First day bookings yesterday for this year's Dublin Theatre Festival were among the heaviest ever. Over €40,000 in tickets were bought at the Bewley's Festival Centre box office in Liberty Hall, Dublin, after the office opened at 10 a.m. yesterday.
It brings to €180,000 the total of advance booking for this year's festival, including €70,000 in postal bookings and another €70,000 in priority Friends of the Festival bookings. The festival begins on September 29th and continues to October 12th.
So far shows with the heaviest bookings include The Mysteries, a "history of the world" from creation to the resurrection of Christ, with music based on traditional African folk songs and a script using the language diversity of today's South Africa. Produced by the Broomhill Opera company of South Africa it will be at the Gaiety Theatre from October 1st to 5th.
Also heavily booked is the Steppenwolf Theatre Company of Chicago production of David Mamet's Glengarry Glen Ross, which is at the Olympia Theatre from October 1st to 6th, One Helluva Life, with Tom Conti, at the Tivoli Theatre from September 30th to October 5th, See You Next Tuesday, at the Gate Theatre from September 30th to October 12th, the new Marina Carr play Ariel, which opens at the Abbey Theatre on September 30th, and the Druid production of Sive, opening at the Olympia on October 8th.
Announcing the programme for this year's 45th Dublin Theatre Festival last month, the director Fergus Linehan, described it as "a collection of epic stories". He felt the festival reflected the current strength of Irish theatre with "a scintillating mixture" of new plays and classics.
In addition to premieres at the Abbey, Gate and the Peacock, Irish productions hold the Olympia, Gaiety and Liberty Hall stages, he said.
The Druid Theatre Company returned with Sive by John B Keane, and the Gate presented the first English production of one of the most successful French comedies of recent years, See you Next Tuesday with Ardal O'Hanlon, Risteard Cooper and John Kavanagh.
The National Theatre presents two major new plays, Marina Carr's Ariel at the Abbey Theatre and Ken Harmon's Done Up Like a Kipper at the Peacock.
Barabbas return to The Ark with Blowfish, and Belfast's Lyric Theatre makes its first visit to the festival for 18 years with Tom Murphy's Conversations on a Homecoming.
