Arts Over Borders presents FrielFest

Arts Over Borders presents

3rd Lughnasa FrielFest: Derry~Londonderry & Donegal 6th Happy Days: International Beckett Festival Enniskillen

August 2 –19, 2018

northern literary lands

‘Happy Days is democratising Beckett. Devoted fidelity to Beckett’s vision works here. …this is brave programming’ FINANCIAL TIMES

Principal Partners

‘(Happy Days) has become one of the most enthralling festivals in the cultural calendar. One senses that Beckett himself, who once wrote of ‘secret spaces where nobody ever comes’ and ‘sites of a stirring beyond coming and going, of a being so light and free that it is as the being of nothing’’, would have approved.

THE OBSERVER

Major Partners

Supporting Partners

‘Musicians, poets, actors, performers, artists, talkers, doers and watchers celebrate his life and works on land and beneath the ground; on water, by water and under soft rain. In this island town, reflections and precipitation blur boundaries between earth and sky’ THE OBSERVER

‘…artistic excellence of the highest order. Far from being a po-faced affair, its programmes are laced with wit and some degree of eccentricity’ THE STAGE

Community Partners

‘Happy Days is a festival filled with good surprises… (it) deserves extra credit for reviving May B – a gem of European dance theatre that deserves to be much more widely known’.

THE GUARDIAN

‘a festive and buoyant atmosphere that works strangely well with Beckett’s famously dark, difficult and often mordantly humorous oeuvre…an admirable balance between a focus on the writer’s own pieces, and on other artistic events with associations to Beckett and his work’.

Festival Donors Peter & Fiona Espenhahn, Mary Heaney, Joanna McVey, Tim & Chris Ungar, Michael & Ruth West Thanks A special thank you to the Beckett Estate and the Friel Estate.

NEW YORK TIMES

‘…must rank as the most paradoxical arts festival on Earth. A chance to soul-search and sightsee at the same time. Can you have your Beckettian cake and eat it? Once a year, I think, it’s allowed’.

THE DAILY TELEGRAPH

WE L CO M E

Arts Over Borders - Artist Honorary Patrons Laurie Anderson John Banville Kevin Barry Ciaran Carson Roma Downey Adrian Dunbar Lisa Dwan

Roy Foster Philip Glass Nick Laird Eimear McBride Lisa McInerney Sinead Morrissey Paul Muldoon

Ohad Naharin Glenn Patterson Tom Paulin Fiona Shaw Raja Shehadeh Colm Toibin Robert Wilson

Our bio-festival model is a bespoke format which takes its inspiration from the genius of a single artist and is curated with a strong sense of place, both rural & urban, throughout border communities and landscapes - what we now call the northern literary lands.

Arts Over Borders - Board of Trustees Chairperson Mary Heaney Mary Campbell Peter Espenhahn Carlo Gebler Tess Maginess William Morrison Oliver O’Connor Paul Sternberg

and a very special thank you to our Vice-Chair Alison McArdle (2014-2018) who has returned to Australia.

Arts Over Borders - Festival Staff Festival Manager (Happy Days): Siobhan O’Connor Festival Manager (Lughnasa FrielFest): Jonathan Burgess Artist Liaison (Happy Days): Sally Rees Odyssey Manager (FrielFest) Arthur Oliver-Brown Music Manager (Happy Days): Matthew Murphy Production Manager (Happy Days): Barry McKinney Copywriter: Alistair Daniel Programme Design: Keith Connolly, Tonic Design - tonicdesign01@gmail.com Our thanks to Enniskillen Monsignor Peter O’Reilly, Dean Kenneth Hall, John Graham, Barbara Johnston, Heather White, Enniskillen Royal Grammar, Lord Brookeborough, Jimmy Rogers, Ian Davidson, Bryony May, Hazel Johnson & the Jolly Sandwich

Derry-Londonderry Marty Melarkey, the Sandwich Company, Warehouse Café, Mark Lusby, Karen Friel.

Others: Orla Constant, Nessa McGill and a BIG thank you to all our volunteers.

Welcome to Arts over Borders (Ireland’s presenting body for cross-border arts festivals) & welcome to its 3rd Lughnasa FrielFest and 6th Happy Days: Enniskillen International Beckett Festival.

Donegal Fr. Donoghue, Glenties Patricia McBride Traolach O’Fionnain

Over three weekends in August (Gaelic, Lughnasa), this year’s projects extend across six counties from Ballycastle in Co. Antrim to Portnoo in Co. Donegal, from Omagh in Co. Tyrone to Magheroarty, from DerryLondonderry city to outside Blacklion in Co. Cavan and from Magilligan in Co. Derry-Londonderry to Enniskillen in Co. Fermanagh, taking place in underground caves, islands on a lake, beaches, the Walls of Derry, village halls, cafes, arts centres, schools, a crypt, a roadside, a pier and a mountain!

First and foremost though our heightened site-specific experiences are there to underpin the artist’s work.

For six years, we have presented festivals on Beckett, Friel and Wilde in Ireland’s border counties but August 2018 will be our last festivals before Brexit. And so we offer two experiential Beckett Border projects: Three (or more) Billboards Outside Enniskillen & Sligo and Purgatorio: Walking for Waiting for Godot in the Marble Arch Caves UNESCO Geopark.

We have chosen Homer's two great poetic epics to sit either side of the border: the Odyssey being to Donegal - the county with Ireland's longest coastline - as the Iliad, epic of all epics, is to Derry - the city with the longest siege in British and Irish history.

We thank all our artists – local, national and international – our small but resourceful compliment of staff, our ever supportive and enabling Board of Trustees and all our courageous partners and funders.

Seán Doran & Liam Browne Festival Curators-DoranBrowne {www.artsoverborders.com}

3rd Lughnasa FrielFest: Derry~Londonderry & Donegal T H E OD y S S Ey B y H OM Er T H E I LI A D B y H O ME r

10 40

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FAI TH H E AL Er B y B rI An Fr I EL TH rE E S I ST E r S B y B r I A n F r I EL (T rAnSL ATIOn) L Iv In g Q uA rT Er S B y B r IA n F r IE L T HE yA LTA g AM E B y B rI A n F r IE L A FT Er PLAy B y B r I An F r IE L

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L IS A M C g E E I n C On vE rS AT I O n J E z Bu T TE r W OrT H I n C On vE rS AT I O n

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C O S kun k A r AD E M Ir Q uA rT E T r uB y PH I LOg En E (MEzzO SOP rAnO) S P Ir IT uA LS A nD S On g S An Dr EI B On D A r En kO (BArITOnE) r uS S I A n S O n g r EC I TA L

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F r I E L F ES T D IA r y

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WHAT WH ErE By SA MuE L BEC kET T nOT I & PA S MOI By SA M uEL BECkE T T THE O LD T unE By SA MuE L BEC kET T T HE DEvE nI SH IS LA nD Tr I PT yC H

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g uy STAgg & C ArLO g EBL Er : I nT rO DuC TO ry TA L k T HE PO rTO rA r EA DI ng S & OTH Er r EAD Ing S /TA L kS CO LI n S A LMO n - BECkE T T rEA D Er I n r ES IDEn CE

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CA MIL LE O’ SuL L IvA n (SIng Er ) WI nT Er rE IS E: CHr IST I An nE S TOTI J n (MEzzO S OPrAn O) J uLI En vAn M ELLAE rT S (BArITOnE) F rEn CH SO n g rE CI TA L

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HA PPy DAy S DI A ry

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Pur g ATOr I O - WA L kI ng FOr WA I TI ng FOr g O DOT By SA M uEL BECkE T T T HrEE ( Or MOr E) BIL L BO A rD S OuTSI DE En n IS kIL L En & S LI g O

6th Happy Days: International Beckett Festival Enniskillen {www.artsoverborders.com}

THE O Dy SS Ey

by Homer Rhapsodes (Actors) Maxine Peake, Imogen Stubbs, Natascha McElhone, Frances Barber Thursday 9 August, 3pm Downhill Beach, Co. Derry~Londonderry (MAxInE PEAkE)

Friday 10 August, T I M E killahoey Beach, Co. Donegal

TBC

Sunday 12 August, 2.30pm Magilligan Beach, Co. Derry~Londonderry

Friday 17 August, 7pm Carrickfinn Beach Co. Donegal

(IMOgEn STuBBS)

( n ATA S C H A M C E L H O n E )

Wednesday 15 August, 7pm Ballycastle Beach, Co. Antrim

Saturday 18 August, 5pm Magheroarty Beach, Co. Donegal

(MAxInE PEAkE)

(SEE WEBSITE)

(FrAnCES BArBEr)

Saturday 11 August, 2.30pm Portstewart Beach, Co. Derry~Londonderry

Thursday 16 August, 7pm narin Beach, Portnoo, Co. Donegal

Sunday 19 August, 6pm Lisfannon Beach, Co. Donegal

(IMOgEn STuBBS)

(SEE WEBSITE)

(FrAnCES BArBEr)

Tickets: £15 ( n I ) / €15 ( r O I ) | Duration: 60mins

CELEBRATING FRIEL’S PASSION for all things Homeric and transposing the story from Greece to Europe’s western edge the festival presents readings from Homer’s great epic of voyage, shipwreck and homecoming across beaches in Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. From the northeast of Ballycastle (where Greek hexameters meet the hexagonal rock formations of the Giant’s Causeway) to the north-west’s sweeping sands of Narin & Portnoo in Co. Donegal the readings move in and out of the exhilaratingly beautiful indented coastline and back and forth across the border. And along the way the Greek myths of Homer meet Irish myths such as Balor the one-eyed giant or Finn McCool. It finishes on the Inishowen Peninsula, the safe harbour of Brian Friel’s own Ithaca homeland.

Inside a pitched tent, an acclaimed actor reads from Emily Wilson’s superb new translation (the first in English by a woman), accompanied by Greek food, live Greek music and the crashing of the Atlantic waves.

IMAgE: © FIDELIS

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T H E I L I AD

by Homer Rhapsode (Actor) Niall Cusack EPISODE 1

EPISODE 3

Friday 10 August, 6.30pm Outside Walls below Walker’s Plinth

Saturday 11 August, 5.30pm Double Bastion at verbal Arts Centre ( S O u T H FA C I n g )

EPISODE 2

Saturday 11 August, 1.30pm grand Parade at Walker’s Plinth

EPISODE 4

Sunday 12 August, 11am East Wall at Artillery Bastion

( W E S T FA C I n g ) EPISODE 5

Sunday 12 August, 5pm Church bastion at St. Columb’s Cathedral ( E A S T FA C I n g ) *Followed by ruby Philogene M B E - Mezzo Soprano & Trevor Burnside - Piano Concert in St. Columb’s Cathedral | Duration 30mins l Free* Tickets: £10 | Duration: 60mins

and when it comes to a reading of The Iliad, in which Homer recounts the story of the Siege of Troy (Ilium meaning Troy) with Achilles, Hector, Helen, Odysseus & Agamemnon, where better to hold it than on the Walls of Derry, a city famous for its own siege. Five episodes from the epic will be read in a military-style tent; the opening episode will take place on a grassy knoll just outside the Walls overlooking the Bogside (with its terraced rows of houses reimagined as the camped tents of the Greeks). The remaining four episodes will be held on different bastions within the Walls surrounded on the Saturday by the dramatic soundscape of the Apprentice Boys' marching bands.

BRIAN FRIEL LOVED HOMER

To conclude the Iliad readings and as a counterbalance to a weekend of brutal descriptions of war and its aftermath, a short concert of balm with spirituals and songs will be given by opera and gospel singer Ruby Philogene, a first prize winner of the Kathleen Ferrier Award and who has sung at, amongst other places, the Royal Opera House and Deutsche Oper Berlin and at the special invitation of Princess Diana. {8}

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PurgATOrIO: WALkIng FOr WAITIng FOr gODOT Tragi-Comedy for the Border Marble Arch Caves unESCO global geo-park WEEkEnD 2

Saturday 18 August, 10am Sunday 19 August, 10am

( A L L P E r F O r M A n C E S n E C E S S I TAT E W A L k I n g F r O M 8 A M O r B E F O r E S E E W E B S I T E F O r C A S T A n D F u r T H E r D E TA I L S )

Kenneth Tynan on Waiting for Godot, Observer 1953

Tickets: £15

A Country Road. A Mountain. A Tree. Morning IN ‘WAITING FOR GODOT’ it is usually the characters of the play, Vladimir and Estragon who do the walking and suffer sore feet for their troubles but in this unique site-specific Godot it is the audience who walk, through the Marble Arch Caves UNESCO Global Geo-park (the first transnational geopark in the world), through the existential Beckettian landscape, to gather at the Irish border around Antony Gormley’s Tree for Waiting for Godot (specially installed for the occasion) for a rehearsed reading of the play.

This is participatory, experiential drama at its most extreme and on the last Happy Days before Brexit the festival is culturally occupying the border with a quintessentially Irish play that nonetheless has universal appeal, whose themes could not be more relevant to our times - themes of waiting, of the sense of the days repeating themselves, of despair, of pathos, of homelessness, but all of this lifted by the hopefulness of great art.

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The Festival presents its first Waiting for Godot in English, subsequent to previously presented productions from The Berliner Ensemble in german Warten Auf Godot directed by george Tabori (2015), Theatre nono in French En Attendant Godot (2014) and new york new yiddish rep in yiddish Wartn Af Godot (2013). This site-specific godot is a sequel to the Dante-inspired Inferno (2013).

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‘It arrives at the custom-house as it were, with no luggage, no passport and nothing to declare yet it gets through, as might a pilgrim from Mars…’

WEEkEnD 1

Saturday 4 August, 10am Sunday 5 August, 10am

FAI T H H EA L E r

by Brian Friel A Promenade Reading Location: Pick up at Market Hall, glenties | Duration: 4 hours WEEkEnD 1

WEEkEnD 2

Friday 10 August, 6pm Saturday 11 August, 5pm Sunday 12 August, 4pm Frank - See website grace - Tamsin greig Teddy - Alex Jennings

Friday 17 August, 6pm Saturday 18 August, 5pm Sunday 19 August, 4pm Frank - rory kinnear grace - Laura Donnelly Teddy - See website

Tickets: €25 ( I n C L u D E S

PICnIC AnD BuS)

PLEASE nOTE: FOr THE FInAL ACT 4 OF WEEkEnD 1, SIngLE TICkETS WILL BE SOLD

BRIAN FRIEL’S DARING four-act monologue masterpiece, Faith Healer (1979) has acquired cult status with audiences and actors alike. The play is a journey to Ballybeg, Friel’s fictional town, and is set during the time of Lughnasa (the Gaelic word for August). One story, three storytellers, four monologues; no director, no rehearsals, each actor offers his or her interpretation of their role. The first three take place in a different village hall (Edininfagh - Frank, Portnoo - Grace and Ardara - Teddy) and the audience travels by bus, stopping along the way for an interval barbecue on Portnoo Pier (the setting for Friel’s Wonderful Tennessee). The final act is held in the ballroom of the Highlands Hotel in Glenties, the town where Brian Friel once summerholidayed as a child and is now buried.

It’s an utterly unique and extraordinary way to experience this great play, an exploration of truth, lies and the mystery of inspiration.

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NEW FESTIVAL ION ODUCT

PR

W H AT W H ErE

by Samuel Beckett Produced by Kabosh, Directed by Paula McFetridge Designed by Liz Cullinane Secret Location ( B u S

D E PA r T S E n n I S k I L L E n C A S T L E )

Thursday 2 August: 7.00pm Friday 3 August: 7.30pm

Saturday 4 August: 4.30pm & 6.30pm Sunday 5 August: 1.30pm

Cast: Michael Condron, Tony Flynn, vincent Higgins, neil keery Tickets: £12 ( I n C L u D E S

BuS)

WHAT WHERE (1983) is Beckett’s last play. ‘We are the last five’ says a voice though only four characters appear throughout. It’s a powerful political drama which explores what information must be divulged and when…..if ever. ’You’ll be given the works until you confess’ says the voice but what must be confessed? Do we act alone? Who or what will save us? This powerful new production Previous secret from Belfast-based Kabosh is directed by Festival locations included Associate Paula McFetridge and takes place in a Beckett’s Catastrophe at Pubble Church (2014), secret location somewhere in Fermanagh.

Beckett's Stirring’s Still

at Castle Archdale (2015) and Beckett's From an abandoned work in an abandoned house off the Shore road (2017).

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CA MI L LE O’ S u L LIvA n

n OT I & PAS M OI

Ireland’s Cabaret Chanteuse

by Samuel Beckett

Enniskillen royal grammar, The Steele Hall ( F O r M E r Ly Friday 3 August, 10pm

POrTOrA)

NEW FESTIVAL ION

PRODUCT

Ardhowen Theatre By the Lake Saturday 4 August, 2pm | Sunday 5 August, 12.30pm

Tickets: £15

Tickets: £10 | Duration: 30mins

‘sexy, wild and dangerous’

THIS ACCLAIMED PRODUCTION, which premiered at Happy Days’ Paris Beckett Festival (2016), features a first ever back-to-back performance of Beckett’s Not I and its French-language version, Pas Moi by the award-winning Frenchbased, Irish actress Clara Simpson. In 2010 in a Corn Exchange production Clara played Winnie in Happy Days directed by Annie Ryan.

The Telegraph chanteuse Camille O’Sullivan has established a reputation as a uniquely gifted performer singing in English and French, capable of driving an audience into raptures or bringing a tear to the eye.

Her bold interpretations of everyone from Jacques Brel and Kurt Weill to Tom Waits and Nick Cave wring every drop of drama from a song (she has starred in the Olivier Award-winning musical La Clique and in Conall Morrison’s highly-acclaimed, Woyzeck in Winter), and Beckett & Oscar Wilde’s old school of Portora (now known as Enniskillen Royal Grammar) is the perfect setting for her Parisian cabaret theatrical blend of spectacle, seduction and charm.

OVER THE LAST DECADE,

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Not I is a haunting piece, a sonic masterpiece, in which an unnamed woman, visible only by her mouth, reflects on her life in a torrent of words. To hear Beckett’s two languages side by side in one sitting with, as Clara puts it, ‘no transition, one language Previous Festival Not I included weaving into the other, to become a single piece’ is productions Lisa Dwan at Portora as intense and mind-blowing a thirty minutes as you royal School (Beckett’s School) in 2012 and the will experience in a theatre.

Marble Arch Caves as part of the Inferno triptych in 2013.

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T H E O LD T u n E

NEW FESTIVAL ION ODUCT

PR

by Samuel Beckett Directed by Conall Morrison Starring Barry McGovern & Eamon Morrissey Strule Arts Centre, Omagh Wednesday 1 August 1, 8pm The regal, Enniskillen Friday 3 August, 6.30pm Saturday 4 August, 3pm and 8.30pm Sunday 6 August, 5.30pm Tickets: £10 | Duration: 40mins

on the margins of society, struggling to communicate, facing isolation and memory loss; it’s not hard to see why Beckett was drawn to his friend Robert Pinget’s play La Manivelle (The Crank) and offered to translate it into English. But Beckett went further than most translators, transposing the setting to Dublin and changing the characters, Gorman and Cream, to Irishmen.

TWO MEN LIVING

‘...and we only after meeting once in a blue moon’ The Old Tune

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This new production is directed by Conall Morrison (whose Woyzeck in Winter received rave reviews in Galway and London last year). It’s being staged in The Regal in the heart of Enniskillen, a perfect setting with its atmosphere of faded 1950’s glory, and it stars two iconic Irish actors, Barry McGovern and Eamon Morrissey. This is a rare opportunity to see both The Old Tune itself and two of Ireland’s finest theatre actors performing on stage together.

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NEW FESTIVAL ION ODUCT

PR

DEv En IS H I SLA nD TrI PT yCH

The Tower by W B Yeats – a reading …but the clouds… by Samuel Beckett – a screening Beethoven String Trio – a movement

Devenish Island, Lough Erne Boat departs from the round O, Shore road, Enniskillen Friday 3 August Departs 6.30pm

Saturday 4 August Departs 6.30pm

Tickets: £15 ( I n C L u D I n g

B O AT J O u r n E y )

Sunday 5 August Departs 6.30pm Duration: 2hrs

DEVENISH HELD A SPECIAL PLACE in Beckett’s memory, as he and other pupils from Portora rowed out to the island every morning and this three-part event pays tribute by presenting three connected pieces in different locations on the island. The atmospheric boat journey still harks back to the history of the lakes as the ancient highway for early Christian pilgrimage.

Yeats’s famous poem The Tower is performed by an unseen actor reading from inside the beautiful Round Tower. The poem inspired Beckett’s 1977’s television play … but the clouds…, which is screened in the hut on the island, while for the concluding element a string trio performs a movement from Beethoven in the ruins of the Augustine abbey. With sunset imminent each evening this intimate and multi-sensory Devenish Island Triptych promises to be a spiritually uplifting experience in a landscape so associated with Beckett.

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LIS A Mcg E E I n CO n vEr S ATI O n

JEz BuTTErWOrTH I n C O nv E r SATI On

great Hall, Magee Campus, ulster university Friday 17 August, 7.30pm

An grianán Theatre, Letterkenny Saturday 18 August, 2pm

Tickets: £10

Tickets: €10

to the presentation of Brian Friel’s Hiberno-English translation of Chekhov’s Three Sisters, Derry girl Lisa McGee opens the second weekend of Lughnasa Frielfest, 2018. ‘If you aren’t already watching,’ raved The Guardian after the first episode of Derry Girls, ‘then catch yourself on.’ Lisa McGee’s deliciously tart comedy series about a gang of schoolgirls (and one boy) at a convent school in Derry ~Londonderry in the early 1990s, was a runaway hit and, like Friel, captured the humour and complexity of family life. McGee, who created the RTÉ show Raw and the sitcom London Irish is also an award-winning playwright, and for this homecoming event she talks about her admiration for Friel and the extraordinary success of Derry Girls.

established himself as one of his generation’s leading playwrights when his play Jerusalem, starring Mark Rylance, premiered in London in 2009. The play, a bold, exuberant, stateof-the-nation comedy about modern-day Pied Piper Johnny ‘Rooster’ Byron, won a clutch of awards and catapulted Butterworth to international fame.

'Daft, profane and absolutely brilliant…..'

‘a playwright without equal’

The Guardian on Derry Girls

The Guardian

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AS A CURTAIN-RAISER

JEZ BUTTERWORTH HAD ALREADY

His latest play, The Ferryman, a gripping family drama set in an Armagh farmhouse in 1981, has been just as rapturously received. In an exclusive Irish appearance for Lughnasa FrielFest Jez Butterworth talks about his passion for Friel’s work and the challenges of writing plays, from dialogue to engaging with the Troubles.

F E ST I vA L I nT rO Du C TO ry TA Lk

WI nT Er rE I S E

by Franz Schubert

with Carlo Gébler

Christianne Stotijn - Mezzo-Soprano & Julius Drake - Piano

Town Hall, Enniskillen Friday 3 August, 5.30pm

St Macartin’s Cathedral, Enniskillen Sunday 5 August, 3.30pm

Tickets: £5

Tickets: £15 | Duration: 75mins

We are grateful to the Arts Council of Northern Ireland for the loan of the Steinway Model D – 9ft Grand Piano for the purpose of this event

gu y S TAgg In C Onv Er SATI On

‘a sublime, intense, and intimate account’ Philip Hoare WITH AUDIENCES UNDERTAKING A WALK through Fermanagh country to watch Waiting for Godot at this year’s festival, the theme of walking is also explored in this opening talk. A few years ago Guy Stagg set out to walk from Canterbury to Jerusalem on a secular, 5,000km pilgrimage. Over ten months he passed through ten countries, climbed over the Alps in winter, survived a terrorist attack in Lebanon and spent Easter in Rome with the Pope. His account of this epic journey, The Crossway, was published earlier this summer to rapturous reviews. Guy Stagg talks to Carlo Gébler about his adventures, and explores what walking means to him.

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but a performance of Schubert’s Winterreise – Beckett’s favourite piece of music – has been at the heart of the Happy Days programme since its inception. This great song cycle was originally intended for a male singer but this year, for the first time at Happy Days, we’re thrilled to welcome internationally acclaimed mezzo soprano, Christianne Stotijn, accompanied by Julius Drake. Their long-standing partnership has seen them perform Schubert’s lieder at many of the world’s leading concert halls and this performance, taking This is the festival’s fifth Winterreise and place in the magnificent acoustic of St Macartin’s its first to be sung by Cathedral, is sure to be a festival highlight. a woman. Previous IT MAY BE AUGUST,

Preceded by Samuel Beckett's short prose Texts for Nothing No. 12, read by Colin Salmon.

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singers included Ian Bostridge (2012), Florian Boesch (2013), Sir John Tomlinson (2014) and nicky Spence (2017).

THr EE S IS TErS

by Brian Friel A version of the play by Anton Chekhov Directed by Paula McFetridge Produced by Kabosh Theatre Company Foyle Arts Centre, Top Floor Dance Studio, Derry~Londonderry Saturday 18 August, 12pm & 6pm Sunday 19 August, 2pm Cast: Michael Condron, gary Crossan, rhys Dunlop, Tony Flynn, Darren Franklin nicky Harley, Conor Hinds, Saoirse-Monica Jackson, Terry keeley, noel Mcgee Dearbháile Mckinney, Carol Moore, Jamie-Lee O’Donnell, Lalor roddy Tickets: £15 ( I n C L u D E S

rEFrESHMEnTS)

‘IRELAND IS A LITTLE RUSSIA’, wrote George Moore in 1911, ten years after Three Sisters was first performed on the Russian stage. Set at the turn of the century in a grand provincial house, the play follows the emotional entanglements of three sisters and their awkward brother, dreaming of returning to Moscow as the old world crumbles around them.

Brian Friel’s translation, which premiered in the Guildhall, Derry~Londonderry in 1981, seamlessly adapts Chekhov’s language to the rhythms of Irish conversation. This rehearsed reading brings together fourteen actors (including some of the cast of Lisa McGee’s Derry Girls) in a world of deception, disaster and self-sacrifice played out on the banks of the Foyle.

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L IvI ng QuArTE r S

COSkun kArADEMIr QuArTET

AF TE r H I P P OLy Tu S

by Brian Friel A Rehearsed Reading directed by Mick Gordon An grianán Theatre, Letterkenny Friday 10 August, 8pm €10 and €8

Strule Arts Centre Derry/Londonderry Dance Studio, Omagh venue TBC Saturday 11 August, 2.30pm Saturday 11 August, 8pm Tickets: £8

FESTIVALE EXCLUSIV

Sufi World Music Concert An grianán Theatre Letterkenny, Co.Donegal Living Quarters Concert Friday 10 August, 6.45pm

First Presbyterian Church, Derry, Derry - Londonderry Living Quarters Concert Saturday 11 August, 6.45pm

Tickets: £10

Cast: Tony Flynn, Ian McElhinney, Aislin Mcguckin, Bronagh Waugh, Michael Condron, Eimear keating, Charlie Bonner, David Pearse, Charlotte McCurry

Tickets: £10/€10.

Joint ticket for Coskun karademir Quartet and Living Quarters €15/£15

Joint ticket: Coskun karademir Quartet and Living Quarters €15 /£15

is Lughnasa FrielFest’s signature play for 2018 and leads the Chekhov & Russian theme, being Friel’s first Chekhovian play. It’s a family drama concerning an Irish commandant who returns home to Donegal a hero after a successful UN mission in the Middle East and it explores those quintessentially Chekhovian themes of conflict and resolution in an unmistakably Irish context. It’s set twenty miles outside Derry and the first of our rehearsed readings takes place in Letterkenny.

Derry~Londonderry and Omagh, where the other two readings are happening, are referenced in the play, the characters passing through them on their way to Friel’s imaginary Ballybeg.

LIVING QUARTERS (1977)

Music has always been a powerful element in Brian Friel’s drama and the Middle-Eastern connection in Living Quarters is celebrated with a prereading performance by Sufi musicians from Turkey and Iran, Coskun Karademir Quartet.

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LUGHNASA FRIELFEST PRESENTS the Coskun Karademir Quartet as a musical prelude to Brian Friel’s Living Quarters, inspired by the play's protagonist (Commandant Frank Butler) returning to Ballybeg from the Middle East.

Coskun Karademir was captivated by the music of his homeland, Anatolia (where Troy is reputed to be sited), and has devoted himself to its folk and mystical music. His group, The Secret Ensemble (of which the quartet is part) emerged onto the world stage with its first album, Kusların Çagrısı (The Call of Birds).

Traditional Iranian and Turkish Sufi music meet in an extraordinary and glorious sound. The spirituality of their music is inspired by an ethos of unity, a coming together, a world harmony. As the poet Rumi wrote, ‘Those who share the same soul are preferred to those who speak the same language.’

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THE yALTA g A ME

A FT E r PL Ay

by Brian Friel

by Brian Friel

A Rehearsed Reading Actors: Stanley Townsend & Orla Charlton

A Rehearsed Reading Actors: Donna Dent & Richard Henders

St. Eugene’s Hall, Moville, Co. Donegal Friday 10 August, 8.30pm Saturday 11 August, 3pm & 8.30pm Sunday 12 August, 2.30pm

Sandwich Company, Bishop Street, Derry-Londonderry Friday 17 August, 9.30pm | Saturday 18 August. 9.30pm Warehouse Café, guildhall Street, Derry-Londonderry Sunday 19 August, 4pm

Tickets: €8 Tickets: £8

Chekhov. Like that story, Friel’s play is set in Yalta, a Black Sea resort for summering Muscovites. In the festival’s rehearsed reading, Moville stands in for Yalta, both seaside resorts with promenades for strolling and former ports and fishing settlements. Where Chekhov looked out from his house, The White Dacha, in Yalta across the Black Sea to Turkey, Friel wrote The Yalta Game just a few miles from Moville, looking across the estuary to Magilligan in Northern Ireland. The husband and wife pairing of Stanley Townsend and Orla Charlton read the roles of Dmitri and Anna.

Afterplay (2002) takes two of Chekhov’s most celebrated characters - Sonya from Uncle Vanya and Andrey from Three Sisters - and brings them together in a Moscow cafe some 20 to 30 years after the events in the plays. In the spirit of Friel’s theatrical conceit, the festival has invited two actors who have themselves played Sonya and Andrey previously, Donna Dent (Uncle Vanya, Gate Theatre, 1998) and Richard Henders (Three Sisters, Chichester, 2001) , to re-engage with those characters. They meet after-hours in a Derry~Londonderry café to talk of life, love, and its disappointments.

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THE YALTA GAME IS based on a theme in The Lady with the Little Dog by Anton

BRIAN FRIEL’S AUDACIOUS TWO-HANDER,

r uS SIA n S On g rE C ITAL A Tribute to the late Dmitri Hvorostovsky Andrei Bondarenko: Baritone Gary Matthewman: Piano St Columba’s Church, Long Tower, Derry~Londonderry Sunday 19 August, 8pm Tickets: £15

© JOnAH PErSSOn

‘an astonishingly beautiful voice … on his way to greatness’ The Guardian on Andrei Bondarenko of this year’s Lughnasa FrielFest continues with this special concert paying tribute to the late Dmitri Hvorostovsky, perhaps the greatest of all Russian baritones, who died late last year. Andrei Bondarenko, the exciting young Ukrainian baritone (and former pupil of Hvorostovsky) performs a recital of Russian music. Taking place in the Long Tower Church, with its spectacular (and Orthodox-style) interior, this promises to be a thrilling celebration of Russian song.

THE RUSSIAN FLAVOUR

Songs by: Glinka, Rimsky-Korsakov, Glière, Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninov

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Fr E nC H S On g rE CITAL Julien Van Mellaerts: Baritone Julius Drake: Piano St Macartin’s Cathedral, Enniskillen Saturday 4 August, 11.30am Tickets: £15

‘sophisticated, precise fearlessness’ Scmopera on Julien Van Mellaerts dual language focus, marking Happy Days’ presentation of its Paris Beckett festival in 2016 and Beckett’s own years in Paris, this wonderful concert of French songs is performed by the exciting young baritone Julien Van Mellaerts.

AS PART OF THIS YEAR’S

Julien Van Mellaerts is one of the leading baritones of his generation. He only graduated from the Royal College of Music last year, but has already received numerous accolades, including winning the 2017 Wigmore Hall/ Kohn Foundation International Song Competition and most recently he won the Maureen Forrester Second Prize and the German Lied Award at the 2018 Concours musical international de Montréal.

Programme: Poulenc, Ravel, Duparc, Debussy

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TH E P OrTO rA rE A DIn g S A Celebration of Samuel Beckett’s Short Prose Enniskillen royal grammar, Steele Hall See website for dates and times www.artsoverborders.com

SOME OF BECKETT’S FINEST WRITING

is to be found in his short prose works, indeed Beckett saw himself as first and foremost a prose writer, not a dramatist. Audiences though seldom get a chance to hear these wonderful short pieces being read out loud but in this year’s festival over the course of the weekend a number of leading actors will do just that - and in the evocative environs of Beckett’s old school Portora (now Enniskillen Royal Grammar School) and other spaces.

This includes some sunset Fizzles in St. Michael’s Crypt with readers Adrian Dunbar, Anna Nygh & Ciaran McMenamin. Other short prose being read includes First Love, Stirrings Still, From an Abandoned Work, Ping and the short play A Piece of Monologue.

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C O L I n SA L MOn 2018 Beckett Reader In Residence PSnI Enniskillen Police Station Friday 3 August, 9pm Texts For Nothing No.9

by Samuel Beckett Tickets £10

St. Macartin’s Cathedral Sunday 5 August, 3.30pm Texts For Nothing No. 12

by Samuel Beckett opening the Winterreise concert

COLIN SALMON HAS BEEN a star of film and television since his big break playing opposite Helen Mirren in Prime Suspect in 1992.

Further success followed with Soldier Soldier and Colin appeared in three Bond movies, Tomorrow Never Dies, The World Is Not Enough and Die Another Day. Colin has since mixed TV and film roles, ranging from Doctor Who and The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency to lead characters in blockbuster films such as Alien Versus Predator and Resident Evil. Colin was one of the contestants in Strictly Come Dancing in 2012. He currently plays General Zod in the Syfy series Krypton.

For details on further readings by Colin please check festival website

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Frielfest Diary of Events Thursday 9 August 8.30pm The Odyssey, Episode 1, Maxine Peake Downhill Beach £ 1 5 Friday 10 August

Happy Days Diary of Events

6.45pm The Coskun Karademir Quartet First Derry Presbyterian Church £ 1 0 8pm Living Quarters see website for venue details £10

6pm Faith Healer Bus departure from Market Theatre, Glenties € 2 5 The Odyssey, Episode 2, Maxine Peake Killahoey Beach, Dunfanaghy: see website for time € 1 5 6.30pm The Iliad, Episode 1 Outside Derry Walls (Walker’s Plinth) £ 1 0

8.30pm The Yalta Game St Eugene’s Hall, Moville € 8

2.30pm The Odyssey, Episode 4, Imogen Stubbs Magilligan Strand £ 1 5 11am The Iliad, Episode 4 East Wall Artillery Bastion, Derry Walls £ 1 0 2.30pm The Yalta Game St Eugene’s Hall, Moville € 8

8pm Living Quarters An Grianan Theatre € 1 0 /€ 8

4pm Faith Healer Bus departure from Market Theatre, Glenties € 2 5

Saturday 11 August 1.30pm The Iliad, Episode 2 Grand Parade Walker’s Plinth, Derry Walls £ 1 0 2.30pm Living Quarters Strule Arts Centre, Omagh £ 8 2.30pm The Odyssey, Episode 3, Imogen Stubbs Portstewart Strand £ 1 5 3pm The Yalta Game St. Eugene’s Hall, Moville € 8 5pm Faith Healer Bus departure from Market Theatre, Glenties € 2 5

Wednesday 1 August

7.30pm Lisa McGee Ulster University,Magee £ 1 0

£10

Thursday 2 August 9.30pm Afterplay Sandwich Company, Bishop St. Derry~Londonderry £ 8

7pm What Where Secret Location, Bus departure: Enniskillen Castle

Saturday August 18

£12

12pm Three Sisters Foyle Arts Centre £ 1 5

Friday 3 August

5pm The Iliad, Episode 5 Church Bastion St. Columb’s Cathedral, Derry Walls £ 1 0 6pm The Iliad Closing Short Concert of Spirituals and Songs - Ruby Philogene St Columb’s Cathedral F r E E

2pm Jez Butterworth An Grianán Theatre € 1 0 5pm Faith Healer Bus departure from Market Theatre, Glenties € 2 5 6pm Three Sisters Foyle Arts Centre £ 1 5

Thursday August 16 7pm The Odyssey, Episode 6 Narin Beach, Portnoo, see website for full details € 1 5

6pm Faith Healer Bus departure from Market Theatre Glenties € 2 5

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6.30pm The Old Tune The Regal £ 1 0 6.30pm Triptych Boat departure: Round ‘O’ Devenish Island £ 1 5 7.30pm What Where Bus departure: Enniskillen Castle, Secret Location £ 1 2

9.30pm Afterplay Sandwich Company, Bishop St., Derry~Londonderry £ 8

7.45pm A Piece of Monologue see website for details

Sunday 19 August

9pm Colin Salmon, Texts for Nothing No 9 reading PSNI Station £ 1 0

2pm Three Sisters Foyle Arts Centre £ 1 5

Wednesday 15 August 7pm The Odyssey, Episode 5 Ballycastle Beach, see website for full details £ 1 5

5.30pm Festival Introductory Talk, Guy Stagg with Carlo Gébler The Town Hall £ 5

5pm The Odyssey, Episode 8 Frances Barber Magheroarty Beach € 1 5

4pm Faith Healer Bus departure from Market Theatre, Glenties € 2 5 4pm Afterplay Warehouse Café, Guildhall St., Derry~Londonderry £ 8

9.27pm Fizzles 1 & 2 The Crypt, St Michael’s Church £ 5 10pm Camille O’Sullivan Enniskillen Royal Grammar School £ 1 5 Saturday 4 August

6pm The Odyssey, Episode 9 Frances Barber, Lisfannon Beach € 1 5

Friday August 17 5.30pm The Iliad, Episode 3 Bastion near Verbal Arts Centre, Derry Walls £ 1 0

8pm The Old Tune Strule Arts Centre, Omagh

Sunday 12 August

6.45pm The Coskun Karademir Quartet An Grianán Theatre € 1 0

8.30pm The Yalta Game St Eugene’s Hall, Moville € 8

7pm The Odyssey, Episode 7 Natascha McElhone Carrickfinn Beach € 1 5

8pm Russian Song Recital, Andrei Bondarenko St. Columba’s Church, Long Tower £ 1 5

8am Morning Reading on Lough Erne Boat departure: Round ‘O’ £ 1 0

10am Purgatorio: Walking for Godot Marble Arch Caves UNESCO Global Geopark (full length walk of 7km begins at 8am) £ 1 5

Sunday 5 August

10am The Portora Readings Enniskillen Royal Grammar School, see website for details

10am Purgatorio: Walking for Godot Marble Arch Caves UNESCO Global Geo-park (full walk of 7km begins at 8am) £ 1 5

11.30am French Song Recital St Macartin’s Cathedral £ 1 5

9am Morning Krapp Reading Boat departure Round ‘O’ £ 1 0

2pm Not I & Pas Moi Ardhowen Theatre £ 1 0

11am The Portora Readings Enniskillen Royal Grammar School, see website for details

3pm The Old Tune The Regal £ 1 0

12.30pm Not I & Pas Moi Ardhowen Theatre £ 1 0

3pm The Portora Readings Enniskillen Royal Grammar School, see website for details

1.30pm What Where Bus departure: Enniskillen Castle, Secret Location £ 1 2

4pm Precious Little Recital St. Michael’s Church F r E E 4.30pm What Where Bus departure: Enniskillen Castle, Secret Location £ 1 2 6.30pm The Portora Readings Enniskillen Royal Grammar School, see website for details 6.30pm Triptych Devenish Island, Boat departure, Round ‘O’ £ 1 5 6.30pm What Where Bus departure: Enniskillen Castle, Secret Location £ 1 2 7pm A Piece of Monologue see website for details 8.30pm The Old Tune The Regal £ 1 0 9.25pm Fizzles 3,4,5,6 The Crypt, St Michael's Church, £ 5

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2pm The Portora Readings Enniskillen Royal Grammar School, see website for details 3.30pm Winterreise St Macartin’s Cathedral £ 1 5 5.30pm The Old Tune The Regal £ 1 0 6.30pm Triptych Devenish Island, Boat departure: Round ‘O’ £ 1 5 7pm A Piece of Monologue see website for details 9.23pm Fizzles Reading 8 The Crypt, St Michael’s Church £ 5 Saturday 18/ Sunday 19 August 10am Purgatorio: Walking for Godot Marble Arch Caves UNESCO Global Geo-park (full walk of 7km begins at 8am) £ 1 5

T HrEE B I L LB OAr DS (Or MO rE ) O u TSI DE En nIS k ILLE n & SL Ig O 25 July - 25 August Location: The Irish Border ( S E E W E B S I T E Design: Alan Milligan

F O r D E TA I L S )

The Tower Happy Days and Sligo’s Tread Softly festivals come together for a cross-border collaboration celebrating the work of two great Irish Nobel Laureates: Samuel Beckett and WB Yeats. For a whole month, travellers heading across the border into the Republic of Ireland will be treated to the last stanza of Yeats’ The Tower (a poem that inspired Beckett’s late film-play …but the clouds...) writ large across a series of specially commissioned bespoke billboards at the border, while drivers heading in the opposite direction will be welcomed to Northern Ireland with Beckett’s liminal 11 line poem neither.

ENNISKILLEN’S

northern literary lands

Booking and further information www.artsoverborders.com Donegal Box Office An grianán Theatre Port Road Letterkenny Tel: + 353 (0) 74 9120777 Derry~Londonderry Box Office nerve Centre 5-6 Magazine Street Derry~Londonderry BT48 6HJ Tel: 028 7126 0562 Fermanagh Box Office Ardhowen Theatre 97 Dublin Road Enniskillen BT74 6FZ Tel: 028 6632 5440

Please note all events and artists are correct at time of going to press. Some festival events and artists may be subject to last minute change due to circumstances beyond our control. In the event of an artist change, a replacement will be engaged. Ticket buyers will be refunded for any event cancellation.

All events have a limited capacity so advance booking is recommended.

For further information and event updates visit: www.artsoverborders.com or follow us on Facebook: facebook.com/artsoverborders Twitter & Instagram: @artsoverborders Contact us: info@artsoverborders.com

‘…this most distinctive, original and dreamlike of festivals offered profound experiences’ THE InDEPEnDEnT ★★★★★

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