Brian Merriman’s “Eirebrushed” opens Tuesday, Nov. 15 at 7pm, at Downtown Art, (70 E. 4th Street, between 2nd Ave. & Bowery), running through November 19, presented by TOSOS (The Other Side of Silence), New York’s oldest professional LGBT theater, and the IDGTF, as part of Culture Ireland’s Ireland 2016 Commemorative Arts Programme. More info about “Eirebrushed” and TOSOS can be found at www.tososnyc.org.
“We’re delighted to be able to introduce Brian Merriman and the cast of ‘Eirebrushed’ to the New York theater community,” said TOSOS Artistic Director Mark Finley. “Brian has created one of the most important gay festivals in the world, and we’re proud to present the US premiere of his play.”
The week after the US elects a new President, “Eirebrushed” is a timely reflection on the principles of democratic inclusiveness, equal opportunity and the reality of republican ideals, by those inspired to combat oppression and exclusion in 1916 Ireland.
The all-Irish cast stars award-winning actress Maria Blaney as Nurse Elizabeth O’Farrell, who was famously airbrushed out of the 1916 surrender photograph; Flo McSweeney as author, trade unionist and activist sister of Countess Markievicz, Eva Gore Booth; John Kelly as poet-turned-revolutionary Padraig Pearse; and Stephen Gorman as human rights activist Roger Casement. In Merriman’s play, the four revolutionaries return 100 years after the 1916 Rising to tell the hidden stories of the lives of some of the heroes who would not ‘fit’ the vision of the new ‘Republic of equals’ that was promised in the glorious revolution.
“The play’s premise is: ‘can a flawed person be a hero?” said Merriman, who also directs. “They were not just fighting for Ireland’s freedom, but to be free themselves. Equality must be personal, and the play asks did their heroic efforts just replace a political oppressor with a conscience one?”
Full of humor, pathos and actual testimony, “Eirebrushed” explores and claims the pinkwashed history of their gay and lesbian heroes and heroines of the Rebellion. The play records their words used in inspirational poetry and speeches as they struggled to create a society where, as the Proclamation promised “no minority would be subject to the will of the majority.”
The International Dublin Gay Theatre Festival celebrates positive LGBT identity through theatre and the contribution of gay people, past and present, to the arts. Founded in 2004 with the aim to create new opportunities for visibility and affirmation of emerging LGBT artists and theatrical works with an LGBT theme or relevance, the festival has grown to become the largest event of its type in the world.
The festival has been bringing companies from Ireland and around the world to Dublin since 2004. Culture Ireland’s support has enabled the Festival to explore the common culture that creates gay theatre internationally. The Arch and Bruce Brown Foundation, which supports arts projects which examine LGBT history, also provided a production grant to TOSOS for the project.
Tickets are $25 for adults and $12 for students/seniors and are on sale now at www.eirebrushedinnyc.bpt.me.
Early Bird pricing of $19.16 is available through November 9, using code REBEL.