The Druid Theatre Company, founded in Galway in 1975, was the first Irish professional theatre company to be established outside Dublin. The theatre company was founded by Garry Hynes, Marie Mullen and Mick Lally after the three had met and put on productions together while members of the University College Galway Drama Society Dramsoc.
From its Galway home, it has been to the fore in the development of Irish theatre, performing in its home in Chapel Lane, elsewhere in Galway, Ireland and beyond. Druid has toured in Ireland and internationally (including touring with productions in London, Edinburgh, Sydney, Perth, Washington D.C. and New York). The company has won an international reputation for both classic work and new work, and is one of the most well known in the English speaking theatre world.
It has led the way in the development of Irish theatre and is generally credited (along with Macnas and the Galway Arts Festival) with making Galway one of the premier cultural centres in Ireland. In 2005, DruidSynge, a production of all six plays of John Millington Synge as a day-long cycle, or multi-day series of double bills, was envisioned by Garry Hynes and premiered at the 2005 Galway Arts Festival to critical acclaim. Druid's contribution to the 2007 Dublin theatre festival was a production of Eugene O'Neill's acclaimed autobiographical play, Long Day's Journey into Night.
Famous quotes containing the words druid, theatre and/or company:
“In yonder Grave a Druid lies
Where slowly winds the Stealing Wave!
The Year’s best Sweets shall duteous rise
To deck its Poet’s sylvan Grave!”
—William Collins (1721–1759)
“People fall out of windows, trees tumble down,
Summer is changed to winter, the young grow old
The air is full of children, statues, roofs
And snow. The theatre is spinning round,
Colliding with deaf-mute churches and optical trains.
The most massive sopranos are singing songs of scales.”
—Wallace Stevens (1879–1955)
“We are imprisoned in life in the company of persons powerfully unlike us.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)