The book “Wilde Stages in Dublin – a Decade of Gay Theatre” by Festival Artistic Director Brian Merriman is now availble.
The book explores the context and background to the International Dublin Gay Theatre Festival as well as providing an invaluable compendium of the last ten years of theatre from the world’s largest festival of gay theatre.
Buy Online
‘Wilde Stages in Dublin’ is now available for purchase:
- Buy it online here for €20 including postage and packaging via secure online purchase.
- Buy it at the Festival box office or at our venues for €15 until May 18th 2013 and at Festival events.
About the author:
Brian Merriman was born in Dublin and grew up in Wexford and Waterford. He returned to Dublin to study journalism which led him into a life of political engagement through civil service, as Vice President of the National Youth Council of Ireland and as the youngest person ever appointed to the Board of a State Body in 1983. His love of theatre was first developed as a boy soprano and later in attending the Opera Festivals in the Theatre Royals of Wexford and Waterford. Brian studied singing at the College of Music, Dublin, for many years with Daphne M. Clifford. He was cast in leading roles in musical theatre and was a prize-winner at Feis Ceoil. He began his award winning directorial career of over 300 productions and events in the 1980s. Brian founded the innovative DAYMS (later the Musical Company) in 1984,that staged award winning premiere productions for twenty five years. His professional theatre career accelerated, bringing his work to the theatres of Ireland, Northern Ireland, England, Wales and the Isle of Man. He began an association with the Olympia Theatre, Dublin in the 1990s that lasted a decade. Simultaneously, he was working in the fields of equality and human rights. He graduated with a Master’s Degree from University College Dublin in Equality Studies in 2003 and continues to work in this field today, including raising funds to support people living with HIV/Aids, and visibility of gay life in rural Ireland.
Brian’s love of theatre and his egalitarianism, combined to create ‘The International Dublin Gay Theatre Festival’ in Dublin in 2004. As Artistic Director, he has dramaturged over 1,000 new plays about gay life and culture from Irish and International playwrights. The Festival has presented over 2,000 performances of the successfully selected plays in Dublin in the past decade. He has had his work broadcast and televised and has written a series of short gay themed plays including “The Gentleman Caller”, “Tumbling Down”, “Seventy”, “Pieter’s Coming Out” and “Poets’ Cornered” and has written and produced his short film “No Evidence”. This is his first book.
