GALWAY THEATRE Festival has moved from being one of the last festivals in the city’s festival season, to one of its first - coming after Cúirt and the Galway Food Festival - as will now take place in May.
The festival, which showcases up-and-coming theatre companies and artists from Galway and around Ireland, runs from Friday May 1 to Saturday 9. In advance of this, the GTF will hold a special online ‘unveiling’ of its programme, which includes actor Phelim Drew’s one-man show Down and Out in Paris and London; and actor Brian Fleming’s acclaimed trilogy, Gis a Shot of Your Bongos Mister, Have Yis No Homes to Go To, and A Sacrilegious Lesbian and Homosexual Parade.
The festival itself will feature Galway companies John Rogers Theatre, The Skybabies, ÓR Productions, and Simulacra Theatre Company, and out-of-town companies Honest Arts, Clown Noir, Candlelit Tales, and Guerilla Aerial. There will also be a special May Bank Holiday programme of events, including 48 hours of non-stop theatre, performance and spectacle. Special events include a walking tour of Galway’s theatre history, a dramatic re-telling of the Táin, late-night comedy improv, and a free performance spectacle at a secret location in the city.
Audiences will also be able to get a behind-the-scenes experience of various shows currently in development by Galway artists and companies. A limited number of tickets will be made available for work-in-progress showings where audiences will be invited to view the ‘raw footage’ created by the artists, and give feedback. Shows include an immersive re-telling of Frankenstein by There Is Bear; Fregoli Theatre Company will examine the death of an Irish country town; and MacBheatha, an Irish-language version of Shakespeare’s MacBeth.
The full line-up is on www.galwaytheatrefestival.com and tickets go on sale through An Taibhdhearc (091 - 562024, [email protected] ) on April 8.
