18th Festival Preview: IDGTF Comes of Age in 2021!

The International Dublin Gay Theatre Festival comes of age in 2021.

Welcome to our 18th Festival!

Two years have passed since we last gathered in person to celebrate queer artists and moving expressions of wonderful LGBTQ+ stories.
This year, join us for our online festival, sponsored by Dublin LGBTQ+ Pride and the Arts Council.

Tune in for world premieres and exciting partnerships. Here’s what founder and Artistic Director of the Festival, Brian Merriman, had to say about this year!

2021 is the second year our stages went dark due to Covid. We have had no income and no renewal of the essential volunteer effort that has sustained us to reach our 18th year. Grant support has been lost or cuts maintained.

But there is a lot of good news! Pride month in June is our time to celebrate with you what makes Dublin a unique centre for LGBTQ+ theatre worldwide. Our small team has produced a remarkable programme to celebrate our ‘coming of age’.

2,500 Euro was awarded to 11 Irish and Irish resident playwrights for new Irish LGBTQ+ plays in May.
A new book IDGTF: 18 and Coming of Age the Director’s Cut – including 13 new plays will be published in June to celebrate our special birthday, and available on www.gaytheatre.ie.
We are really delighted to bring our loyal audiences a free online virtual Festival of 13 plays from Ireland and abroad beginning from June 7th.

Thanks to our ongoing partnership with Dublin LGBTQ+ Pride, who funded the recording of new plays and who financially supported our artists, we are delighted to present this free festival of many new dramatic works.

It is great to reconnect our artists with our audience online in June as we await our return to live theatre in May 2022.
I salute all of the writers of the 65 new plays encouraged by our 2020 and 2021 Bursary opportunities – an unimagineable number of new
Irish plays when we began in 2004. I am in admiration of the productions in our online festival who have adapted their plays to fit the digital format.

We hope you enjoy being part of our 18th birthday celebrations and here’s to returning to live theatre in 2022!


The streaming of these plays will be available through Dublin Pride’s Vimeo account on both the Pride and IDGTF websites. All productions are free for viewing and uploads will start from June 7th. Tune in to catch moving stories and beautiful theatre produced against all odds.

Against the ever-present anxieties and stresses of the past year, these plays are a testament to playwrights from Ireland and across the globe triumphing over the odds to produce breathtaking works of art. In a time when we cannot be together nor express ourselves through live theatre, it is important that these voices are heard. These plays are truly inspiring works borne out of these daunting times.

 

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