The Everyman celebrates its 120th birthday

The Everyman, the famous Victorian theatre in Cork, is celebrating 120 years of entertainment with 12 special anniversary shows this year.

A jewel in the crown is Kevin Barry’s first stage play, Autumn Royal. It opens on Monday following previews this week, and the run has already sold out.

The play by the award-winning writer of Beatlebone and City of Bohane, is a dark comedy set on the northside of Cork City and stars Siobhán McSweeney and Shane Casey.

Autumn Royal is Mr Barry’s first piece written originally for the stage, and the Everyman is co-producing as well as presenting its world premiere.

Another gem is Declan Hassett’s new play Jack, chronicling the life and times of one of former taoiseach Jack Lynch.

The 650-seat theatre, a listed building on MacCurtain St, opened in 1897. It is the oldest purpose-built theatre building in Cork. The Everyman was once a cinema, and after periods of disrepair became a modern theatre in the 1980s.

Everyman executive director Séan Kelly said they could not wait for the new season to get under way.

“Following on our record-breaking panto [Red Riding Hood], we enter 2017 more optimistic than ever,” said Mr Kelly.

Artistic director Julie Kelleher said the theatre is now just known as the Everyman, but its palatial qualities were very much evident to anyone stepping inside the building.

There will be a special Everyman 120 show throughout the year.

Next month, the Performance Corporation will present an operatic reinvention of James Joyce’s The Dead.

In March there will be a witty re-imagining by Lyric Belfast of Willy Russell’s classic comedy, Educating Rita, and the following month there will be a special anniversary production of Many Young Men of Twenty by John B Keane from the Everyman Theatre Company.

NI Opera will present the classic opera Handel’s Radamisto in May, and in June, the Irish premiere of Futureproof by Cork playwright Lynda Radley will be staged.

Aideen Wyle’s debut play, Levin and Levin, will premiere at the Everyman in April. The Tipperary native is a member of BrokenCrow, a multidisciplinary theatre ensemble based in Cork, Dublin, and Waterford.

West End star and founder of the Performers Academy in Cork, Irene Warren, returns to the stage in May with Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Tell Me On A Sunday.