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For 138 years The Gaiety Theatre has given the people of Dublin opera, musicals, drama, revues, comedy, concerts, dance, festivals and pantomime. Amid the laughter and tears, through times of war and times of affluence, The Grand Old Lady of South King Street has remained a vital and ever-changing expression of Irish culture and Irish society.
Long home to the familiar faces of Maureen Potter, Niall Toibin, John B. Keane, Anna Manahan, Des Keogh and Rosaleen Linehan, whose bronze handprints, are set into the pavement in front the theatre, together with those of Luciano Pavarotti and Brian Friel, are testament to the longstanding association these great artists have had with Dublin’s Gaiety Theatre.
Since the glamorous night of its opening on 27th November 1871, with the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland as guest of honour and a double bill of Goldsmith’s evergreen comedy She Stoops to Conquer followed by the tuneful burlesque La Belle Sauvage, The Gaiety Theatre has remained true to the vision of its founders in presenting the highest quality musical and dramatic entertainment.
The inspiration behind The Gaiety Theatre came from the energetic Gunn brothers, John and Michael, whose background was a family music business on Grafton Street. They engaged the eminent architect C.J. Phipps, whose original design in the manner of the traditional European opera house has given the essential Gaiety, with its handsome Venetian façade, only 25 weeks elapsed between the laying of the foundations and the opening night - the contractors working a 24-hour shift!
After twelve years of marked success, the most distinguished theatre architect of the day, Frank Matcham, was brought in to create the commodious parterre and dress-circle bars in the extension to the west of the auditorium, which he then redecorated.
In 1984 the backstage area was rebuilt with a levelling of the old ‘raked’ stage and the installation of a modern counterweight system for flying scenery.
Among Gaiety successes were Shakespeare’s Richard II, Anthony and Cleopatra, Julius Caesar and Hamlet, Maura Laverty’s perennially popular Liffey Lane and Tolka Row and MacLíammóir’s romantic comedies “Where Stars Walk” and “Ill Met by Moonlight”. His quintessential The Importance of Being Oscar began its nine years of international touring at The Gaiety in 1960.
The Gaiety Theatre
South King Street
(Off the top of Grafton Street)
Dublin 2
stagedoor@gaietytheatre.com
Here are few videos reflect some of their work.