Culture

Dublin Fringe Festival 2020 to rekindle live theatre on stages around city

‘Pilot Light Edition’ features performances at the Abbey Theatre, outdoors and online

Fringe 2020: Bell X1 frontman Paul Noonan’s Electric Kazoo, a live show for children, is one of the festival’s 107 performances. Photograph: Ruth Medjber

Wed Aug 5 2020 - 13:26

Dublin Fringe Festival is set to help bring live theatre back to the city next month, as its “Pilot Light Edition” stages 107 performances at 23 venues, in outdoor spaces and online. Twenty-one of those shows will have their world premieres, and two will have their first Dublin performances.

Fringe 2020, which runs between September 5th and 20th, says the Abbey Theatre, Project Arts Centre and Draíocht are among the venues staging performances for the first time since lockdown began, in March. Outdoor stages will be set up across the city, including at Dublin Castle and in Dalymount Park.

The festival’s online projects include Dublin Digital Radio, an online station, “creating an an avant-garde public-service broadcaster” for a day that will use “performances, interactive discussions and musical reflections” to ask how broadcasting can best serve Ireland.

The festival says this year’s highlights include:

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  • Malaprop returning with the world premiere of Before You Say Anything, commissioned by Dublin Fringe Festival and the Abbey Theatre. This site-specific choreography and music project will use the Chapel Royal, at Dublin Castle, "for a secular history of sanctuary and the people who've needed it most", including a 19th-century sex scandal and a gay priest in the 1980s.
  • Mad, Bad & Dangerous, a celebration of "difficult" women – Lelia Doolan, Bernadette McAliskey and Dervla Murphy – is being broadcast online at rte.ie/culture throughout September and October as part of Dublin Fringe Festival and Bealtaine at Home.
  • Paul Noonan of Bell X1 presenting his live show for children, The Electric Kazoo. "Bring your best teddy and your favourite adult along to a mini-concert of musical favourites curated for both big and little ears," the festival says.
  • Eva O'Connor returning with Mustard, in a new presentation by Fishamble: The New Play Company, in association with Sunday's Child. "This one-woman show is about heartbreak, madness and how condiments are the ultimate coping mechanism."
  • Comedians in Bohemians, which will see stand-up comedians take to a purpose-built stage in the stands at Dalymount Park.
  • Glitter Hole, WeAreGriot and gender.RIP displaying their "manifestos for the new era they want to usher in" on the streets of Dublin and Paris, in a project commissioned with the Irish Cultural Centre in Paris.

Ruth McGowan, the festival’s director, says: “I couldn’t be prouder to share the work of these valiant and visionary artists who saw the possibility in the parameters. This is an opportunity for experimental performance and voices that defy the mainstream to lead the way.”

All 2020 Fringe events are on sale at fringefest.com and on 1850-374643. Dublin Digital Radio is streaming the festival launch party from 8pm until 10pm today

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