Stage

Garry Hynes wins best director at UK Theatre Awards for DruidO’Casey

Druid’s production, which is a play cycle of Seán O’Casey’s three best known plays, premiered in July

Irish director Garry Hynes, who has travelled to New York with her acclaimed production of Seán O’Casey’s Dublin trilogy. Photograph: Lila Barth/New York Times

Mon Oct 9 2023 - 15:55

Druid’s co-founder and artistic director Garry Hynes has won best director at the UK Theatre Awards for DruidO’Casey.

The production is a play cycle of Seán O’Casey’s three best known plays, The Plough and The Stars, The Shadow of a Gunman and Juno and the Paycock.

“I am honoured to receive this award and wish to thank UK Theatre for recognising not only my work but the work of a legion of people who brought DruidO’Casey to life this year,” Hynes said.

“I’m also very grateful to Druid’s funders and supporters including our core funder The Arts Council, DruidO’Casey production partner Smurfit Kappa, and our US tour supporter Culture Ireland.”

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The Irish director previously produced a stripped-back production of The Plough and the Stars, the first play in the trilogy, at the Abbey Theatre, in Dublin, to mark the 75th anniversary of the Easter Rising in 1991.

DruidO’Casey premiered in July earlier this year at Galway International Arts Festival before touring to the Lyric Theatre in Belfast and the Abbey Theatre in Dublin.

It is now on tour in the United States with dates at the NYU Skirball in New York City and the University Musical Society in Ann Arbor, Michigan.

Hynes’ production broke box office records for the theatre company’s Irish tour and has been critically acclaimed.

“Hynes’ vision of the plays, offered in back-to-back episodes by a brilliant ensemble cast, is not limited by the realistic detail of O’Casey’s classic works,” a review in The Irish Times said in July.

“Druid’s magnificent new staging of the O’Casey trilogy should be a source of national pride ... a unique national epic,” columnist and writer Fintan O’Toole said of the production.

[ Druid & O’Casey: ‘The plays deal with the tenements, poverty... problems we are still deep dealing with’ ]

The UK Theatre Award recognises Hynes’ work on DruidO’Casey for its run at the Lyric Theatre in Belfast this August.

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