mid-1990s to about 2007), and focuses on the urban dating experiences of three women. Both productions received mixed reviews, with Andy Webster remarking that while Airswimming zeroed in on “20th-century institutional repression,” the Irish Rep leapt “into high contemporary gear” with For Love, which Webster praised for being, “a riotously tart and fiercely energetic production that plunges straight into Ireland’s fraught urban present.”10 While neither play received stellar reviews, by staging these two works, the Irish Rep continued to expand their repertoire of plays by contemporary Irish and Irish American women. On 30 August 2013, right before the beginning of the Irish Rep’s Season 26, Irish writer Seamus Heaney died at age 74 in Dublin. Heaney was a close friend of Friel’s, and a beloved poet, translator, and playwright, who published thirteen volumes of poetry, two plays, four books of criticism, and four translations; he received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1995. On 4 November 2013, the Irish Rep held a sold-out tribute to Heaney, called “Remembering Seamus: Celebrating the Life and Work of Seamus Heaney,” where “the Irish community [came] together for one night only to honor the memory of Seamus Heaney through readings and remembrances.”11 Irish poet Paul Muldoon was the evening’s host, and performers included Carmel Quinn, Colum McCann, Jim Dwyer, Dan Barry, and Loretta Brennan Glucksman. Three years later, in 2016, the Irish Rep paid further tribute to Heaney when Moore directed The Burial at Thebes: A Version of Sophocles’ Antigone, which Heaney wrote as a response to the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003. In the following September 2014, Moore and O’Reilly stood on their mainstage theatre, and “at the tip of stage left, gripped their hands around a single sledgehammer and took the first of many hefty swipes necessary to bring major structural changes and technological improvements” to their performance and rehearsal spaces.12 For two years, from September 2014-–September 2016, the Irish Rep renovated almost their

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entire building. They redesigned their façade, and their mainstage theatre, box office, and second-floor rehearsal and administrative spaces all underwent renovations, “ranging from the radical to the cosmetic.”13 While their lobby’s distinctive stained glass windows created by Peadar Lamb remained unaltered, the company added a community and event space on their second floor, along with a “light-filled rehearsal studio”; a new air conditioning system; new, universal and disabled-friendly bathrooms, and new seating for both mainstage and studio theatres.14 They also upgraded their sound and lighting equipment, increased the height of the ceiling of their mainstage theatre from 12 to 24 feet, and added a 40-seat balcony, “to improve views of the stage.”15 O’Reilly admits that their original mainstage had always had recurring trouble with sight lines, which was “a source of contention for audiences, actors and directors alike”; after the renovations, the views of the stage improved considerably, and as O’Reilly comments, “you’re looking at two floors now instead of one.”16 Faced without a stage of their own to perform on, the Irish Rep held their 27th Season, during 2014–2015, in Union Square. A little over two years after Heaney’s death, Ireland lost another revered literary figure on 2 October 2015, when Brian Friel, whom Terry Teachout called, “the greatest playwright of the English speaking world” died at the age of 86 at his home in County Donegal.17 Stephen Rea, actor and co-founder with Friel of the Field Day Theatre Company, described the impact of Friel’s playwriting: He has produced two of the only plays that rival Playboy of the Western World: Translations and Dancing at Lughnasa. It’s an extraordinary canon of work: not only a cluster of major plays, but a body of work which defines the Irish theatre from the 1960s until today.18

Edna Kenny, then Prime Minister of Ireland, also movingly reflected on Friel’s far-reaching impact: The nation and the world have lost one of the giants of theatre. His mythical stories from Ballybeg reached all corners of the world from Dublin to London to Broadway and onto the silver screen. The consummate Irish storyteller, his work spoke to each of us with humor, emotion and authenticity.19

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Similar to their memorial for Heaney, the Irish Rep honored Friel’s life and work with a tribute, entitled “Remembering the Life and Legacy of Irish Playwright Brian Friel,” held on 7 December 2015, at the Samuel J. Friedman Theatre. The memorial was free and open to the public and included remembrances, musical performances, and readings from actors and directors, including Gabriel Byrne (Philadelphia, Here I Come!), Jim Dale (Faith Healer), Joe Dowling (Artistic Director of the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis, 1995–2015), Loretta Brennan Glucksman, Barry Grove, Gregory Harrington, Doug Hughes, Geraldine Hughes, Barbara Jones (Molly Sweeney), John Keating (Aristocrats ), Emily Mann, Lynne Meadow, Charlotte Moore, Paul Muldoon and Ciarán O’Reilly (Dancing at Lughnasa). The Playbill included a reflective quote by Friel about the lasting impact of the theatre: “For me the true gift of theatre, the real benediction of all art, is the ringing bell which reverberates quietly and persistently in the head long after the curtain has come down and the audience has gone home.”20 The Irish Rep’s long-standing close relationship with the playwright helped them produce more works by Friel “than any other theatre” company in America.21 Between 1988– 2024, the Irish Rep has produced 13 productions of Friel plays, which includes The Friel Project, to celebrate their 35th Season in 2023–2024: productions of Translations (October 2023, directed by Doug Hughes), Aristocrats (January 2024, directed by Moore), and Philadelphia, Here I Come! (March 2024, directed by O’Reilly). The Friel Project also includes the Friel Reading Series: free staged readings of The Communication Cord, Lovers: Winners & Losers , Making History, The Freedom of the City, Living Quarters , Crystal and Fox, Dancing at Lughnasa, Give Me Your Answer, Do!, Wonderful Tennessee, Faith Healer, and The Home Place. The Irish Rep says that their Friel Project “represents a retrospective” of the playwright’s work.22 As O’Reilly commented at the start of their 35th Season, “if there was such a thing as a poet laureate of the Irish Rep, it would be Brian Friel.”23 In September 2016, proudly proclaiming, “you can go home again … the renovated Irish Repertory Theatre reopens,” the company returned to their newly renovated performance spaces, beginning their 28th Season with Conor McPherson’s Shining City, the play’s first New York City revival since its 2006 Broadway debut.24 O’Reilly described Shining City’s particular relevance as their “homecoming” production on their remodeled mainstage theatre, reflecting how “utterly appropriate” the play was for this occasion: “It’s something more than coincidence, then,

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that Shining City speaks to the universal longing for a place to call one’s own, and functions as a reunion on more than one level … it seemed to have the right feel for us coming back.”25 Matthew Broderick made his Irish Rep debut in Shining City, starring as John, a widower, who tells former Roman Catholic priest turned therapist, Ian (Billy Carter), about his unhappy relationship with his deceased wife, whom he has recently seen haunting his home. In a skillful, eerie McPherson parallel, the relationship between Ian and his girlfriend Neasa (Lisa Dwan) unravels as the play progresses, as seen with the arrival of the male prostitute Laurence (James Russell). O’Reilly recalled sending Broderick the script on a whim, “not really thinking he was going to say ‘yes.’ But it was such a good script for him; quite different. It allows him to bury deep into something. He’s better known for musicals and comedy, which he has a huge flair for, but this was a different attack.”26 Reviewers raved about the Irish Rep’s refurbished mainstage theatre, Broderick’s performance, and the entire production. Ben Brantley compliments the “newly restored but still intimate theatre,” and calls the production “an exemplary revival,” which “brings out the cozy humanity in a play that probes the darkest corners of our minds.”27 As a testament to his strong performance, Broderick won a 2017 Obie Award for Shining City. The Irish Rep’s next two seasons, from 2016–2018, expanded the company’s offerings of plays by women, with three plays by female playwrights. In November 2016, audiences saw the world premiere of the company’s second play by Laoisa Sexton: The Pigeon in the Taj Mahal, a dark comedy set in a trailer park near Limerick, which received mixed reviews. David Barbour laments that the play suffers from “a title wave of conversation,” yet he says what saves the play from “feel[ing] interminable” is the fine performance by long-time Irish Rep actor John Keating.28 In May 2018, New York City audiences finally had the chance to see Woman and Scarecrow (2006), the Irish Rep’s first production by renowned Irish dramatist Marina Carr. A prolific playwright who has written nearly thirty plays, Carr’s other work includes The Mai (1994), Portia Coughlan (1996), By the Bog of Cats (1998), The Cordelia Dream (2008), and Marble (2009). Perhaps the Irish Rep waited so long to produce one of Carr’s plays due to what Melissa Sihra describes as the “often divided and resistant responses to Carr’s work in the United States,” such as negative audience responses to the Pittsburgh Irish and Classical Theatre Company’s production of Portia Coughlan in 2001.29

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Sihra suggests that the reason for this adverse reception lies in Carr’s frank depictions of Ireland, which “exceeds and challenges” audiences’ “romantic representations of ‘Irishness’, most specifically in terms of landscape/ place, language, the family, patriarchy, and the Irish woman, and/ or mother figure.”30 Woman and Scarecrow is a prime example of Carr overtly challenging the audience’s expectations of Irish women. O’Reilly directed the New York premiere of Woman and Scarecrow in the Irish Rep’s studio theatre. A nightmare-inducing play that grimly details the last hours and bitter regrets of a dying woman’s life as she remembers her eight children and a child who died, her cruel mother and aunt, and her unfaithful husband, Woman and Scarecrow is “a blistering beauty of a play,” mesmerizing in its depiction of symbolic, frightening Scarecrow (played by Pamela J. Gray), who waits impatiently for Woman (Stephanie Roth Haberle) to die. New York reviewers had divided responses, with Laura Collins-Hughes suggesting that Haberle “can’t get her arms around” the lead role, while the production struggles to “find its tone,” though she praises the Irish Rep’s “brilliant choice” for their “long overdue” production of one of Carr’s more formidable plays.31 Four months after Woman and Scarecrow, in September 2018, New York City audiences saw another world premiere by an Irish American female playwright: Wild Abandon, a one-woman show with original artwork by Lynn Rideout, and music, songs, and performances by Lynn’s daughter, Broadway actor Leenya Rideout, who played an Irish singer and actor sheltering alone in a Long Island pub during a snowstorm. In a description that recalls Woman and Scarecrow with its centering on the female voice, Leenya says Wild Abandon explores, “the complicated relationship of Mother and Daughter in a Hero’s journey through a world where women are only just now having their voices heard through art.”32 Reviewers were greatly impressed with Rideout’s musical talents, yet commented that the storyline remained thin. In Samuel L. Lieter’s assessment, “there’s little in the writing that’s anywhere near as noteworthy” as Rideout’s voluminous gifts as a musician and singer.33 The Irish Rep celebrated their 30-year anniversary during 2018–2019, a season that included two more productions by female playwrights: the world premiere of the one-woman show, YES! Reflections of Molly Bloom, adapted for the stage by Aedín Moloney and Colum McCann, and Little Gem, Elaine Murphy’s debut play. Both plays opened in July 2019. The title, YES!, and the heroine Molly Bloom originate in James

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Joyce’s Ulysses (1922), whose last chapter, “Penelope,” is our only opportunity in Joyce’s mammoth novel to hear Molly’s voice. Molly’s last line in her monologue, which is also the last line of the famously scandalous novel reads, “and yes, I said yes I will Yes.”34 Molly’s opening line of this theatrical adaptation is also “yes!” Laura Collins-Hughes insists that the exclamation point makes all the difference in the success of this adaptation, as Molly comes alive in actress Aedín Moloney’s ability to “shape Molly’s headlong introspection into speech,” which lets the audience see her “three-dimensional life.”35 Both YES! Reflections of Molly Bloom and Little Gem, by Elaine Murphy, received mainly positive reviews, and Little Gem even extended its original run, to 8 September 2019. Season 32 began on a high note in 2019, and finished on a dismal note in 2020, due to the arrival of the COVID-19 pandemic, which hit New York City and live entertainment particularly hard. On 12 March 2020, due to the rapid spreading of the Coronavirus, Broadway and Off-Broadway shut down. Most theatres remained closed for eighteen months, not reopening until at least September 2021. The scope of the devastation to families and the disruption to people’s lives is hard to fathom. Over 43,000 people died from the Coronavirus in New York City alone. Healthcare and front-line workers suddenly became the world’s heroes in 2020, as the world watched while the federally funded Operation Warp Speed raced to develop multiple vaccines. Facing an unprecedented crisis of being unable to gather in large groups, which was the worst situation New York City had faced since 9/11, the Irish Rep became a model of New York resiliency by adapting remarkably quickly. Just two months after being forced to close their doors, the company switched to digital performances, creating Theatre@Home, or Irish Rep On Demand. Their first online production was their 2011 production of Molly Sweeney, which streamed for one performance on 12 May 2020. Throughout the worst of the pandemic, the company received praise for its adept shift to digital productions. TheatreMania called the Irish Rep the “leader in streaming theatre,” and the Wall Street Journal concurred, reflecting that the Irish Rep set “the standard for theatrical webcasts in America” while live theatre was shut down due to COVID.36 During the eighteen months, their theatre doors remained closed and their staff worked remotely, the Irish Rep presented fifteen productions online, asking for “donations of $25 per show … for each viewer who can afford to give.”37 They joined the National Theatre Network, “regional theatre’s new digital stage,” which “provides a window into

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the creative process and digital productions” produced by American regional theatre companies across the country.38 The National Theatre Network is part of Broadway HD, an on-demand digital streaming media company. Through the National Theatre Network, the Irish Rep offered 48-hour digital rentals of their streaming productions. As Terry Teachout commented, “Theater lovers throughout America owe a huge debt to the Irish Repertory Theatre for having kept us sane and entertained by streaming exemplary, standard-setting video productions throughout the Covid-19 lockdown.”39 In 2022, O’Reilly reflected on the success of the company’s streaming during the worst of the pandemic: … even though we offered the digital shows for free with suggested donations, we got a lot of suggested donations. We kept our whole company employed. We didn’t do any furloughs, and we were able to pay all the actors and pay their pension, and all of those things. All that happened because of those digital shows. So in that respect it was a roaring success.40

Even after reopening their doors to live theatre in October 2021, the company continued their digital programming, such as the production of A Girl is a Half-formed Thing , by Eimear McBride, and adapted by Annie Ryan, which streamed from 14–30 January 2022. The Irish Rep assures audiences that “all performers, designers, production coordinators, and directors involved in Irish Rep Performances on Screen received a share of the proceeds from on-demand rentals,” whether audiences watch plays from Dubai, United Arab Emirates, or Deming, New Mexico.41 On 8 October 2021, as they began their 34th Season, audiences happily returned to in-person Irish Rep shows, with the American premiere of Kevin Barry’s Autumn Royal , starring Maeve Higgins and John Keating, and directed by O’Reilly. Two especially noteworthy productions in Season 34 included the New York premiere of Belfast Girls (2012), by Jaki McCarrick, and directed by Nicola Murphy, and the world premiere of The Butcher Boy: A New Musical, with book, music, and lyrics by Asher Muldoon, based on the novel by Pat McCabe, and directed by O’Reilly. While these productions received mixed reviews, they also represent vital steps forward for the Irish Rep, as the company continued to present important, new work, with larger roles for actors of color. In June 2020, two years before The Butcher Boy and Belfast Girls opened, the U.S. expanded its national conversation around race, racial inequity, and police behavior, particularly regarding African Americans.

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The unfortunate catalyst for this conversation was African American George Floyd’s murder on 25 May 2020, in Minneapolis, Minnesota, by a white police officer, Derek Chauvin, who arrested Floyd after a convenience store clerk suspected that Floyd had used counterfeit $20 bill. Chauvin handcuffed Floyd, and then knelt on his neck and back for nine minutes and twenty-nine seconds. Such appalling brutality caused widespread marches, protests, and condemnation across the country and the world. Following Floyd’s murder, many arts institutions across the country, including the Irish Rep, began to publicly reconsider how to improve their commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion.42 The Irish Rep decided they needed to recognize, “the deep and painful history of violence and injustice against Black, Indigenous, and People of Color in America and in Ireland,” and examine “how institutionalized racism has permeated our own practices.”43 The company’s statement on diversity continues: We have acknowledged that we presented the Irish identity as “white,” a whiteness that is reflected both off and on our stages. But in fact, to be Irish is to be part of a vast and varied community—from the dynamic global diaspora of multi-racial people with Irish heritage, to the growing population of non-white citizens of Ireland. Now, we pledge to reflect the complexities of that shared heritage and history, and to tell the stories of Irish and Irish-American people of all races, genders, abilities, and orientations.44

In 2022, the Irish Rep took another step forward toward increasing the diversity in their stage offerings, by partnering with Fishamble, an Irish theater company based in Dublin, to commission an evening of plays by Irish playwrights of color. O’Reilly explained to Newsweek: We also are very interested in moving the needle as much as possible as regards to diversity—and to try to do it properly. We wanted to be doing the work but also part of our own vision … [Fishamble] said that they had gone down that road a little bit themselves, inviting people of color to come and write some things … if they can identify up to four playwrights in Ireland, then we will give them a commission for each of them to write a play 20 minutes long and those four plays will become an evening of theater ….45

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The playwrights commissioned by the Irish Rep and Fishamble include Felispeaks (Felicia Olusanya), Kwaku Fortune, Jade Jordan, and CN Smith, “who will create new works over the next year [2022] under the mentorship of Obie Award winner and Pulitzer Prize finalist Dael Orlandersmith.”46 The goal of what Fishamble calls the “Transatlantic Commissions Programme in partnership with the Irish Repertory Theatre” is “to address the historic marginalization and inequalities within the canon, particularly in Irish theatre.”47 Staged readings of the new works will occur at Fishamble in Dublin, and at the Irish Rep in early 2024. The Irish Rep’s renewed commitment to diversity also appears in the company’s 2022 production of Belfast Girls . Similar to how previous Irish Rep productions of Eclipsed (1999), by Patricia Burke Brogan, and Airswimming (2013), by Charlotte Jones, replicate real Irish women’s lives on stage, Belfast Girls tells the story of five women who participated in the Earl Grey Scheme or Famine Orphan Scheme, a British emigration plan that began in the 1840s: … which shipped ‘morally pure’ girls from Ireland to Australia. The plan was meant to address the crisis of Irish women suffering from the Great Famine as well as the shortage of women and labor in Australia. The reality of the program’s implementation, and the ways it hurt the very women it was supposed to help, have made the Scheme into a historical controversy about the British Empire.48

Not all of the women who participated in the Scheme were orphans; in addition, some were prostitutes, and some lied about their ages. Between 1848 and 1850, over 4,000 Irish women voluntarily boarded 20 ships to make the four-month journey to Australia, and begin new lives in Sydney, Adelaide, and Melbourne. Belfast Girls tells the story of five of these women. Alongside illuminating what director Nicola Murphy calls “a longneglected period of Irish history,” the play represents a major advancement for the Irish Rep in its depiction of a biracial Irish female character, Judith, who is part Jamaican, and grew up in Ireland, as well as a lesbian romance, between Molly (Aida Leventaki) and Judith (Caroline Strange).49 Prior to Belfast Girls , with few exceptions (such as their plays about Oscar Wilde, including My Scandalous Life and The Importance of Being Oscar, and McPherson’s Shining City, with its brief sexual

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encounter between Ian and Laurence), Irish Rep productions have mainly focused on heterosexual relationships. Actress Caroline Strange pointed out why Belfast Girls particularly speaks to twenty-first-century audiences: “there are themes in this play that are painfully relevant today. There were women and femmes fighting for basic human rights [in 1850] that we still don’t have access to now. These stories of vibrant and complicated femmes, women, and queer folks deserve to be on stage.”50 Strange’s comments reflect the progress that Belfast Girls represents in the Irish Rep’s efforts to emphasize a wider range of representation and inclusivity. Another step forward for diversity was the Irish Rep’s production of The Butcher Boy: A New Musical, which is based on Patrick McCabe’s 1992 novel (a film version, directed by Neil Jordon, opened in 1997). In 1996, the Irish Rep staged a touring production of Frank Pig Says Hello, a stage version of The Butcher Boy, written by McCabe, and performed by the Dublin-based Co-Motion Theatre Company. O’Reilly says he has loved McCabe’s novel since 1992, and commented that he was looking forward to directing his first musical with The Butcher Boy, as he “was drawn to it so much,” because he also “came from a small town” in Ireland.51 Akin to Belfast Girls , the cast of Butcher Boy also included a prominent actor of color, Christian Strange, who played Francie’s best friend Joe Purcell. In 2009, Christopher L. Berchild characterized the Irish Rep as a “conservative” Irish and Irish American theatre company, due to its focus on plays that present “more traditional Irish themes and tropes.”52 With their 2022 productions of Belfast Girls and The Butcher Boy, and their 2022–2023 partnership with Fishamble and four Irish playwrights of color, I suggest that the Irish Rep has become what Berchild calls a “moderate” company, which stages “challenging contemporary Irish works … to both educate and inform their audiences,” while still including “the dramatic and literary history of the Irish nation.”53 During their thirty-fourth season, the Irish Rep reaffirmed its ongoing commitment to highlight more diverse voices within the Irish and Irish American experience, which O’Reilly insisted is “really important to us.”54

Notes 1. Back in Chelsea, Irish Rep Makes a Play for Home. 2016. Downtown, June 2–15: 26; 27 and 28. Quoted on 27. New York Public

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3. 4. 5. 6. 7.

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Library for the Performing Arts, Billy Rose Theatre Division, Clippings File, T-CLIP Moore, Charlotte [actress]. Levett, Karl. My Scandalous Life. 2011. Backstage, 6 February. New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, Billy Rose Theatre Division, Collection of Newspaper Clippings of Dramatic Criticism, 2010–2011. Sheward, David. 2011. Molly Sweeney. Backstage, 3 February. Ibid. Jaworowski, Ken. 2011. Does One Need Sight to Grasp the World? The New York Times, 1 February. Ibid. Teachout, Terry. 2011. A Plight for Sore Eyes. The Wall Street Journal, 31 January. Ibid. Jaworowski, Ken. 2011. Dziemianowicz, Joe. 2011. Dancing With Real Stars. Daily News, 1 November: 39. New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, Billy Rose Theatre Division, Collection of Newspaper Clippings of Dramatic Criticism, 2011–2012. Rooney, David. 2012. The Truth That Was Obscured After Protesters Were Killed. The New York Times, 16 October. https:// www.nytimes.com/2012/10/17/theater/reviews/brian-friels-fre edom-of-the-city-at-irish-repertory-theater.html. Accessed 13 June 2023. Airswimming . New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, Billy Rose Theatre Division, Clippings File, T-PRG: Airswimming Programs. Webster, Andy. 2013. Economy Is Woeful, and the Sex Even Worse. The New York Times, March 23. https://www.nytimes. com/2013/03/25/theater/reviews/for-love-by-laoisa-sexton-atirish-repertory-theater.html. Accessed 12 January 2023. Irish Repertory Theatre. 2013. Seamus Heaney Memorial. https://irishrep.org/event/2013-2014-season/seamus-heaneymemorial/. Accessed 20 December 2022. Back in Chelsea, Irish Rep Makes a Play for Home. 2016. Quoted on 26. New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, Billy Rose Theatre Division, Clippings File, T-CLIP Moore, Charlotte [actress]. Ibid. 27. Irish Repertory Theatre. 2015. Program for The Weir, 30 June–23 August. Tamiment Library and Robert F. Wagner Labor Archives. Irish Repertory Theatre Records. AIA 080 Box 13, Folder 31.

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15. Irish Repertory Theatre. 2014. Campaign for a Permanent Home. Program for Sea Marks, 23 April–14 July. Ibid, Box 13, Folder 27. 16. Back in Chelsea, Irish Rep Makes a Play for Home. 2016. Quoted on 27. New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, Billy Rose Theatre Division, Clippings File, T-CLIP Moore, Charlotte [actress]. 17. Teachout, Terry. 2011. 18. Rea, Stephen. 2009. Tributes to A World Class Playwright: Honoring Brian Friel on The Occasion of his 80th. Prologue, The Newsletter of the Irish Repertory Theatre Company. Vol. 14, Issue 1 (Winter/Spring). Tamiment Library and Robert F. Wagner Labor Archives. Irish Repertory Theatre Records. AIA 080, Box 12, Folder 4. 19. Irish Repertory Theatre. 2015. Remembering the Life and Legacy of Irish Playwright Brian Friel. Playbill, 8 December. Ibid, Box 13, Folder 29. 20. Ibid. 21. Riedel, Michael. 2015. League of Professional Theatre Women, Interview with Charlotte Jean Montigue Moore, Artistic Director. Video recording. New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, Billy Rose Theatre Division, Performing Arts Research Collections, Theatre on Film and Tape Archive. Accessed 1 June 2017. 22. The Irish Repertory Theatre. 2023. The Friel Project Reading Series. https://irishrep.org/show/2023-2024-season/the-frielproject-reading-series/. Accessed 19 December 2023. 23. Collins-Hughes, Laura. 2023. A Mythical Town Had a Marvelous Inspiration. The New York Times, 5 November: Arts and Leisure, 6–7. Quoted on 6. Author’s own collection. The Irish Rep has produced thirteen productions of Friel plays between 1990 and 2024: Philadelphia, Here I Come! (1990, 2005 and 2024), Making History (1991), Molly Sweeney (2011; also presented virtually in 2020), Dancing at Lughnasa (2011), The Freedom of the City (2012), Afterplay (2016), The Home Place (2017), and Two By Friel: Lovers: Winners and The Yalta Game (2018), Translations (2023) and Aristocrats (2009 and 2024). About Aristocrats, see also: Collins-Hughes, Laura. 2024. Reality Confronts a Fading Dynasty. The New York Times, 25 January: C5. Author’s own collection.

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24. The Irish Repertory Theatre. 2015. Program for The Belle of Belfast, 14 April–14 June. Tamiment Library and Robert F. Wagner Labor Archives. Irish Repertory Theatre Records. AIA 080 Box 13, Folder 32. 25. Back in Chelsea, Irish Rep Makes a Play for Home. 2016. Quoted on 28. New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, Billy Rose Theatre Division, Clippings File, T-CLIP Moore, Charlotte [actress]. 26. Ibid. 27. Brantley, Ben. 2016. Shining City is Brighter With Matthew Broderick. The New York Times, 9 June. https://www.nytimes. com/2016/06/10/theater/review-shining-city-is-brighter-withmatthew-broderick.html. Accessed 25 November 2022. 28. Barbour, David. 2016. Theatre in Review: The Pigeon in the Taj Mahal (Irish Repertory Theatre). Lighting and Sound America, 5 December. http://www.lightingandsoundamerica.com/news/ story.asp?ID=-VL02TX. Accessed 15 May 2023. 29. Sihra, Melissa. 2005. Marina Carr in the U.S.: Perception, Conflict and Culture in Irish Theatre Abroad. In Irish Theatre on Tour, eds. Nicholas Grene and Chris Morash, 179–191. Quoted on 180. Irish Theatrical Diaspora Series: 1. Dublin: Carysfort. 30. Ibid. 181. 31. Collins-Hughes, Laura. 2018. In Woman and Scarecrow, Female Fury Doesn’t Get Its Due. The New York Times, 22 May. https:// www.nytimes.com/2018/05/22/theater/woman-and-scarecrowmarina-carr-irish-rep.html. Accessed 20 December 2022. 32. Rideout, Leenya. 2018. Wild Abandon. http://leenya.com/cal endar/wild-abandon4398735. Accessed 11 January 2023. 33. Leiter, Samuel L. 2018. One Woman Band: Irish Rep’s Wild Abandon. The Broadway Blog, October. https://thebroadwayblog. com/irish-rep-wild-abandon-review/. Accessed 11 January 2023. 34. Joyce, James. 1990. Ulysses , 783. New York: Vintage. 35. Collins-Hughes, Laura. 2019. A Supporting Character Gets in The Last Word. The New York Times, 4 July: C6. Author’s own collection. 36. Bauer, Seth. Irish Rep is Re-opening Our Doors—tonight! Email to the author. 8 October 2021. The Irish Repertory Theatre. 2021. Theatre @Home. https://irishrep.org/show/irish-rep-onl ine-2021/irish-rep-on-demand/. Accessed 20 December 2022.

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37. Irish Repertory Theatre. Our Theatre@Home Winter Festival Starts Tomorrow! Email to the author. 25 January 2021. 38. National Theatre Network: Welcome to Regional Theatre’s New Digital Stage. 2022. https://nationaltheatrenetwork.com/? dm_i=6U07%2C316E%2C1OPDNB%2CEA34%2C1. Accessed 20 December 2022. 39. Teachout, Terry. 2022. Gripping Musical Melodrama. Arts Journal, 7 January. https://www.artsjournal.com/aboutlastnight/ author/terryteach. Accessed 14 June 2023. 40. Westerfield, Joe. 2022. Ciarán O’Reilly Reflects on Irish Rep, the Pandemic and Stephen Sondheim. Newsweek, 29 March. https:// www.newsweek.com/ciaran-oreilly-reflects-irish-rep-pandemic-ste phen-sondheim-1692715. Accessed 31 May 2023. 41. Irish Repertory Theatre. 2022. Theatre@Home. https://irishrep. org/show/irish-rep-online-2021/irish-rep-on-demand/. Accessed 20 December 2022. 42. Bowley, Graham. 2022. U.S. Arts Alliance Plans Diversity Goals. The New York Times, 18 October: C2. Author’s own collection. 43. Irish Repertory Theatre. 2023. Anti-Racism Progress Update From Irish Rep. https://irishrep.org/anti-racism-progress-update-fromirish-rep/. Accessed 11 January 2023. 44. Ibid. 45. Westerfield, Joe. 2022. 46. Putnam, Leah. 2022. Irish Playwrights of Color Commissioned By Irish Rep. Playbill, 9 February. https://playbill.com/article/irishplaywrights-of-color-commissioned-by-irish-rep. Accessed 17 July 2023. 47. Fishamble Theatre Company. 2022. Fishamble’s 2022 Programme. https://www.fishamble.com/2022.html. Accessed 31 May 2023. Ibid. 48. Putnam, Leah. 2022. The Cast of Off-Broadway’s Belfast Girls Talks About Bringing Forgotten Women to Life. Playbill, 6 June. https://playbill.com/article/the-cast-of-off-broadways-belfastgirls-talks-about-bringing-forgotten-women-to-life. Accessed 11 January 2023. 49. Murphy, Nicola. 2022. A Note From the Director. Irish Repertory Theatre Program for Belfast Girls , 11 May–26 June. Author’s own collection. 50. Putnam, Leah. 2022.

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51. The Butcher Boy, by Asher Muldoon—The Irish Repertory Theatre—A New Musical, 8 August, 2022. https://www.youtube. com/watch?v=PLV9-wTfetI&t=24s. Accessed 11 January 2023. 52. Berchild, Christopher L. 2009. Ireland Rearranged: Contemporary Irish Drama and the Irish American Stage, in Irish Theater in America: Essays on Irish Theatrical Diaspora, ed. John P. Harrington, 38–53. Quoted on 43. New York: Syracuse. 53. Ibid. 54. Clement, Olivia. 2018. How Irish Rep Became One of OffBroadway’s Most Successful Companies. Playbill, 5 February. https://playbill.com/article/how-irish-rep-became-one-of-offbroadways-most-successful-companies. Accessed 18 July 2023.

CHAPTER 9

Conclusion: The Ongoing Success of Irish Rep, and What Lies Ahead

Since the Irish Repertory Theatre Company’s inaugural production of Sean O’Casey’s The Plough and the Stars in 1988, they have presented, “over 240 productions (including their annual gala benefit performances) and worked with more than 500 company members,” performing for audiences of over “50,000” annually.1 As the Irish Rep begins its 35th Season in Fall 2024, the company is stronger than ever. Four important features lie behind this strength and stability: the co-founders’ long-standing commitment and compatibility; the reciprocal relationship between their supportive community and the Irish Rep supporting this community; their leadership in streaming; and their commitment to embracing more diverse plays, playwrights, casts, crew, staff, and audiences. The core aspect of the company’s long-lasting success in the American professional theatre industry is the stable, well-matched, and visionary leadership of Artistic Director Charlotte Moore and Producing Director Ciarán O’Reilly, the Irish Rep co-founders who have been at the helm since the beginning. O’Reilly and Moore have repeatedly commented on their respect for one another. In 2015, Moore said she “completely credits” O’Reilly for the Irish Rep’s success.2 The business partners mention how they constantly learn from each other, especially from watching one another as directors. O’Reilly remembered first meeting Moore in the

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1980s, describing her as “a force of nature … she commands the attention no matter what it is that she does, and whether she is right or wrong, she is just as emphatic … she brings life to things … there’s always an excitement in what she does.”3 When the company first began, Moore mostly transitioned from her career as a professional actor into directing, while O’Reilly continued to act. While initially intimidated by moving from twenty years as a working actor to director, “both as a woman and as an inexperienced director,” Moore’s confidence grew quickly.4 O’Reilly praised Moore’s talents as a director: I absolutely love working with Charlotte as a director. She’s my favorite director. There’s a shorthand between us, and I just absolutely love it. I learned an awful lot from how she did it [directing]. I’ve benefitted greatly from almost two decades of working with her, and seeing how she treats actors, and she treats actors really, really well.5

Moore admitted she was initially nervous when O’Reilly told her in 1997, nine years into the Irish Rep’s existence, that he wished to direct for the first time, with a double bill in their studio theatre: Invisible Man and The Nightingale and Not the Lark, by Jennifer Johnston. Moore later insisted that her worries were unfounded, saying O’Reilly did “a brilliant job” as director, adding, “I learned so much, and I am still learning from him, because he is much more meticulous and much more serious than I am.”6 Reflecting further on O’Reilly directing Eugene O’Neill’s work, Moore said that he “loves O’Neill” more than she does, and complimented O’Reilly’s “extraordinary productions” of The Hairy Ape (2007) and The Emperor Jones (2009).7 In the 2023–2024 season, the American professional theatre industry faced a “crisis,” due to the ongoing effects of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020–2021, which has left many companies without pre-pandemic donors and audiences, forcing them to trim budgets, staff, and productions, or, in drastic cases, to close.8 A survey by the National Endowment for the Arts and the U.S. Census Bureau discovered that Americans who support live theatre has decreased since 2017: “10.3 percent of American adults attended a musical last year [2022], down from 16.5 percent in 2017,” and only “4.5 percent attended a play, down from 9.4 percent [in 2017].”9 Thankfully for the Irish Rep, another major factor behind their continuing achievements lies in their steadfast community support, which continues to encourage the company to thrive. This community helped raise money to rent and remodel three floors of the Stanwick Building in

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1994; helped them purchase their theatrical home in 2007, and assisted in funding further remodeling of their theatrical spaces in 2014. During the Irish Rep’s annual benefit in June 2006, Frank McCourt, author of one of the Irish Rep’s most profitable shows, The Irish … and How They Got That Way (1997), voiced his unwavering commitment to the company, “So there are people like me who will support The Irish Repertory Theatre till the last syllable of recorded time.”10 Five years prior to McCourt’s comments, in 2001, the Irish Rep began to capitalize on such loyal audience support, via a subscription program, which encouraged audience members to buy a season of four shows on their mainstage in advance, before each season’s opening. In 2024, the benefits of their membership program have expanded to include complimentary ticket exchanges, presale ticket offers, a newsletter, membership discounts at local businesses, and access to the company’s variety of digital events. The top five levels of Membership include a Flex Pass (which provides a number of complimentary tickets per year), and Patron Night (a patrons-only performance and a talk-back event with the cast). As of summer 2023, the company offers eight levels of a yearly membership, beginning at $75 for the “Friend Level,” and rising to $12,500 for the “Angel Level,” which includes an “unlimited Flex Pass,” with up to six free tickets per performances.11 The Irish Rep also receives tremendous support from its Board of Directors, staff, current and former actors, and technical crew. The company’s Board Chairs “have been so instrumental in our growth,” according to O’Reilly.12 The original Board consisted of Moore as Chairperson; O’Reilly as President, and Brendan O’Reilly (Ciarán’s brother) as Secretary/ Treasurer. When the company expanded its Board in 1997, Janet Knox became their first Board Chair (1997 to 2003), followed by Ellen McCourt (2003 to 2014). McCourt, the widow of author Frank McCourt, helped the company “through the purchase of our theatre and right up to the [2014–2016] renovation,” says O’Reilly.13 In 2015, Kathleen Begala, who has been on the Board since 2010, took over as Chair. The Irish Rep’s current Board consists of: Kathleen Begala, Chair; Ellen McCourt, Chair Emeritus; Tom Cashin; John DellaNoce; Eoin Duane; John Duane; Clementina Santi Flaherty; John Gardiner; Edward Greene; Michael Keogh; Cornelius V. Kilbane, Jr., Treasurer; Simon Lorne, Secretary; Charlotte Moore; Colleen Murphy; Brendan O’Reilly; Ciarán O’Reilly; Anna V. Smith, and Nancy Woodruff. The staff has also been instrumental in the company’s smooth running and expansion. The current staff includes Lisa Fane, General Manager; Kate Mandracchia, Company Manager; Nicola Murphy, Director of

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Audience and Play Development; Tina Tannenbaum, Audience Services Manager; Josh Allen, Production Manager; Marissa Crowe, Associate Production Manager/Technical Director; Jason Brubaker, Production and Venue Coordinator; Dan Bass, Wardrobe Supervisor; Emilia SmartDenson, Development Manager; Anna Collins, Development Assistant; Muireann Lalor, Director of Marketing; and Samantha Seaman, Digital Media and Marketing Manager. John Keating, who has acted in and directed numerous Irish Rep plays, including playing Jim in The Weir in 2013, has commented on the encouraging environment that Moore, O’Reilly and the entire company provide, “From day one [of rehearsals], there is a great freedom to explore characterization; to explore the context of where the play is set, and to do it in the best way that it will be received in this particular space.”14 Keating also points out that the Irish Rep has firmly established itself in the neighborhood of Chelsea, noting, “They’ve made this their theatre in this part of town.”15 Actress Meg Hennessy (The Shadow of a Gunman, Juno and the Paycock and The Plough and the Stars , all in 2019) concurs: I find that each day working for the Rep is better than the last. The atmosphere in the theatre is that of teamwork and serendipity and Charlotte and Ciarán have cultivated it so beautifully and with great care. I really feel as though I am a part of a very skilled, creative and welcoming family and am exceedingly grateful to be working with them.16

Examples of the Irish Rep’s commitment to give back to their surrounding community include numerous benefit performances, such as raising money for firefighters immediately following 9/11; a concert benefit performance for the families of the victims of the Tsunami disaster in Asia in 2005, with Frank McCourt serving as Master of Ceremonies; and theatrical memorials for Seamus Heaney in 2013 and Brian Friel in 2015.17 And the company continually gives back through its many economic contributions to its neighborhood; in 2011, it estimated that its economic impact on the neighborhood of Chelsea exceeded $4.2 Million, while emphasizing that the company has created 120 full-time jobs.18 The Irish Rep also touted its “ability to leverage event-related spending by audiences to benefit local merchants.”19 The Irish Rep’s annual budget in its first year of operations in 1988 was $198,000. Thirteen years later, in 2001, the budget was $1.5 Million.20 In 2014, the budget was $2.5 Million.21 In 2022, their annual budget was approximately $4.5 Million, which places the company among the mid-size budgets of Off-Broadway companies.22

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Another telling example of the company’s steady community support comes from composer and lyricist Stephen Sondheim, whose sudden death in late 2021 at age 91 united the theatre world in grief, admiration, and remembrances, in honor of what Bruce Weber calls Sondheim’s “relentlessly innovative theatrical force.”23 After Sondheim’s death, the Irish Rep was surprised to learn that they had been named in Sondheim’s will. Joe Westerfield notes the prestige that comes with such an honor, which “has burnished the company’s reputation as much as it will its coffers.”24 After hearing the news of Sondheim’s generosity, O’Reilly said, “We figured we’ve already won, just to be included. It’s a bit like just to get nominated [for an award] was enough.”25 O’Reilly explained that the link between the Irish Rep and Sondheim goes back to Moore’s beginning years in the 1970s as an actor in New York City, and especially her tearful audition for Sondheim’s A Little Night Music in 1971, after which she formed a close friendship with Sondheim and director Harold “Hal” Prince. O’Reilly related that after Sondheim and Moore met in 1971, they “remained friends. He [Sondheim] would show up unannounced at plays, obviously a fan of Irish Rep’s work.”26 In July 2023, O’Reilly said that he and Moore still did not know the amount of the gift Sondheim left their company, but they had learned that the Irish Rep is the only theatre company Sondheim named in his will.27 Cultivating friendships, whether brand new or long-established, is another key to the Irish Rep’s ongoing achievements. A third substantive reason for the Irish Rep’s staying power began in 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic, when the company led the way in bringing theatre to a global audience, by partnering with The League of Live Stream Theater, to stream many of their productions, enabling audiences to watch Irish Rep productions from almost anywhere in the world. Even after reopening its doors following the worst of the COVID19 pandemic in October 2021, it continues to livestream several shows a year. As an example, in April 2023, they livestreamed four performances of their “sly, vivid and pulsingly alive” production of Samuel Beckett’s Endgame, directed by O’Reilly, and starring John Douglas Thompson as Hamm and Bill Irwin as Clov.28 A promising area of growth lies in their renewed commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion, both on stage and off. In addition to the Irish Rep’s 2022–2023 partnership with Fishamble Theatre Company in Dublin, designed to commission short plays by four Irish playwrights of color (Felispeaks, also known as Felicia Olusanya, Kwaku Fortune, Jade Jordan, and CN Smith), another initiative that has improved the

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company’s offering of diverse works was initially termed the “New Works Reading Series” when it began in their 21st Season, in 2008–2009; in recent years it has expanded into their “New Play Development Program.”29 This program includes “table reads, staged readings, workshops and commissions from voices that fulfill Irish Rep’s mission and tell stories of Irish and Irish-American people of all races, genders, abilities, and orientations.”30 This opportunity enables playwrights “to further develop their work,” while also helping the Irish Rep “to discover new plays and musicals for future production.”31 Some examples from 2022 include staged readings of The Love Parts , by Derek Murphy; The Dark Things , by Ursula Rani Sarma; Hecuba, by Marina Carr; and Lally The Scut , by Abbie Spallen, as well as a workshop of Darren Donohue’s I and The Village.32 A further important step forward in their commitment to diversity was the company’s June 2023 New Works Summer Festival, with its “spotlighting LGBTQ + voices” theme in honor of Pride month, explored through staged readings of Drip Feed, by Karen Cogan; ERIS, by John King; Once Before I Go, by Phillip McMahon; Irishtown, by Ciara Elizabeth Smyth, and Motherland, by May Treuhaft-Ali.33 Thanks to these and future initiatives that promote works by women, people of color, people of all abilities, non-binary, and LGBTQIA+ individuals, the Irish Rep is encouraging us to listen to what Eileen Kearney and Charlotte Headrick term, “voices that have been silenced by being marginalized.”34 The Irish Rep has great potential to become a twenty-first-century leader in promoting and celebrating diversity in the Off-Broadway community. In 2020, Jeryl Brunner asked the co-founders, “Why do you think for 31 years the Irish Rep has stayed such a force in theatre?” Moore replied, “we’re very passionate about what we do,” and O’Reilly added, We love our company … and they come back over and over again … we know what they’re capable of … there’s a joy to coming to work. And I think that joy comes across the footlights and goes into the audience … that’s something that’s undefinable, but it’s there.35

Brunner also asked Moore and O’Reilly, “What is your dream of the Irish Rep?” O’Reilly answered, “That it’s sustained … and that it extends well beyond our time,” while Moore noted, “I’d like more people to see our productions … take them around to other places and other cities … I love what we’re doing, and I want to do more of it. And like Ciarán,

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I want it to go on.”36 Moore’s wish to take their productions to more places and people has already come true, at least from a virtual standpoint, thanks to their streaming ventures. O’Reilly and Moore’s palpable enthusiasm for ensuring their company’s future illustrates their unwavering commitment to the continuation of the Irish Rep (see Fig. 9.1).

Fig. 9.1 Irish Repertory Theatre Artistic Director Charlotte Moore and Producing Director Ciarán O’Reilly, July 2023, at the Irish Rep, in front of one of Stephen Sondheim’s pianos (Photo by the author)

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O’Reilly perhaps found the kernel of the Irish Rep’s staying power and the opportunities that lie ahead when he reflected, “We have found, and we found it in our first season, that there is a need, that there is a void in this city without a full-time Irish theatre company going on … and we intend to fulfill that need for as long as people walk through those doors.”37 In October 2023, the Irish Rep opened their 35th Season with Translations , directed by Doug Hughes, the first play in their Friel Project, which also includes Aristocrats and Philadelphia, Here I Come! Naveen Kumar’s astute review of Translations describes the production as making “a rigorous case not only for Brian Friel’s pre-eminence as an interpreter of Irish national identity but for the vitality of art in deciphering life.”38 For thirty-five years, the Irish Rep has led the way as one of New York City’s most innovative theatrical interpreters of Irish and Irish American identity and community, by giving audiences from around the world a meeting place known as the Irish Repertory Theatre Company. Fáilte!

Notes 1. O’Reilly, Ciarán. Final Chapters. Email to the author, 10 July. 2023. 2. Ibid. 3. Brunner, Jeryl. 2020. When Lightning Strikes! Podcast. #10: Charlotte Moore and Ciarán O’Reilly (Irish Repertory Theatre), 19 May. https://broadwaypodcastnetwork.com/when-lightningstrikes/10-charlotte-moore-and-ciaran-oreilly-irish-repertory-the atre/. Accessed 21 June 2021. 4. Horwitz, Simi. 2001. Re-paving The Streets of New York. Backstage, 21 December: 39. Clipping files, New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, Billy Rose Theatre Division. T-CLIP Moore, Charlotte [actress]. 5. Ibid. 6. Ibid. 7. Ridel, Michael. 2015. League of Professional Theatre Women, Interview with Charlotte Jean Montigue Moore, Artistic Director. Video recording. New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, Billy Rose Theatre Division, Performing Arts Research Collections, Theatre on Film and Tape Archive. Accessed 1 June 2017.

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8. Paulson, Michael. 2023. Theater in America is Facing a Crisis as Many Stages Go Dark. The New York Times, 24 July: A1; A16. Quoted on A1. Collins-Hughes, Laura. 2023. Two Strong Stories, During Theater’s Tough Times. The New York Times, 26 July: C2. Author’s own collection. 9. Ibid. Quoted on A16. 10. McCourt, Frank. 2006. Irish Repertory Theatre Program for their 13th Annual Benefit, A Cabaret of Stars, 5 June. Tamiment Library and Robert F. Wagner Labor Archives. Irish Repertory Theatre Records. AIA 080 Box 11, Folder 9. 11. Irish Repertory Theatre. 2023. Membership. https://irishrep.org/ membership/. Accessed 24 May 2023. 12. O’Reilly, Ciarán. Final Chapters. Email to the author, 10 July. 2023. 13. Ibid. 14. Irish Repertory Theatre. 2023. About Irish Rep. https://irishrep. org/about/. Accessed 25 May 2023. 15. Ibid. 16. Fierberg, Ruthie. 2019. 15 Actors Remember the Most Impactful Moments at Irish Rep. Playbill, 19 March. https://playbill.com/ article/15-actors-remember-the-most-impactful-moments-at-iri sh-rep. Accessed 17 July 2023. 17. Irish Repertory Theatre. 2005. A Concert for Concern: A Benefit for the Victims of the Tsunami Disaster in Asia, with MC Frank McCourt . Tamiment Library and Robert F. Wagner Labor Archives. Irish Repertory Theatre Records. AIA 080 Box 10, Folder 24. 18. Irish Repertory Theatre. 2011. Campaign for a Permanent Home: Renovation Plans. Tamiment Library and Robert F. Wagner Labor Archives. Irish Repertory Theatre Records. AIA 080 Box 26, Folder 7. 19. Ibid. 20. Liv, Wei Ming. Compiler. 2008. A History of The Irish Repertory Theatre. Irish Repertory Theatre 20th Anniversary Gala Program, 9 June. Tamiment Library and Robert F. Wagner Labor Archives. Irish Repertory Theatre Records. AIA 080 Box 11, Folder 22. 21. Irish Repertory Theatre. 2014. Program for the 26th Annual Gala: The Spectacular Songs of Lerner and Lowe, 9 June. Tamiment

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22.

23.

24.

25. 26. 27.

28.

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Library and Robert F. Wagner Labor Archives. Irish Repertory Theatre Records. AIA 080 Box 13, Folder 26. Pro Publica, Non-Profit Explora. 2022. The Irish Repertory Theatre Company, Inc. Full Text of Full Filing for Fiscal Year Ending July 2022. https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/ organizations/133531713/202341099349301029/full. Accessed 23 June 2023. Paulson, Michael. 2023. Barry Grove to Depart Manhattan Theater Club After 48 Years. The New York Times, 11 January. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/11/theater/barrygrove-mtc.html. Accessed 14 June 2023. As a comparison to the Irish Rep, the Manhattan Theater Company’s annual budget in 2023 was $27 Million, and the Public Theater’s annual budget in 2024 is roughly $50 Million. Paulson, Michael. 2023. Public Theater Trims Its Staff. The New York Times, 15 July. Author’s own collection. O’Reilly, Ciarán. Final Chapters. Email to the author. 10 July 2023. Weber, Bruce. 2021. Virtuoso Who Reshaped the Broadway Musical. New York Times, 27 November: A1, A16 and A17. Quoted on A1. Author’s own collection. Westerfield, Joe. 2022. Ciarán O’Reilly Reflects on Irish Rep, the Pandemic and Stephen Sondheim. Newsweek, 29 March. https:// www.newsweek.com/ciaran-oreilly-reflects-irish-rep-pandemic-ste phen-sondheim-1692715. Accessed 1 June 2023. Ibid. Ibid. Moore, Charlotte and Ciarán O’Reilly. Artistic Director and Producing Director of the Irish Repertory Theatre. Interview by the author. The Irish Repertory Theatre, 1 July. 2023. Transcript. Collins-Hughes, Laura. 2023. A Wink and a Nod, and a Bit of Trash Talk. The New York Times, 3 February: C4. Irish Repertory Theatre. 2023. Postcard for Endgame Live Stream. April. Author’s own collection. Putnam, Leah. 2022. Irish Playwrights of Color Commissioned by Irish Rep. https://playbill.com/article/how-irish-rep-becameone-of-off-broadways-most-successful-companies. Accessed 18 July 2023.

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30. Irish Repertory Theatre. 2023. New Play Development Program. https://irishrep.org/event/2021-2022-season/new-play-develo pment-series/. Accessed 24 May 2023. 31. Ibid. 32. Ibid. 33. Moore, Charlotte. 2015. League of Professional Theatre Women presents: Oral History: Charlotte Moore Interviewed by Michael http://archive.theatrewomen.org/event/oral-history/. Riedel. Accessed 25 May 2023. 34. Kearney, Eileen and Charlotte Headrick, eds. 2014. Irish Women Dramatists, 1908–2001, 24. Syracuse: Syracuse UP. 35. Brunner, Jeryl. 2020. 36. Ibid. 37. The Irish Repertory Theatre. 2016. About the Irish Rep. Theatre Development Fund. The Irish Repertory Theatre (a Meet the Theatre Film). https://irishrep.org/about/. Accessed 23 May 2023. 38. Kumar, Naveen. 2023. Exploring What Is Lost When a Language Dies. The New York Times, 13 December: C2. Author’s own collection.

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Index

A Abbey Theater. See Abbey Theatre Abbey Theatre, 42, 44, 54, 86, 89 Accorso, Philip, 95 Actors Playhouse, 29 Act Without Words , 44 Adler, Stella, 23 A Girl is a Half-formed Thing , 128, 137 Ahmanson Theatre, 22, 24 Airswimming , 125, 130, 139, 141 Albee, Edward, 22 Alda, Alan, 113 A Little Night Music, 23, 24, 59, 151 Allen, Josh, 150 All That Jazz, 83 A Lovely Sunday for Creve Coeur, 26 American Method, 23 American Spoleto Festival, 22 American Theatre Wing. See Tony Awards A Mind-Bending Evening of Beckett , 44 Anna Christie, 114

annual budget, 150, 156 An Taibhdhearc Gaillimhe, 90 Antoinette Perry. See Tony Awards Aristocrats , 133, 142, 154 Aron, Geraldine, 67, 69 Asolo Repertory Theatre, 22, 23 Astaire, Fred, 110 Atlantic Theatre Company, 9 A Touch of the Poet , 30, 114 Australia, 139 Autumn Royal , 128, 137 A Whistle in the Dark, 38, 41, 42, 49, 50, 67, 75, 79 A Wilde Night on Broadway, 69 B Bacall, Lauren, 109 Baer, Cynthia, 24 Baldwin, Kate, 114 Barrow Street Theatricals, 10, 18 Barry, Kevin, 128, 137 Baryshnikov Arts Center, 11, 19 Bass, Dan, 150 Beckett, Samuel, 151

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2024 M. Szasz, Irish Repertory Theatre, New Directions in Irish and Irish American Literature, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-53545-1

163

164

INDEX

Begala, Kathleen, 149 Belfast Girls , 128, 137, 139, 140, 144 Berchild, Christopher L., 11, 140 Bernstein, Leonard, 59 Beyond the Horizon, 114 Binger, James H., 106 Blane, Ralph, 26 Bloody Sunday, 130 Bloomberg, Michael, 106 Blythe Spirit , 22 Board of Directors, 149 Booth, Shirley, 22 Bosie, 129 Boublil, Alain, 92 Boucicault, Dion, 96 Brand, Phoebe, 23 Breath, 44 Brigadoon, 104, 110 British Empire, 139 Broadway, 23–27, 29–31, 34, 37, 44, 46, 55, 56, 59–61, 66, 129, 130, 132, 133, 135–137, 143–145 Broderick, Matthew, 113, 134, 143 Brogan, Patricia Burke, 12, 81, 86–88, 130, 139 Brown, Arvin, 42 Brubaker, Jason, 150 Brydon, W.B., 46, 73, 86 Buggy, Niall, 58, 89, 90, 100 Burke, Louis, 26 Burke, Redmond, 68 Burrows, Abe, 25 Burton, Richard, 25 By the Bog of Cats , 134

C Cabaret , 59 Candida, 26, 84 Candide, 59, 61 Cape Playhouse, 22 Carlyle, Warren, 114

Carnovsky, Morris, 23 Carolan, Stuart, 28 Carousel , 23 Carr, Marina, 12, 14, 127, 128, 134, 143, 152 Carter, Billy, 134 Cashin, Tom, 149 CelticMKE, 5 Celtic Tiger, 131 Chekhov, Anton, 22 Chemin de Fer, 25, 34 Cherry Lane Theatre Company, 7 Circle in the Square Theatre, 6 Clarence Derwent Award, 62, 89 Classic Stage Company, 7, 17 Clurman, Harold, 23 Cogan, Karen, 152 Cogan, Michael, 44 Cohan, George M., 24, 93 Coleman, Tony, 86 Colin, Margaret, 108 Collins, Anna, 150 Co-Motion Theatre Company, 74, 140 Company, 59 Concept Musical, 59 Congreve, William, 25 Corrib Theatre Company, 4 County Cavan, 27 County Wexford, 21, 27 COVID-19, 11, 13 COVID-19 pandemic, 136, 148, 151 Coward, Noël, 22, 25 Croft, Paddy, 38, 46, 86 Crowe, Marissa, 150 Crystal and Fox, 133

D Da, 67, 75, 79 Dáil Éireann, 88 Danaher, Deirdre, 41

INDEX

Dancing at Lughnasa, 56, 61, 63, 64, 125, 130, 132, 133, 142 David Cohen Prize for Literature, 108 Dead Funny, 89 Death of a Salesman, 83 Defender of the Faith, 28 Delacorte Theatre, 26 DellaNoce, John, 149 de Mille, Agnes, 110 Derelian, Greg, 116 Derry/Londonderry, 55 Deutsch, Alvin, 112 de Valera, Éamon, 28 Devine, Melissa, 40 digital shows, 137 Diner, Hasia R., 2, 41 Disco Pigs , 12 diversity, equity and inclusion, 138, 151 Dmitriev, Alex, 128 DonJuan, 24 Donnelly, Donal, 45, 81, 84 Donnelly, Terry, 86, 92 Donohue, Darren, 152 Douglas, Lord Alfred. See Bosie Dowling, Joe, 37 Drama Desk, 83, 84, 89 Drama Desk Award, 1, 62, 113, 114 Drama League Award, 96, 112 Drip Feed, 152 Druid Theatre Company, 69 Duane, Eoin, 149 Duane, John, 149 Dublin Carol , 127, 129 Dublin Theatre Festival, 44, 57, 73, 75 Dunaway, Faye, 26 Durning, Charles, 57 Dürrenmatt, Friedrich, 25 Dwan, Lisa, 134

165

E Earl Grey Scheme or Famine Orphan Scheme, 139 Ebb, Fred, 59 Eclipsed, 12, 81, 86–90, 98, 99, 108, 130, 139 Edinburgh Festival Fringe First award, 88 Edwards, Hilton, 90 Eighteenth St. Playhouse, 37, 67 Elliott, David, 73 Emperor Jones , 30, 104, 109, 114–117, 122, 148 Endgame, 44, 151, 156 Endwords , 37, 44 English That For Me!, 37, 44 environmental theatre, 61 ERIS, 152 Errico, Melissa, 84, 112, 113 Essen, Jennifer, 31 Evita, 59 E.Y. “Yip” Harburg. See Harburg, E.Y.

F Faith Healer, 129, 133 Fallen Angel Theatre Company, 10, 19, 130 Fane, Lisa, 149 Farrell, Bernard, 37, 38 Felispeaks (Felicia Olusanya), 139, 151 Ferber, Edna, 59 Feydeau, Georges, 25 Field Day Theatre Company, 55, 63 Fierberg, Ruthie, 37 Fine, Rosemary, 86 Finian’s Rainbow, 41, 82, 91, 103, 108–115, 120–122 Fishamble, 138–140, 144 Fishamble Theatre Company, 151

166

INDEX

Fitzgerald, Christopher, 114 Fitzgerald, Patrick, 41, 43, 46, 54, 61, 62 Flanagan, Pauline, 41, 46, 47, 61, 73 Floyd, George, 138 Follies , 23, 24, 59 For Love, 125, 130 Fortune, Kwaku, 139, 151 Fosse, Bob, 83 Francis J. Greenburger Mainstage, 106 Franco, Robert J., 83 Frank Pig Says Hello, 67, 73, 78, 79, 140 Frawley, Bernard, 41 Freedman, Gerald, 57 Freud, Sigmund, 93 Friel, Brian, 12, 28, 29, 44, 53, 55, 63, 89, 103–105, 107, 125–127, 129, 132, 133, 142, 150 Friends in Theater Company, 95, 101

G Gaelic Park Players, 4, 15 Gardiner, John, 149 Gaslight , 104, 105, 119 Gate Theatre, 37, 44, 56, 73, 129 Gets, Malcolm, 112 Gilbert, W.S., 111 Giuliani, Rudolph, 95 Give Me Your Answer, Do!, 133 Going, John, 129 Goodman, Dody, 22 Gorry, David, 74 Grandchild of Kings , 12, 24, 53, 57, 58, 60–62, 64, 65, 84, 116 Gray, Pamela J., 135 Great Famine, 139 Green, Bob, 92 Greene, Edward, 149 Gregory, Lady Augusta, 54

Grene, Nicholas, 2, 11, 14 Group Theatre, 23 Gurney, A.R., 26 Guys and Dolls , 25, 83

H Hack, Keith, 26 Hagen, Uta, 23 Hairy Ape, 30, 104, 108, 114–116, 122, 123, 148 Hammerstein II, Oscar, 59, 109 Harburg, Ernie, 110, 111, 120 Harburg, E.Y., 91, 108–112, 120, 121 Harrington, John P., 2, 11, 19 Harris, Julie, 57 Hartford Stage, 22, 23 Headrick, Charlotte, 85, 98, 152, 157 Heaney, Seamus, 84, 126, 131, 141, 150 Hecuba, 152 Hellman, Lillian, 59 Hennessy, Meg, 150 Hepburn, Katharine, 40 Hickey, Neil, 22 Higgins, Maeve, 137 Higgins, Michael D., 2 High Society, 24 Hogan, Jonathan, 129 Houseman, John, 23 House of Blue Leaves , 83 How the Irish Saved Civilization: A Benefit for the Irish Repertory Theatre. See The Irish ... and How They Got That Way Hudson Guild Theatre, 26, 27, 30, 34, 37 Hughes, Doug, 133 Hughes, Geraldine, 128, 129, 133 Hynes, Garry, 69

INDEX

I I and The Village, 152 I Do Not Like Thee, Doctor Fell , 38, 48 Inis Nua, 4, 16 Into the Woods , 24 Invisible Man, 148 Irish America, 21, 22, 27, 29, 31, 33, 35 Irish America Hall of Fame, 1, 5, 21 Irish American Heritage Center, 5, 16 Irish American Theatre Company of Cincinnati, 4, 15 Irish American Writers and Artists Eugene O’Neill Lifetime Achievement Award, 27 Irish ancestry, 41, 45 Irish Arts Center, 5, 16, 28, 29, 36 Irish Classical Theatre Company, 4, 15, 44 Irish Heritage Theatre Company, 4 Irish, Irish American or Celtic theatre company, 1 Irish Rep, 2, 3, 6, 7, 11–13, 15, 18, 19, 23, 25, 27–31, 33, 34, 36, 38–48, 50, 51, 54–59, 61–63, 67–70, 72–78, 83–93, 95–98, 100, 101, 105–110, 112–121, 127, 128, 130, 131, 133–145, 147–152, 154–157 Irish Repertory Theatre, 34–36, 48–51, 156. See also Irish Rep Irish Repertory Theatre Company, 18. See also Irish Rep Irish Times Theatre Award, 89 Irishtown, 152 Irwin, Bill, 44, 151 J Joe A. Callaway Award, 113, 117 Johnson, Terry, 89 Johnston, Jennifer, 81, 85, 148

167

Jones, Charlotte, 125, 130, 139 Jones, David, 108 Jordan, Jade, 139, 151 Jordon, Neil, 140 Joyce, James, 126–128, 136 Jujamcyn Theaters, 106, 107, 120 Juno and the Paycock, 48, 58, 67, 71, 77, 78, 150 K Kander, John, 59 Kane, Donna, 92 Kasarda, John, 83 Kearney, Eileen, 85, 152 Keating, John, 130, 133, 134, 137, 150 Kelly, Eamon, 37, 44 Kennedy Center, 22 Kenny, Edna, 132 Kenny, Paula, 41 Keogh, Des, 129 Keogh, Michael, 149 Kern, Jerome, 59, 109 Kerr, E. Katherine, 27 Kiberd, Declan, 56 Kidd, Michael, 110 Kilbane, Jr. Cornelius V., 149 Kilroy, Thomas, 83, 125, 129 Kinahan, Deirdre, 12 King, John, 152 Kiss of the Spider Woman, 59 Knox, Janet, 149 Kopit, Arthur, 24 Krapp’s Last Tape, 44 Kumar, Naveen, 154 L Lally The Scut , 152 Lalor, Muireann, 150 Lamb, Peadar, 117, 132 Landesman, Rocco, 106

168

INDEX

Lane, Burton, 41, 103, 108, 113, 121 Lapine, James, 24 Lee, Eugene, 61, 62 Leonard, Hugh, 22, 27, 30, 33, 37, 53, 56, 67, 75 lesbian, 139 Les Misérables , 92 Leventaki, Aida, 139 LGBTQIA+, 152 LGBTQIA+ community, 3 Liffey Players Drama Society, 3 Lincoln Center, 57 Lincoln Center Theater, 7 Little Gem, 127, 128, 135 Little Johnny Jones , 93 Little, Stuart W., 6 Living Quarters , 133 Lloyd Webber, Andrew, 59 Loesser, Frank, 25 Lonergan, Patrick, 2 Long Day’s Journey Into Night , 30, 31, 114 Long Wharf Theatre, 22, 27, 42 Lorne, Simon, 149 Love for Love, 25 Lovers: Winners & Losers , 133 Lucille Lortel Award, 1, 113 Lynch, Martin, 29

M MacLaine, Shirley, 24 MacLiammóir, Micheál, 82, 83, 89, 90 Magdalene Laundries, 86, 108 Magee, Rusty, 92 Magic Theatre, 108 Major Barbara, 81, 84 Making History, 29, 36, 53, 55, 56, 61, 63, 64, 133 Maloney, Kristin, 96 Mandracchia, Kate, 149

Manhattan Theater Company, 8, 18 Marble, 134 Mark Taper Forum, 22 Martin, Hugh, 26 Martyn, Edward, 54 Matalon, Vivian, 25, 30 McBride, Eimear, 128, 137 McCabe, Pat, 73, 137 McCann, Colum, 127, 128, 131, 135 McCarrick, Jaki, 128, 137 McCourt, Ellen, 149 McCourt, Frank, 13, 41, 46, 81, 82, 90, 92, 96, 101, 149, 150, 155 McCullers, Carson, 25 McKay, Gardner, 37 McLucas, Scott, 68, 69, 73, 77 McMahon, Phillip, 152 McMartin, John, 23, 24 McNally, Terence, 59 McPherson, Conor, 89, 125–128, 133 Meet Me in St. Louis , 26, 35 Meiksins, Rob, 7 Meisner, Sanford, 23 Mercury Theater, 42 Meth, Max, 110 Meyers, Jud, 73 Miller, Scott, 59 Mint Theatre Company, 10, 18 Molière, 24 Molly Sweeney, 125, 127, 129, 133, 136, 141, 142 Moloney, Aedín, 86, 127, 128, 131, 135 Montel, Michael, 23 Moore, Charlotte, 1–3, 12, 14, 21–27, 29–31, 33, 35–38, 40–43, 49, 56–61, 63, 64, 69, 70, 72, 73, 75–79, 82, 83, 86, 87, 89, 91, 92, 95–97, 99, 101, 103, 104, 106, 108–110, 112–114, 120, 121, 126–131,

INDEX

133, 141–143, 147–152, 154, 156, 157 Morash, Chris, 2, 11, 14 Morning’s at Seven, 25, 30 Morrison, Craig, 68, 69 Moss Hart Memorial Theatre Award, 88 Motherland, 152 Mourning in a Funny Hat , 22 Moyles, Padraic, 61 Muldoon, Asher, 75, 128, 137, 145 Muldoon, Paul, 126, 127, 131, 133 Murphy, Colleen, 149 Murphy, Derek, 152 Murphy, Elaine, 127, 128, 135 Murphy, Nicola, 137, 139, 149 Murphy, Tom, 12, 38, 41, 67, 75 Murray, Brian, 22, 30, 56, 75, 114 Murray, Christopher, 56 My Astonishing Self , 81, 84, 85, 98 My Scandalous Life, 83, 125, 129, 139, 141

N Nabokov, Vladimir, 22 Nason, Brian, 116 National Endowment for the Arts, 1 National Irish Language Theatre of Ireland. See An Taibhdhearc Gaillimhe National Theatre Network, 136, 144 New Federal Theatre, 9, 18 New Phoenix Repertory, 23 New Play Development Program, 152, 157 New Works Summer Festival, 152 New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, 1 New York Shakespeare Festival, 26 New York State Council on the Arts, 1

169

New York Theatre Workshop, 9, 18 9/11, 95, 96, 101 Nobel Prize in Literature, 108 Northern Ireland, 55 Norton, Jim, 114 O Obie Award, 89, 134, 139 O’Brien, Edna, 103, 107 O’Bryne, Joe, 74, 82, 83 O’Casey, Sean, 12, 24, 37, 58, 67, 71, 72, 81, 84, 89, 147 O’Casey, Shivaun, 58, 81, 89 O’Ceallaigh, Daithi, 43, 50 O’Donnell, Rosie, 91 Off-Broadway, 1, 6–9, 11, 16, 24, 30, 37, 41, 42, 48, 51, 136 O’Flaherty, V.C., 29 O’Keefe, John, 67, 73 Old Museum Arts Centre, 74 Olivier Award, 56, 89 Olney Theatre, 22 OnBeckett , 44 Once Before I Go, 152 O’Neill, Chris, 37, 61 O’Neill Credo Award, 117 O’Neill, Eugene, 104, 107, 109, 114, 115, 117, 122, 123, 148 O’Neill, Heather, 86 O’Neill, Vincent, 44 O’Reilly, 1–3, 12, 14, 21, 23, 27–33, 35, 37, 38, 40–44, 46, 47, 49–51, 54, 56–59, 63, 68, 69, 72, 75–79, 86, 92, 95, 100, 103, 105, 106, 109, 113, 114, 116, 117, 121, 122, 127, 129–131, 133, 135, 137, 140, 144, 147–152, 154–156 O’Reilly, Brendan, 149 O’Reilly, Ciarán, 14, 33–36, 156. See also O’Reilly O’Reilly, Patrick, 27, 28

170

INDEX

Origin 1st Irish Theatre Festival, 130 Origin Theatre Company, 10, 18 Orlandersmith, Dael, 139 Osborn, Paul, 25 Our Town, 45 Outer Critics Circle Award, 62 Outer Critic’s Special Achievement Circle Award, 1

P Pacific Overtures , 59 Papp, Joseph, 41, 49 Parker, Sarah Jessica, 113 Pataki, George, 95 Peacock Theatre, 44 Pentagon, 94 Philadelphia, Here I Come!, 12, 29, 37, 44, 50, 103, 104, 119, 129, 133, 142, 154 Pickup, Rachel, 131 PICT Classic Theatre, 5 Pierstorff, Erik, 44 Pinter, Harold, 22 Pippen, 83 Play, 44, 45, 51 Playhouse in the Park, 23, 26 Playwrights Horizons, 9, 18, 26 Plymouth Theatre, 56 Poinciana Playhouse, 30 Port Authority, 126, 129 Porter, Cole, 24 Porter, Stephen, 23 Portia Coughlan, 134 Potter, Madeline, 43, 54, 69 Presidential Distinguished Service Award for Irish Abroad, 2 Prince, Harold (Hal Prince), 12, 53, 57, 59–62, 64, 65, 105, 151 Private Lives , 25, 35 Provincetown Players, 114 Public Theater, 41

Punchbag Theatre Company, 88 Pygmalion, 57 R Rea, Stephen, 55, 132 Redmond, Amy, 86 Repertorio Español, 8, 11, 18 Richenthal, David, 113, 114 Rich, Frank, 51 Rideout, Leenya, 127, 135 Rideout, Lynn, 135 Riedel, Michael, 59 Riverdance Company, 91 Robinson, Mary, 71 Rocks, Sean, 74 Rodgers and Hammerstein, 23 Rohan, Brian, 40 Rolfsrud, Erika, 86 Rollins, Ronald Gene, 71 Rosenberg, Philip, 83 Roth Haberle, Stephanie, 135 Roth, Jordon, 106 Roundabout Theatre Company, 8, 17, 129 Royal Court Theatre, 74 Ruddy, Tim, 130 Russell, James, 134 S Saidy, Fred, 41, 103, 108, 120, 121 Same Old Moon, 67–71, 74, 76, 77 Samuel J. Friedman Theatre, 133 Santi Flaherty, Clementina, 149 Sarma, Ursula Rani, 152 Saturday Night Live, 61 Scenes from American Life, 27 Schill, Anton, 25 Schlöndorff, Volker, 83 School for Cooperative Technical Education, 68 Seaman, Samantha, 150

INDEX

Sea Marks , 37, 43 seanchaí, 44 Seattle Fringe Festival, 88 Seconds Out , 53 Second Stage Theater Company, 9 September 11, 2001. See 9/11 Sexton, Laoisa, 125, 126, 130, 134 Shadows on Our Skin, 85 Shaw, George Bernard, 26, 29, 57, 81, 82, 84 Sheedy, Ally, 108 Sheenan, Ciaran, 92 Sheridan, Jim, 29 Sheridan, Richard Brinsley, 24 Shimmer, 67, 73, 74, 78 Shining City, 126, 129, 133, 139, 143 Show Boat , 59, 109 Signature Theatre Company, 10, 18 Sihra, Melissa, 2, 134 Smart-Denson, Emilia, 150 Smith, Anna V., 149 Smith, C.N., 139, 151 Smyth, Ciara Elizabeth, 152 Soho Playhouse, 116, 117 Solas Nua, 6, 11, 16 Solodukho, Alexander, 57 Sondheim, Stephen, 23, 34, 59, 151, 156 Song at Sunset , 58, 64, 81, 84, 89, 90, 99 Spallen, Abbie, 152 Specksgoor, Carrie, 108 Spillane, Margaret, 45 stained glass windows, 118 Stanwick Building, 12, 43, 63, 67, 75, 82, 97, 104, 148 Sternhagen, Frances, 114 St. Nicholas , 125, 128 Strange, Caroline, 139 Strange, Christian, 140 Strange Interlude, 114

171

Strasburg, Lee, 23 Stratford, Connecticut, Shakespeare Festival, 22 streaming, 136 Súgán, 11, 15 Sullivan, Kitty, 41 Summer, 22, 27, 30, 37, 56 Summer and Smoke, 6 Sweeney Todd, 59, 61 Sweet Charity, 24 Swerling, Jo, 25 Synge, J.M., 29, 53, 54, 63

T TADA Theatre, 46 Tannenbaum, Tina, 150 Tara Players Theatre, 3, 14 Taylor, Elizabeth, 25 Teachout, Terry, 13 Teer, Gregory, 29 Theatre@Home, 136, 144 The Au Pair Man, 53, 56, 57, 64 The Burial at Thebes , 84 The Butcher Boy, 73, 75 The Celtic Connection, 5 The Celtic Connection, 16 The Communication Cord, 133 The Cordelia Dream, 128, 134 The Corn is Green, 30 The Country Girls , 107 The Dark Things , 152 The Devil’s Disciple, 84 The Emperor Jones . See Emperor Jones The Freedom of the City, 28, 29, 125, 130, 133, 142 The Friel Project, 133 The Glass Menagerie, 26, 31, 36, 45, 61 The Great God Brown, 24 The Hairy Ape. See Hairy Ape The Happy Prince, 81, 83

172

INDEX

The Homecoming , 22 The Home Place, 133 The Importance of Being Earnest , 23, 81, 82, 97 The Importance of Being Oscar, 82, 83, 89, 90, 100, 139 The Interrogation of Ambrose Fogarty, 29 The Invisible Man, 81, 85, 86, 98 The Irish … and How They Got That Way, 13, 41, 46, 81, 82, 90, 92–94, 96, 100, 104, 109, 113, 149 The League of Live Stream Theater, 151 The Love Parts , 152 The Mai, 134 The Member of the Wedding , 25 The Nightingale and Not the Lark, 81, 85, 86, 98, 148 The Perfect Party, 26 The Phantom of the Opera, 59 The Picture of Dorian Gray, 82, 83 The Playboy of the Western World, 29, 53–55, 63 The Plough and the Stars , 12, 25, 31, 33, 34, 58, 147, 150 The Poor of New York. See The Streets of New York The Public Theater, 8, 18 The Saviour, 12 The School for Scandal , 24 The Seafarer, 127, 129 The Seagull , 24 The Sean O’Casey Reading Series. See O’Casey, Sean The Shadow of a Gunman, 29, 40, 58, 150 The Streets of New York, 82, 96, 101 The Tavern, 24 The Tunnel , 29 The Visit , 25

The Waltz Invention, 22 The Weir, 89, 126, 127, 129, 141 The Wizard of Oz, 110, 120 Thompson, John Douglas, 151 Three Sisters , 22 TimeOut Award, 89 Tiny Alice, 22 Tír Na, 6, 16 Tony Awards, 24, 34, 45, 56, 75, 110 Toronto Irish Players, 3, 15 Translations , 129, 132, 133, 142, 154 Treuhaft-Ali, May, 152 Triptych, 103, 107, 108, 120

U Ulysses , 127, 128, 136, 143 Uncle Vanya, 89 Union Square, 126, 132

V Varèse Sarabande Records, 92 Verdon, Gwen, 24 Victor Theatre, 29 Vineyard Theatre Company, 9, 18 Voysey, Michael, 84

W Walker, Kathryn, 25 Walsh, Edna, 12 Walsh, Fiona, 86 Walton, Tony, 83, 97, 113 Washington University, 22, 23, 26 Wayne, David, 110 Weidner, Paul, 43 Wei Ming Liv, 68 Westport Country Playhouse, 113 Wheeler, Hugh, 23, 26, 59 Whistle in the Dark, 12 Wicked, 61 Wild Abandon, 127, 135, 143

INDEX

Wilde, Oscar, 23, 69, 81, 82, 89, 90, 129, 139 Wilder, Thornton, 45 William Butler Yeats Award, 31, 36 Williams, Emlyn, 30 Williamson, Zachary, 116 Williams, Tennessee, 6, 26, 31, 45, 61 Williamstown Summer Theatre Festival, 22 Woman and Scarecrow, 12, 127, 134, 135, 143 Wonderful Tennessee, 133 Wood, Gabe, 116 Woodruff, Nancy, 149 Woolman, Elizabeth L., 46 Worcester Forum Theatre, 88

173

World Trade Center, 94 Wynn, Keenan, 110

Y Yeats! A Celebration, 37, 38, 40, 41 Yeats, W.B., 29, 54 YES! Reflections of Molly Bloom, 127, 128, 135 Yip Harburg Foundation, 110, 120 York Theatre Company, 8, 18 Young Irish Playwrights, 53

Z Zobel, Frederick Charles, 68