Galway International Arts Festival is renowned for presenting and producing great theatre and this year it presents its biggest theatre and dance programme ever.
The line up includes, Colm Meaney’s return to the Irish stage after 40 years, on stage for the first time with his daughter Brenda Meaney, the biggest indoor show ever presented at the Festival with a company of 60 - The Pulse; DruidO’Casey directed by TONY Award winner Garry Hynes; a new ‘Room’ from Enda Walsh and Paul Fahy to explore, featuring the voice of Zara Devlin; Ulysses for Children (yes, for children), the epic that will be a hugely ambitious theatrical staging of Nobel Prize-winning author J.M. Coetzee novel adapted for the stage by South African director Lara Foot, new physical theatre merging mask, music and movement starring Raymond Keane, the return of Clare Barrett to Galway and a chance to see two truly great shows you may have missed on their first outings.
Once again the festival collaborates with Landmark Productions to present a major new revival of Enda Walsh’s savagely funny play Bedbound. This production will mark Colm Meaney’s return to the Irish stage after 40 years, this time performing alongside his daughter Brenda Meaney.
From Landmark Productions and Galway International Arts Festival running from 14-18, 20-23 & 25-29 July. Venue: Bailey Allen Hall, University of Galway.
Gravity & Other Myths astounded audiences in 2019 with daring acrobatic feats in Out of Chaos and now make a very welcome return to Galway with the biggest indoor show ever presented by GIAF, The Pulse, featuring a company of 60 performers including the 30 strong, all-female Orfeó Catalá Choir. The Pulse is a hugely ambitious and monumental work of scale that has wowed critics with five-star reviews at the Adelaide and Edinburgh festivals will take place in the spectacular new Festival Theatre at the Kingfisher at the University of Galway.
From Teaċ Daṁsa and Gate Theatre comes a chance to see the huge hit How to be a Dancer in Seventy-two Thousand Easy Lessons written and choreographed by Michael Keegan Dolan and directed by Rachael Poirier and Adam Silverman. This powerful coming of age work is both playful and provocative. 17–19 & 21-22 July. Venue: Black Box Theatre.
South Africa’s Baxter Theatre and Tony Award-winning Handspring Puppet Company present a hugely ambitious theatrical staging of Nobel Prize-winning author J.M. Coetzee’s novel, Life & Times of Michael K . This productions combines puppetry, performance, film and evocative music bringing together some of South Africa’s most revered, multi-award-winning artists. 25–30 July. Venue: Black Box Theatre.
Audiences will have a chance to experience O’Casey’s work as never before in the epic trilogy of The Plough and the Stars, The Shadow of a Gunman and Juno and the Paycock which will make up DruidO’Casey directed by Garry Hynes. 9 - 30 July. Venue: Town Hall Theatre.
Brú Theatre returns to the Festival with a new piece of physical theatre merging mask, music and movement Not a Word starring Raymond Keane. 17–22 July. Venue: Bank of Ireland Theatre, University of Galway.
There is a new ‘Room’ to explore. Cloakroom will be the tenth in the series of immersive theatre installations (Rooms) by Enda Walsh, created in collaboration with Paul Fahy. This time it’s 1972 and a young woman voiced by Zara Devlin works in the cloakroom in her local dancehall. Her lifelong search for real love is about to come to an end. 17–30 July. Venue: The Shed
Clare Barrett returns to Galway in Decadent and Galway Arts Centre’s Every Brilliant Thing, a new production of Duncan MacMillan’s worldwide smash hit play in which a child creates a list of things worth living for in an attempt to raise the spirits of their chronically depressed mother. 17–22 & 24-30 July. Previews 14 & 15 July. Venue: Nun’s Island Theatre.
Written by the acclaimed Marina Carr and directed by Andrew Flynn, Meat and Salt is a fairy tale based on King Lear from Galway Youth Theatre. 17–22 & 24-30 July. Venue: Nun’s Island Theatre.
Luke Murphy blurs the lines between theatre, dance and psychological sci-fi thriller in Volcano, which premiered in GIAF 2021 for audiences of just eight people. Now larger audiences will get to experience this extraordinary, multi-award winning work. Preview Thursday 20 July. Episode I, 24 July. Episode II, 25 July. Episode III, 26 July. Episode IV, 27 July. See all Episodes I–IV, 20, 21, 22, 28 and 29 July. Venue: The Mick Lally Theatre.
In You'll See… Branar has adapted James Joyce’s Ulysses for children, bringing Ireland’s most notorious book to audiences aged 8 and upwards, and to all those who haven’t read it yet. Directed by Marc Mac Lochlainn and starring Helen Gregg, it combines live performance, intricate paper design, an original score and Joyce’s odyssey. This is theatre that will excite both young and old. 25–30 July. Venue: Bank of Ireland Theatre, University of Galway
Once again Druid offers a unique opportunity to experience a series of rehearsed readings of new plays which have been submitted through Druid’s New Writing programme in Druid Debuts 2023 Dates to be announced 19 June. Venue: The Mick Lally Theatre.
See the full programme through the What's On section of the GIAF website.
The Festival Box Office, 31. Eyre Square, opens Wednesday 28 June.
Galway International Arts Festival would like to acknowledge the support of its principal funding agencies the Arts Council and Fáilte Ireland; its Drinks Partner Heineken; and Education Partner University of Galway.
