DISTILLATION

Created and Performed by Luke Casserly
A Luke Casserly, Solas Nua and Abbey Theatre Production
Commissioned by Solas Nua 

October 24-26, 2026

An Immersive Special Engagement, Presented Offsite at the Buffalo Irish Center.

An intimate sensory journey through Ireland’s bogs, blending scent, sound, and story.

Following a sold-out run at the Dublin Theatre Festival and performances at The Abbey Theatre, Solas Nua, and Round House Theatre, Irish Classical Theatre Company is proud to launch the North American tour of Distillation here in Buffalo.

A performative journey to the Irish bog landscape through scent, Distillation is a response to the recent cessation of the peat harvesting industry in Ireland. Performance artist Luke Casserly has collaborated with renowned perfumer Joan Woods to create a unique distillation of the Midlands bog – the place where he grew up – as the starting point for an olfactory encounter that examines our human relationship to place. Dedicated to the future of our broken landscapes, Distillation invites us to listen to the land in hopes of better understanding it.

Part interactive lecture and part performance, this intimate 50-minute work features original text, video, sound design, sculpture, and scent. Audience members sit together around a custom-made table, are invited to hold organic materials and smell parts of the bog landscape, and each receive a small sample of the custom perfume created for the project.

Programming Details:

Distillation is a special add-on presentation, and is not part of ICTC’s 2025–2026 Main Stage Series. Season Subscriptions are not valid for this engagement.

Pricing: $45/Ticket + $3 Service Fee Per Ticket (online purchases)
Want to avoid Service Charges? Complete your order in-person at the Box Office.

Venue: Buffalo Irish Center – Claddagh Room
245 Abbott Rd, Buffalo, NY 14220
(*Please note: This special engagement takes place offsite, not at ICTC’s Theatre.)

Parking: Though the Buffalo Irish Center has off-street parking, it can fill up during peak hours. We encourage attendees to allow extra time for travel and parking. 

Food & Drink: The Buffalo Irish Center’s Pub may be open before and after performances, offering a full-service bar and food menu for purchase. Please check their website for official hours. However, no food and beverages are allowed in the performance space.

No Late Seating Policy: Due to the intimate layout of this performance, no late seating is permitted. Please plan to arrive and check in at the Buffalo Irish Center a minimum of 10 minutes before your performance is scheduled to begin. 

Seating: General Admission; Limited to 25 patrons per performance

About the Creator:

Luke Casserly
Luke is a a multidisciplinary performance maker from Longford, Ireland.

His work weaves together ecological research, autobiography, sound art, and site as a way of carving out space for new possibilities to emerge between live performance and physical landscape. His projects have brought audiences through city streets, back gardens, train stations, beaches, and a bog in the Irish Midlands which have led to the creation of a network of wildflower meadows across Ireland (1000 Miniature Meadows, 2020-23), the planting of 1000 indigenous trees (Root, 2021), and the development of an organic perfume made using botanicals from the Irish bog (Distillation, 2023). Often using autobiography as a starting point, his work attempts to stretch out new conversations around our human impact on the environment. He is interested in making work which has a positive environmental legacy beyond the moment of live encounter with an audience. He is driven to create gentle, subversive interventions in response to the climate crisis – and avoid leaning into the anxiety, greenwashing, and didacticism that often revolves around this topic in contemporary society.

In 2023, Luke was awarded the Arts Council’s Next Generation award. He was recently selected for the Norman Houston Multidisciplinary Commissioning Award with Solas Nua in Washington DC, in addition to being chosen to participate in the International Forum as part of Theatertreffen (Berlin Festspiele) 2023. To date, his work has been presented both nationally and internationally across Ireland, the UK, Canada, USA, and Serbia.

Luke is also an experienced facilitator who has worked extensively with a number of organizations including the Ark, Dublin Theatre Festival, Dublin Fringe Festival, and the Abbey Theatre to deliver workshops as part of wider community-engagement programmes. He also mentors artists, and has worked as a script reader for both the Abbey Theatre and Druid since 2021. In 2024, he was appointed as a Biodiversity Artist in Residence at Dublin City Council.

Luke holds a BA in Drama and Theatre Studies from Trinity College, and a Certificate in Art and Ecological Practice from the National College of Art & Design, Ireland.
Visit www.lukecasserly.org.