As a unique arts festival, the Gay Theatre Festival Dublin aims to play a distinctive role in developing a vibrant and sustainable profile on the Dublin theatre scene. Using the skills and experience of principal Directors and Executive Committee built up over the last six years organising the old International Dublin Gay Theatre Festival, they aim to resource and facilitate artistic performance thus aiding artists to realise their artistic ambitions. The Festival is staffed by professionals on a voluntary basis. The Gay Theatre Festival Dublin will be centred around the city's Temple Bar area.

 

Seven to eight acts performing each Thursday night, for free.

 

 

 

Following a hugely successful season in the Gaiety Theatre in May 2009, where it received an almost unbroken run of standing ovations, and a West End Premiere, Lane Productions are delighted to announce that THE SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION will return to the Gaiety Theatre by popular demand for a limited run.

 

A newly commissioned solo exhibition that explores the complex and historical world of spectatorship. Adopting the early special effects technique of matte painting, Sander uses and quotes the visual intricacies associated with illusion, while critically examining the personal motivation of consumers who participate in spectator industries. Tourism, audiences, the traveller and the curious are all characters who take time out of everyday life and pay to see things. The gallery will be transformed into a single, circular screen, providing a constantly changing and looping landscape. Sander contrasts the simplicity of matte painting with the complexity of the current economic unknowns that form the background to many of our lives.

 

 

 

Star of Cult comedy show "In Bed With Medinner!"

 

Drawings and paintings from Ukraine. Ukraine defines itself by opposition to its bordering states. It is not Russia, not Poland, not Tatar… It views its Soviet past as another country, yet the past is omnipresent: the border is porous. To the outsider Ukraine is also a fantastically beautiful space where the borders between the structures of civilisation – houses, tower blocks, railways – are constantly being assailed by nature. Everywhere there is green.

 

 

In this work, Shelley Corcoran explores, through video, projection and photography, the psychiatric mechanism of displacement and how it can be both adaptive and undesirable.

 

Following their huge success at the Edinburgh Festival and The Players Theatre London last year, FAR FROM KANSAS, the 20 strong cabaret group from the internationally acclaimed London Gay Men's Chorus, bring their show to Dublin.

 

World music tunes.

 

 

When a state senator unexpectedly dies in the middle of his re-election campaign, his family and friends gather to pay their respects ... including his secret fiancée, a former erotic dancer, who arrives to claim his seat. Before long the body is misplaced, the public is rallying to vote for the late senator, the president is coming to the funeral, and a crazy group of political advisers is scheming to get their candidate re-elected. Join the Classic Revival cast as they present the Irish premiere of this hilarious American comedy, written by David C. Hyer.

 

The IRISH PREMIERE of the Award Winning Comedy Drama MOTHER/SON sees Jeffrey Solomon triumph in this semi-autobiological tour-de-force. His show may have been about a young Jewish man coming out, but the real thrust of the play - and what makes it such a memorable piece of drama - is its emphasis on how his mother coped with the situation. In a series of brilliantly performed monologues, Solomon alternating between Bradley and his mother, Mandy, as they talked, sometimes argued - usually on long-distance phone calls - about his gay lifetsyle, his boyfriends, and her own feelings in coming to terms with his sexuality. Written and performed by Solomon, MOTHER/SON was inspired by his mother's support for him when he himself came out in 1990. It is a finely wrought celebration of a mother's love for her son and the lengths she will go in order to stand up for him and against unthinking prejudice. MOTHER /SON is a MUST SEE! ***** 5 Stars from Scotsgay who wrote "Brilliant Comedy ... Packs an emotional punch that will knock you from here to the end of the festival ... I dare you to watch it and leave with dry eyes!"

 

Includes light lunch.

 

 

 

 

The Shoos are a four piece band from Dublin. They are the most unlikely set of musicians to be thrown together in any room. They consist of a Sports wear designer, a Suit, an Insomniac and a grown up! Last September they released their debut single "Yeah" which received a lot of National and regional airplay such as FM104's Strawberry pick of the week, Spin 103.8, 98fm, 2fm and Newstalk 106fm.

 

ngie McLaughlin, a Scot transferred to Dublin via San Francisco, meets Gary Fitzpatrick (Great Western Squares, Pincher Martin, Ciunas) through a mutual friend. He agrees to bring her to an open mike night in a pub, the host doesn't show up, and the bar owner asks the two to takeover. After a few weeks of terrible poets and singers the pair decide to change the open mike policy and build a band instead to indulge in their passion for all things with lyrics, regardless of genre. After two years of carefully being unaware of what they were doing, The Sick and Indigent Song Club had grown to a multi-instrumental six-piece band.

 

Released their first album nearly 30 years ago.

 

This MULTI AWARD WINNING DRAMA from ISRAEL has toured the world to great acclaim with this same cast for over seven years. When Hans, an outrageous young camp German homosexual and Benjamin, a conservative elderly Jewish man are thrown together.

 

 

IRISH PREMIERE. UK based Gay Actor/Writer John Martin Stevens brings his new play TWO LOVES to Dublin for the very first time. The play takes its theme from Shakespeare's Sonnets and promises to be a heady cocktail of passion, obsession and sexuality, as it explores a love triangle between a poet, a male youth and the poet's mistress. A poet invites a young man to spend the summer with him and his Mistress to help in the boy's 'education'. It soon becomes clear however that they have very different interpretations of the word education. A game of cat and mouse is played, but do we really know the identity of the mouse? "Some people find it hard to understand that one of the most popular poems in the English languauge "Shall I compare thee to a summer's day" was written by a man to a male youth" remarks John the playwright. Sonnet in Italian means song and John has incorporated music into the plot and because of his love of the American Song Book, all the songs are either Ella Fitzgerald or Billy Holiday tracks.

 

In the intimate setting of the Boy's School Studio, sit back and enjoy Dublin's favourite Diva as Kristin Kapelli takes you on a magical journey with a selection of Show tunes from her favourite Broadway shows, Diva songs, power ballads plus fun with her bubbly American wit. Kristin has been performing internationally since an early age. She started out in musical theatre in the U.S. before coming to Ireland. She fronted the successful Tina Turner Tribute Band 'I Can Tina' and was also fronting her own blues band which performed at numerous festivals including the Cork Jazz Festival. Kristin starred in 'The Songs Of Mama Cass' produced by Bill Hughes and Musical Director Ronan Jonston, which received rave reviews from Gay Byrne, Pat Kenny and the HOTPRESS magazine. For five years, Kristin was the Voice of the Tassel Club, Dublin's foremost Burlesque Club and more recently she was part of the Katherine Lynch show in Vicar Street, performed at the prestigious Electric Picnic and starred in the exciting new show 'Burlectro'.

 

The EUROPEAN PREMIERE of 'WHORE WORKS' is brought to Ireland courtesy of New York's Sugar Valley Theatricals and Creative Concepts Productions who are both committed to the exploration of sexuality in the lives of same gender loving men of colour. "This is my first time doing this ..." "I've never paid anyone for sex before ..." Whoring is hard work. And now the competition is getting stiffer by the day with the influx of the newly jobless. 'WHORE WORKS' takes a sharp, witty, hilarious, thought provoking, balls-out look at a black hooker's day-to-night struggle with hating and sometimes loving men who are paying him to, well ... you know. After spending two years researching, young playwright Juan Michael Porter II plays a dancer-cum-hustler, across from seasoned New York actor Bryan Webster, who plays a variety of rich older johns who hire Porter - from an aging record mogul in a hip-hop tracksuit to a manic porn-obsessed sicko with handcuffs to, well, one nice guy who falls in love with Porter and asks to see him exclusively, and not necessary for cash. Will true love ever be found? Contains Nudity and Strong Language. Not Suitable For Persons Under 16 Years.

 

‘It will have blood; they say, blood will have blood’ Over 400 years after it was written, Shakespeare’s dark depiction of ambition, guilt and murder continues to send a shiver down the spine. Macbeth’s sword is still wet with blood when he returns victorious from battle, a loyal servant to his King and a hero amongst his comrades. But when three weird sisters cross his path with mysterious prophecies, Shakespeare’s fearsome tragic hero comes face to face with his most fierce opponent yet – his destiny. Swayed by promises of greatness and the demands of a power-hungry wife, Macbeth swathes his way to power – and moral decay. Rooted in the Irish landscape at the time of Cromwell, this muscular new production from director Jimmy Fay (The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui, The Playboy of the Western World, Ages of the Moon) lays bare the darkest side of human nature. Macbeth continues our commitment to presenting the work of William Shakespeare and follows our productions of Romeo and Juliet, Julius Caesar and The Comedy of Errors. We are delighted that Aidan Kelly will play Macbeth and Eileen Walsh will play Lady Macbeth in this thrilling new production.