International Play Development
The Royal Court Theatre works with hundreds of playwrights across the world. All plays submitted to the international department are read in the original language by ...… Read more
Ireland
Late 1950s
The Royal Court’s relationship with Ireland goes back to W.B. Yeats, Samuel Beckett and Sean O’Casey, whose plays were all seen here in the first few years of the English Stage Company in the late 1950s.
In the 1970s, several of Mary O’Malley’s plays were presented here, including Once a Catholic and, in 1981, the Royal Court produced Brian Friel’s The Faith Healer. Out of Joint Theatre brought Sebastian Barry’s The Steward of Christendom to the Royal Court in 1995. Conor McPherson’s The Weir opened in the Royal Court’s Theatre Upstairs at the Ambassadors in 1997 before transferring to the Theatre Downstairs, to Broadway and on a worldwide tour. The theatre went on to produce two more of McPherson’s plays: Dublin Carol and Shining City.
Numerous other Irish playwrights have had their plays produced here including Marina Carr ( Woman and Scarecrow, Portia Coughlin ), Tom Murphy ( Alice Trilogy, Bailengangir ), Enda Walsh ( Bedbound ) and Stella Feehily ( Duck, O Go My Man ). The Royal Court has also had a very successful working relationship with Galway-based theatre company, Druid, which co-produced Leaves by Lucy Caldwell and several of Martin McDonagh’s plays.
In autumn 2007, the Royal Court co-produced Kebab by Gianina Cărbunariu with the Ulster Bank Dublin Theatre Festival, which opened at the Project Cube before transferring to Sloane Square.
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