Abbey Theatre to go dark until autumn after its next play ends

The Abbey Theatre will be dark in August, with no in-house productions between late July and the opening of its Dublin Theatre Festival shows, in late September.

In reply to queries this week, the Abbey confirmed that “our stages require upgrading work and critical maintenance in August, therefore during the period before Dublin Fringe and Dublin Theatre Festival we will be launching our new organisational strategy, and have a series of events for the public lined up which will be announced closer to the time”.

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This means that after the national theatre’s early-summer production of Elizabeth Kuti’s The Sugar Wife, which opens next week and runs until July 20th, with a cast of five that includes the Dry star Siobhán Cullen and the Olivier-winning Young Offenders actor Chris Walley, it will have no in-house productions until the autumn. There may be one-off events in August, and the Abbey is likely to host outside productions as part of Dublin Fringe Festival, in September. The theatre is expected to shortly announce two new in-house productions for Dublin Theatre Festival, which begins on September 26th.

Within theatre circles, the Abbey had been expected to produce The Boy, a new play by Marina Carr, for this year’s theatre festival. Although no dates were given, it had been included last November in the Abbey’s announcement of its Gregory Project, celebrating the legacy of the dramatist and folklorist Lady Gregory, who founded the theatre in 1904 with the poet WB Yeats. The Boy is a contemporary Irish interpretation of the Oedipus trilogy; with a very large cast, it is set to be an expensive production. Originally postponed by Covid, it is now expected to be further delayed.

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The gap between the Abbey’s summer and early-autumn plays appears longer than is usual at the theatre. There is some speculation that financial issues play a part in this scheduling decision.

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The summer show at the Gate, Dublin’s other main State-funded theatre, is a new production of Brian Friel’s Dancing at Lughnasa, which opens on July 17th and runs until September 21st. The play is strongly associated with the Abbey Theatre, where it premiered in 1990, going on to the West End and Broadway.

A long-delayed report on governance at the Abbey Theatre has still not been released or sent to the Arts Council. The council’s receipt of the report is believed to be a condition of the theatre’s €8 million in State funding this year, a percentage of which was held back pending the report.

The investigation dates to events in 2019-20, before the appointment of the Abbey’s current codirectors, in 2021. The economist Dr Frances Ruane has chaired the theatre since 2017; her term finishes at the end of next month.

The report, by the Crowe consultancy, is expected to explain the long and controversial handling of a human-resources investigation and the change of the Abbey’s codirectors, both of which led to payments to its former codirectors, as well as substantial associated legal costs. The total cost of the controversy is understood to have topped €1 million by last November.

In response to queries about the status or timing of the report, which it is believed may now have been completed, the Abbey said that it has no further update to make at this time.