News & Events

We are thrilled to announce our talented cast for the Irish premiere of Hecuba by Marina Carr. For this production, Rough Magic brings together some of the country’s most celebrated actors – who have already given us stellar performances – with a new generation of Ireland’s most exciting emerging talent; in a classic Rough Magic … Continued

Our cast are in the final week of rehearsals for our production of Much Ado About Nothing, soon to be opening under the stars at Kilkenny Arts Festival. In a rare break, director Ronan Phelan sat down for this interview to talk about the gender-swapping casting of Clare Barrett, setting the play in a mobile … Continued

Rough Magic is returning to Kilkenny with another outdoor Shakespeare production. This time, it’s the Bard’s celebrated screwball comedy Much Ado About Nothing getting a modern staging, set on the deck of a deluxe mobile home in the west of Ireland. In this interview director Ronan Phelan explains why this is one of Shakespeare’s most … Continued

We’re delighted to announce our fabulous cast for Much Ado About Nothing; our return to Kilkenny Arts Festival. Venetia Bowe and Shane O’Regan will play the young lovers Hero and Claudio. Peter Corboy and Maeve Fitzgerald will be sparring as Benedick and Beatrice. Jack Mullarkey will play the scheming Don John, with Margaret McAuliffe as Margaret and Patrick … Continued

Congratulations to the 2018 Rough Magic team who walked away with the Best Ensemble trophy at the Irish Times Irish Theatre Awards.

Rough Magic is delighted to have received an Irish Times Irish Theatre Awards nomination for the Rough Magic Ensemble 2018.

Two weeks before the curtain rises on Portrait, Rough Magic’s artistic director Lynne Parker discusses adapting the novel 100 years later, and why it’s important to bring Joyce out of Dublin.   Why did you choose to program Joyce this year, and A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man in particular? We were … Continued

Katie Davenport is the brilliant designer behind the topsy-turvy world of Rough Magic’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream.  Before the show opens in Kilkenny’s Castle Yard, Katie spoke about designing for all-weather outdoor productions, approaching her third Shakespearean play, and incorporating post-Soviet culture, punk, and “sequinned magic” on the night.     What is the concept and inspiration … Continued

Google Image search ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream poster’ and you’ll see a well-trodden formula in past productions of fairy queen Titania, donkey-head Bottom and an enchanted-looking wood. In Rough Magic’s production, there’s a six-year old with fairy wings in a laundrette and a chipper. Here, director Lynne Parker reveals how we came up with a … Continued

Supported by the department of Culture, Heritage and the Gaeltacht, a number of leading theatre organisations have come together to initiate and formalise a position on Gender Policy. Over two years the companies have engaged in a series of discussions that have resulted in each organisation formulating its own gender policy statement with reference to … Continued