Next Abbey programme to showcase seven new productions

A new play by Michael West called Conservatory and a domestic and international tour of Owen McCafferty’s award-winning play Quietly are among the highlights of the Abbey Theatre’s new programme for spring/summer 2014 announced today in Dublin.

Speaking at the launch in the Abbey Theatre, Abbey Director Fiach MacConghail pointed to seven new productions to be presented on the Abbey stage and the Peacock theatre, with two small touring productions bringing the theatre’s work to 20 venues in Ireland and abroad, and an accumulation of 311 performance over 213 days.

Conservatory is one of just two new plays to be staged this year by the Abbey, together with Ali White’s Me, Mollser, an educational piece inspired by Sean O’Casey’s Plough and the Stars, which will tour to eight regional venues and several schools throughout February. In an 11 venue national tour, the Northern Ireland-set drama Quietly will significantly make its first appearance in Belfast at the Lyic Theatre, before featuring in the German festival, Ruhrfestspiele, and taking a month-long residency in London’s Soho Theatre in late May.

In a programme otherwise heavy with classic revivals, John B Keane’s rural tragedy Sive begins the Abbey’s 110th season in February, followed by Shakespeare’s comedy of desire, cross-dressing and deception, Twelfth Night, a new production of Brian Friel’s Chekhovian family drama Aristocrats directed by his longtime collaborator Patrick Mason, and Bernard Shaw’s World War I play, Heartbreak House.

Referring to the Abbey’s 8 per cent funding cut, from €7.1m in 2013 to €6.5 for 2014, MacConghail admitted to making “tough decisions” - the Peacock space is programmed for just nine weeks so far - and called on the Government “to protect and increase financial support for the arts in Ireland. Theatre does enrich and empower peoples’ lives.”