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:
“There was a green branch hung with many a bell
When her own people ruled this tragic Eire;
And from its murmuring greenness, calm of Faery,
A Druid kindness, on all hearers fell.”
—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)
“The theatre is a gross art, built in sweeps and over-emphasis. Compromise is its second name.”
—Enid Bagnold (1889–1981)
“Yet, hermit and stoic as he was, he was really fond of sympathy, and threw himself heartily and childlike into the company of young people whom he loved, and whom he delighted to entertain, as he only could, with the varied and endless anecdotes of his experiences by field and river: and he was always ready to lead a huckleberry-party or a search for chestnuts and grapes.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)