Druid is marking its 50th anniversary this year and the Galway-based theatre company has announced it will be staging a double bill of Synge’s Riders to the Sea and Shakespeare’s Macbeth to celebrate.
The productions will be staged as part of Galway International Arts Festival (GIAF), before the company then hits the road.
Macbeth will transfer to the Gaiety Theatre for the Dublin Theatre Festival in September and the company has also announced a New York transfer of their acclaimed 2024 production of Samuel Beckett’s Endgame which will run at the Irish Arts Center in Manhattan in October and November.
20 years on from the formative play cycle DruidSynge (2005), which included Riders to the Sea, Druid co-founders and Tony Award winners Garry Hynes and Marie Mullen return to this play for this new production.
For the second production of the double bill, Macbeth, Druid will bring their unique perspective to one of Shakespeare’s fiercest and bloodiest tragedies.
Garry Hynes will direct a cast led by Marty Rea as Macbeth and Marie Mullen as Lady Macbeth, with further casting to be announced.
Macbeth follows Druid’s internationally acclaimed DruidShakespeare (2015) and Richard III (2018), continuing the company’s exploration of the Bard’s canon, “a mad dynamic pageant of fire, blood, guts and spunk” (Irish Examiner on DruidShakespeare).
Directed by Garry Hynes, the original cast returns for this transatlantic engagement: Bosco Hogan and Druid Ensemble members Aaron Monaghan, Marie Mullen and Rory Nolan. Druid has been touring to America since 1986 including their historic Broadway run in 1998 of Martin McDonagh’s The Beauty Queen of Leenane.
That production won four Tony Awards including Best Actress for Druid co-founder Marie Mullen and Best Director for fellow Druid co-founder Garry Hynes, the first woman to win the Tony for Best Director.
Alongside Druid’s mainstage productions and artist development initiatives, the 50th anniversary season will also include a number of other celebratory projects and events.
There will be two books published to mark this milestone: a new history of Druid Theatre, fully illustrated with images from the Druid archive, written by Patrick Lonergan and Druid Theatre 1975-2025: 50 Years of New Irish Plays.
The University of Galway will host a symposium from 31 October to 2 November, ‘Druid Theatre: Performance, Place, People’, exploring the past and future directions of Druid’s work in the local, national and global contexts.
There will also be an exhibition and a short series of public talks, further details to be announced.
Druid began as a bold idea, to create Ireland’s first professional theatre company outside Dublin. Founded by Garry Hynes, Marie Mullen and the late Mick Lally, Druid began in the summer of 1975.
Garry Hynes, Druid’s co-founder and Artistic Director said: “It’s not lost on me how lucky we all are at Druid to have made it to this milestone. When Marie, Mick and I founded the company in 1975, we could never have imagined reaching our 50th anniversary. There are so many people to thank for helping us along the way, but I’d like to especially thank the people of Galway for their belief in us since day one, as well as our audiences far and wide – because it’s not theatre until someone’s watching.”
It is one of only a handful of professional Irish theatre companies to reach their 50th anniversary. There were few resources with which to build a theatre company in Galway in the 1970s but through sheer dedication, and with the support of the local community, the three founders Hynes, Mullen and Lally made this idea a reality.
That reality has since become an international success story with Druid presenting over 300 productions, celebrating and sharing the work of more than 50 playwrights.
This work has resulted in numerous accolades including Tony Awards, Irish Theatre Awards, Edinburgh Fringe First Awards and UK Theatre Awards.
President Michael D Higgins, who is Patron of Druid said “on this special anniversary, may I express my profound gratitude to all who have shaped Druid over the past five decades, past and present, to its founders, its creative teams, its actors and its audiences. May you continue to shine brightly in the decades ahead, carrying forward that wonderful spirit of innovation, excellence, and artistic courage that has defined Druid from its inception”.
Ms Hynes also spoke about her memories of the company saying: “I also wish to pay tribute to the Druids who have left us including co-founder Mick Lally, former artistic director Maelíosa Stafford and former general manager and my dear brother Jerome Hynes.”
