Running from Tuesday, 30th September – Saturday, 1st November, and open between 9am and 4pm, visitors to the pop-up can browse and purchase a broad selection of new and classic plays, curated by an editor on Faber’s Drama list; current season Abbey Theatre plays published by Faber; record their favourite memories from page and stage; and make recommendations to fellow theatre lovers.
Coinciding with the run of The Boy: A Two-Play Theatrical Experience, it will include the recently published ‘Marina Carr: Plays 4’, a collection of plays from one of Ireland’s most acclaimed living playwrights, including Audrey or Sorrow, iGirl, To the Lighthouse and Gilgamesh. Other current season Abbey plays available will include The Boy and The Cave, by Kevin Barry.
Shoppers can bag themselves a typographic series bookmark, which salutes the work of Marina Carr, Brian Friel and Frank McGuinness. Using specially designed recommendation cards, they can also share their own favourite plays, a line they’ll never forget, or the moment they fell in love with theatre.
Commenting, Literary & New Work Director at the Abbey Theatre, Ruth McGowan said: “When Faber’s new series of typographic covers launched with a dozen plays last year, it sparked a conversation about how many plays commissioned and premiered by the Abbey Theatre featured in Faber’s renowned drama catalogue. That conversation led to our happy partnership on this pop-up shop, celebrating the craft of playwriting and the joy of discovering new plays on the page as well as in performance.
“Our artform is defined by its liveness. Every performance is unrepeatable, every production a limited edition. It’s fitting in a year where the programme here at the Abbey Theatre features seven brand new plays that we spotlight the role publishing plays in the dissemination of new ideas and the evolution of a theatrical canon.”
Lily Levinson, Editor, Drama and Dinah Wood, Editorial Director at Faber added: “We were thrilled when the Abbey came to us with a partnership proposal. New writing is the lifeblood of both institutions and Faber Drama has been honoured to collaborate with the Abbey to publish many Irish plays from late greats such as Edna O’Brien and Brian Friel, to vivid contemporary voices like Kevin Barry and Sarah Hanly. A playscript helps to preserve something ephemeral, carrying a text into the future and enabling new and exciting imaginative encounters with it. For us as publishers, to partner with a theatre with such a storied history of wonderful productions feels just right. The plays in the pop-up shop are beauties on the page as well as the stage, and we can’t wait for visitors to see, read and start conversations about them.”
Faber Drama’s wider collection includes a broad selection of local and international new writing, with Irish playwrights and work that premiered at the Abbey Theatre during the last 100 years well represented throughout the collection.
The Faber Drama Pop-up runs from Tuesday, 30th September – Saturday, 1st November, and is open between 9am and 4pm. Titles start at €10.00.
Faber Drama will host its first international Script Club at the Abbey Theatre on Tuesday, 21st October at 5.30pm, discussing Seamus Heaney’s The Burial at Thebes over a drink. More details on this Faber Members event can be found here.
