The Abbey Theatre has given details of its programme of events to celebrate its centenary next year. Among the highlights announced by its artistic director, Ben Barnes, will be a new version of Chekhov's The Cherry Orchard by Tom Murphy and a new version of Sophocles's Burial at Thebes by Séamus Heaney.
To mark the accession of new countries to the EU in 2004, there will be productions of plays from Poland, Hungary and Slovenia. The Polish play, Festen (The Celebration) by Thomas Vinterberg and Mogens Rukow; the silent Hungarian play, Ossztánc (Dance in Time), by Pál Békés; and the Slovenian version of Shakespeare's A Midsummer's Night Dream, adapted by Andrej Rozman Roza.
John McColgan of Tyrone Productions will make his theatrical directing debut with Dion Boucicault's The Shaughraun. Other productions include novelist Colm Tóibín's first play, Beauty in a Broken Place.
During the Dublin Theatre Festival, the Abbey and Peacock will stage eight full productions from their repertoire and 10 play readings over a 14-day season, called The Abbey and Ireland.
From June to December, the Abbey will take three plays on tour. The Playboy of the Western World will tour Galway, Letter- kenny, Belfast, Athlone, Cork, Kilkenny and Sligo, and then go to Boston, New Haven, New York and Chicago. Tom Murphy's The Gigli Concert travels to Brisbane and Sydney, and The Plough and the Stars goes to London's Barbican.
Mr Barnes referred pointedly to the Abbey building's controversial and, at present, uncertain future. "In spite of the economic downturn, the Government is placing a high priority on the provision of an appropriate landmark building for the Abbey Theatre. We believe that . . . in 2004, there will never be a better time to make good on that commitment."
