Two Irish playwrights emerged from the recent 1st Irish Theatre Festival in New York, and it’s time to mark their achievements. House Strictly Private, a pitch-black comic drama, is an unexpected follow up to Kerr’s rollicking festival debut…For Love, by debut … Continue reading →

They might not have boldly gone where no playwright has ever gone before, but the four writers whose plays went up last week as part of the “next generation”of Irish playwrights in the 1st Irish Theatre Festival created pieces that … Continue reading →

“House Strictly Private,” by Jimmy Kerr, was my favorite of the festival shows seen. It combined a dramatic tale and compelling characters with the performing talent witnessed in other 1st Irish hits: “Fly Me to the Moon” (reviewed in the Sept. … Continue reading →

A remarkable piece of pared down theater manages to entertain, inform, move, and comment from a completely original point of view….The sweep and momentum of Jimmy Titanic is born by a single shape-shifting actor (Colin Hamell) who plays some 20 characters including … Continue reading →

The 1st Irish Festival, now in its fifth year, is halfway through. Some of the shows have closed, others will be closing next week, and others will begin this week.For details and to buy tickets visitwww.1stirish.org.Here’s our take on what we’ve … Continue reading →

The story feels less compelling than the telling. Direction is in the sure hands of Jim Culleton from Dublin’s Fishamble, back in New York with a bang for the annual 1stIrish Theater Festival. Like a stand-up comic, Kinevane dismantles “the … Continue reading →

Musicals can be irritating, their manufactured emotion unbearably phony. Larry Kirwan’s “Hard Times,” however, is not just the best of the genre I’ve seen, but truly affecting. The rest of the audience was also demonstrably moved at one of the … Continue reading →

Loretta and Frances are perfectly opposed as a kind of working-class Belfast Laurel and Hardy. It’s fun to see the penny drop, again and again, on Loretta’s face—and interesting later, when a little role reversal ensues. Now into it, and … Continue reading →

“Gangs of New York” may have helped to revive the memory of Five Points, the notorious 19th-century slum in Lower Manhattan, but no one probably considered it the stuff of song and dance — until Larry Kirwan, the novelist, playwright … Continue reading →

Presented as part of the 1st Irish Festival, the free 6:30 PM panel discussion will center on how “Irish drama, music and literature have impacted America’s business culture from Broadway to Wall Street.”Playwright and novelist McKeon will moderate the discussion … Continue reading →