What’s been happening in 2009… Celebrating Irish Playwrights
August and September were spent planning and preparing for our Brian Friel Celebration…
We asked Brian to choose three plays that he had always enjoyed or admired and committed to giving each of them a rehearsed reading on the Peacock stage over the course of a week. The plays were The Death and Resurrection of Mr. Roche by Thomas Kilroy, The Long Christmas Dinner by Thornton Wilder and The Dandy Dolls by George Fitzmaurice.
As well as giving us a fantastic insight into Friel’s influences, this was also a great chance for the Literary Department and the directors of the readings to do some in-depth exploration of these plays; two of which we were familiar with and one of which (the Wilder) had never been staged at the Abbey.
What better way to finish off a week’s challenging work than with a party? On Sunday, 13 September we presented A Tribute to Brian Friel on the Abbey stage; an evening of excerpts from Friel’s plays interspersed with music and song, directed by Patrick Mason. We reassembled the Mundy girls, asked Conor Linehan to provide the music and with the help of guest stars Sinead Cusack, Ciaran Hinds, John O’Connor, Seamus Heaney, Tom Kilroy, Cora Venus Lunny and Celine Byrne, we celebrated the evening in style.