THANK YOU
An enormous heartfelt “Thank You” to all the Western designers, technicians, staff, interns, and, of course, performers, who collaborated on this production of DANCING AT LUGHNASA. I sincerely hope you learned as much, maybe more, working on this project, as I did. And, as always, a big hug to my husband Steve for his constant support.
ABOUT THE PLAYWRIGHT
Brian Patrick Friel (9 January 1929 – 2 October 2015) is considered to be one of the greatest English-language dramatists, often described as "the universally accented voice of Ireland." He had twenty-four plays published in a career of more than a half-century, works that have been compared favorably to those of Anton Chekhov (1860-1904), the acclaimed Russian dramatist, as well as his contemporaries Samuel Beckett, Arthur Miller, Harold Pinter and Tennessee Williams.
Friel’s award-winning plays were produced in Ulster, Belfast, Dublin, and London, as well as on Broadway in New York City and at the Guthrie Theatre in Minneapolis. In 1980 he founded Field Day Theatre Company in Derry (Londonderry), Northern Ireland, and his play Translations was the company's first production. The play went on to be one of the most translated and staged of all plays in the latter 20th century, performed in Estonia, Iceland, France, Spain, Germany, Belgium, Norway, Ukraine, the Czech Republic, Hungary, and Poland, along with most of the world's English-speaking countries, including Australia, Canada, South Africa, and the United States.
Friel was a member of the Irish Academy of Letters, the British Royal Society of Literature and the American Academy of Arts and Letters. He was appointed to Seanad Éireann (the Irish Senate) in 1987 and served until 1989. He was elected to the honorary position of Saoi of Aosdána in 2006. His papers are housed at the National Library of Ireland.
ABOUT THE PLAY
DANCING AT LUGHNASA is a 1990 drama loosely based on the lives of Friel’s mother and aunts who lived in Glenties, County Donegal, on the west coast of Ireland. It is set in August 1936 during Lughnasadh, the Celtic harvest festival, in the fictional town of Ballybeg. It is a memory play told from the point of view of the adult Michael Evans. He recounts two days in the late summer in his aunts' cottage when he was seven years old, and when love briefly seemed possible for the Mundy sisters, as they welcomed home their frail elder brother who has returned from a life as a Catholic missionary in Africa.
The work received the 1991 Laurence Olivier Award for Best Play of the Year as well as the 1992 Tony Award for Best Play, the 1992 Evening Standard Award for Best Play, and the 1992 New York Drama Critics’ Circle Best Play Award. Western Theatre is pleased to present this work on its 30th anniversary.
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