GHOSTS

By THOMAS KILROY

February 26 – March 14, 2027

A house full of secrets, and an inescapable legacy. Ibsen’s Ghosts returns in a fierce, contemporary adaptation about truth, inheritance, and the cost of silence, set in 1980s Ireland.

Every family has ghosts. 

In this powerful adaptation of Ghosts (1881), Thomas Kilroy reimagines Henrik Ibsen’s groundbreaking drama as a haunting excavation of family, legacy, and the devastating cost of silence. As a widow prepares to consecrate the memory of her late husband, their carefully constructed story of a respectable life begins to fracture. Long-buried truths surface, revealing how a father’s struggles are visited upon his children in a family terrified of the ghosts that surround them. In this searing portrait of moral reckoning, the forces of past and present collide, probing the fragile boundary between private truth and public reputation, between the authority of religion and the realities of human desire. 

Additional Programming:

Open Rehearsal (for Subscribers Only): Wednesday, February 17, 2027 at 6:30 PM

Community Matinee Preview ($12/Ticket): Thursday, February 25, 2027 at 10:00 AM

Opening Night Reception: Friday, February 26, 2027 at 7:30 PM

Pay-What-You-Will Performances*: 
Saturday, February 27, 2027 at 2:00 PM
Saturday, February 27, 2027 at 7:30 PM
Saturday, March 6, 2027 at 7:30 PM
Saturday, March 13, 2027 at 7:30 PM
*Purchase in-person at the Box Office on the day of the performance. Seating subject to availability.

Speaker Series: Sunday, February 28, 2027 at 1:30 PM

Talk Back Thursdays: Engage with the Creators! After every Thursday performance, stay for a free Talk Back where members of the creative team discuss their roles and answer your questions about their creative journey.

Thursday, March 4, 2027 at 7:30 PM
Thursday, March 11, 2027 at 7:30 PM

About the Playwright:

Thomas Kilroy Thomas Kilroy was born in Ireland in 1934 at Callan, County Kilkenny. He was educated by the Christian Brothers, St Kieran’s College and University College Dublin where he gained an education degree and went on to became a teacher and a headmaster. In 1965 he was appointed senior lecturer at UCD, lecturing on English, Anglo-Irish and 18th century drama. He was also a visiting professor in various American universities. Between 1973 and 1979 he took a break from his university career after the success of his novel, THE BIG CHAPEL (1971, shortlisted for the Booker Prize and the Guardian Fiction Prize). He was then appointed professor at the National University of Ireland, Galway. He is a member of the Royal Society for Literature and of the Irish Academy of Letters. In March 2004 he received a lifetime achievement award at the Irish Times/ESB Irish Theatre Awards. He was recently made an Honorary Fellow of Trinity College, Dublin. His other awards are: Heinneman Award for Literature, AIB Literary Prize, BBC Drama Prize, American-Irish Foundation Prize for Literature, Rockefeller Foundation Residency, Kyoto University Foundation Award, and Prix Nikki Commendation (TV).

His plays include: THE DEATH AND RESURRECTION OF MR. ROCHE (Dublin Theatre Festival, 1968 and Hampstead Theatre, London); THE O’NEILL (Peacock Theatre, 1969); TEA AND SEX AND SHAKESPEARE (Abbey Theatre, Dublin Theatre Festival, 1976); TALBOT’S BOX (Abbey Theatre, Dublin Theatre Festival, 1977 and Royal Court Theatre, London); DOUBLE CROSS (Field Day Theatre, 1986 and Royal Court Theatre); THE MADAME MacADAM TRAVELLING THEATRE (Field Day Theatre, 1991 and Irish Repertory Theatre, New York); THE SECRET FALL OF CONSTANCE WILDE (Guthrie Theatre, Minneapolis 2008/Bite 2000 International Festival, Barbican Theatre, London/Melbourne International Festival, 1998 and Abbey Theatre, 1997); THE SHAPE OF METAL (Abbey Theatre, Dublin 2003 and Origin Theatre Co, New York 2007). He has also done versions of Chekhov’s SEAGULL (Royal Court Theatre 1981); Ibsen’s GHOSTS (Peacock Theatre, Dublin Theatre Festival 1989); Pirandello’s SIX CHARACTERS IN SEARCH OF AN AUTHOR (Abbey Theatre 1996) and HENRY IV (Pittsburgh Irish and Classical Theatre 2005).

His play CHRIST DELIVER US!, inspired by Wedekind, premiered at the Abbey Theatre, Dublin in 2010.  In April 2011 a public reading of his play BLAKE was given by the Abbey Theatre Company at the Samuel Beckett Theatre, Trinity College, Dublin. In 2016 he was awarded the Ulysses Medal by his alma mater, University College Dublin,  for his achievements in writing. He died 7 December 2023.

Henrik Ibsen (1828 – 1906) was a major 19th-century Norwegian playwright, theatre director, and poet. He is often referred to as “the father of prose drama” and is one of the founders of Modernism in the theatre. His major works include Brand, Peer Gynt, An Enemy of the People, Emperor and Galilean, A Doll’s House, Hedda Gabler, Ghosts, The Wild Duck, Rosmersholm, and The Master Builder.

Several of his plays were considered scandalous to many of his era, when European theatre was required to model strict mores of family life and propriety. Ibsen’s work examined the realities that lay behind many façades, revealing much that was disquieting to many contemporaries. It utilized a critical eye and free inquiry into the conditions of life and issues of morality. 

About the Director: