Irish America
Irish America
Playwright Martin McDonagh, all the rage in London, comes stateside. Only Shakespeare has matched Martin McDonagh's record: to have four shows running concurrently on London's West End. This past summer McDonagh's The Cripple of Inishmaan opened at The Royal National Theatre, while his Leenane Trilogy -The Beauty Queen of Leenane, A Skull in Connemara, and The Lonesome West … [Read more...] about Man of Aran
You wouldn't expect the artistic director of one of the country's most celebrated repertory theaters to make house calls, but if Dublin-born Joe Dowling, creative wizard in residence at the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis, thought his presence at a barbecue or bar mitzvah would put some people in his theater's seats, the folks throwing the party would be well advised to set … [Read more...] about Master of the House
Betty Wald visits Ireland for the first time in search of her grandmother's home in Kilmacillogue, County Kerry In all the long years of Sunday visits to my grandmother's apartment in the Bronx, she never talked about Ireland. There were no tales of a far-off land for a child's imagination to grab hold of, to elaborate over the years, making family myths to pass on to future … [Read more...] about A Visit Home
In this issue we celebrate the realization of the American dream by so many of our people, reminding us once again of the good fit this country has proved to be for the Irish. Not that it happened overnight. In the words of Robert Kennedy: "As the first of the racial minorities our forefathers were subject to every discrimination found wherever discrimination is known." The … [Read more...] about The First Word: Our Evolving Heritage
From East to West Coast, Irish theater companies are booming as never before. The creation of the Thomas Davis Irish Players conjures an image of monks in monasteries, copying manuscripts with quills. The year was 1933 and seven young Irishmen, some of whom had been actors in Ireland, were studying for their high school equivalency tests in New York City. Missing their … [Read more...] about Stage Irish
