Belfast’s Lyric Theatre is to re-open in late July with its first productions for live audiences since the nationwide lockdown in March last year.
COVID restrictions will see the River Lagan-side venue operating at one-third of its normal capacity for the première of Derry Girls star Tara Lynne O’Neill’s football drama Rough Girls and its Drama Studio’s staging of Liz Lochhead’s Dracula.
Opening on July 27, Dracula will see audiences returning to the Lyric for the first time in 16 months. Now in its fifth decade, the Lyric’s Drama Studio offers training to 18- to 25-year-olds, its recent alumni including Olivier Award-winner Anthony Boyle. Dracula will be directed by the theatre’s head of creative learning, Philip Crawford.
Commissioned by the Lyric and based on true events in late First World War Belfast, O’Neill’s play charts the fortunes of the city’s first all-female football team. It will feature an eleven-strong all-female cast led by O’Neill and live music and begins a three-week run on September 4.
Announcing the return to live performances, executive producer Jimmy Fay warned of other challenges ahead following seven successive years of stand-still funding.
“Without a substantial rethink from funders towards venues like the Lyric, which employs hundreds of artists and serves audiences of tens of thousands telling stories from the place and people where we live, then our future is likely to be as perilous as the recent past.”
In a nod to energy supplier Electric Ireland’s sponsorship of Rough Girls, he added: “getting back to the electric energy of live performance is crucial for our team at the Lyric as well as for the long-term sustainability of the theatre industry. We are live and we can’t wait to welcome audiences back into the theatre in July.”