Guildburys are delighted to be performing this award winning play. Following its opening in Dublin the production transferred to the National theatre in 1991 where it won the Olivier award for best play, and after a triumph on Broadway it went on to win the Tony Award for best play.
A warm and endearingly heartfelt story of loving recollection, Dancing at Lughnasa is a tender yet truthful tale of the coming of modernity into a close-knit Irish family during two warm summer days in 1936.

The Mundy sisters
Publicity design Phill Griffith
Production photography Peter Chapman

Maggie and Michael
Author Brian Friel is one of Ireland’s most celebrated playwrights and he creates an exquisite snapshot of a family caught in a moment of time. The five unmarried Mundy sisters would seem at first glance to be as far removed from contemporary Europe as it is possible to get. But just as their battery-powered radio brings them brief, ecstasy-making glimpses of the world beyond, so does the return of their brother Jack from Africa, and the arrival of a footloose ne’er-do-well Welshman.

Father Jack
When The Daily Telegraph reviewed the play, Charles Spencer wrote
“One moment you are laughing uproariously, the next your eyes are filled with stinging tears. Whatever the mood happens to be, at every moment the play feels startlingly true, tender and fresh.
…. a play of true greatness.”

Agnes

Rose

Michael Evans
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Dancing at Lugnasa – Guildburys Theatre Company April 2013