Riff Raff Theatre Company
Encyclopedia
Company Background
Riff Raff Theatre Company is a theatre company based in Wexford
Wexford
Wexford is the county town of County Wexford, Ireland. It is situated near the southeastern corner of Ireland, close to Rosslare Europort. The town is connected to Dublin via the M11/N11 National Primary Route, and the national rail network...
, Ireland
Republic of Ireland
Ireland , described as the Republic of Ireland , is a sovereign state in Europe occupying approximately five-sixths of the island of the same name. Its capital is Dublin. Ireland, which had a population of 4.58 million in 2011, is a constitutional republic governed as a parliamentary democracy,...
. The company was founded in 1982 by director Michael Way and actress Irene Wright and was Wexford's first full-time theatre company. Classified as Independent Professional Fringe Theatre, they specialise in premiering new works or in new interpretations of contemporary classics.
Productions
The company's back catalogue includes productions of August Strindberg
August Strindberg
Johan August Strindberg was a Swedish playwright, novelist, poet, essayist and painter. A prolific writer who often drew directly on his personal experience, Strindberg's career spanned four decades, during which time he wrote over 60 plays and more than 30 works of fiction, autobiography,...
s Miss Julie
Miss Julie
Miss Julie is a naturalistic play written in 1888 by August Strindberg dealing with class, love, lust, the battle of the sexes, and the interaction among them...
, The Factory Girls by Frank McGuinness
Frank McGuinness
Professor Frank McGuinness is an award-winning Irish playwright and poet. As well as his own works, which include Observe the Sons of Ulster Marching Towards the Somme, he is recognised for a "strong record of adapting literary classics, having translated the plays of Racine, Sophocles, Ibsen and...
, The Ruffian on the Stair
The Ruffian on the Stair
The Ruffian On the Stair is a play by British playwright Joe Orton first broadcast on BBC Radio in August 1964. It is an unsympathetic yet comedic one-act portrayal of working class England, as played out by a couple and a mysterious young man who toys with their lives...
by Joe Orton
Joe Orton
John Kingsley Orton was an English playwright.In a short but prolific career lasting from 1964 until his death, he shocked, outraged and amused audiences with his scandalous black comedies...
, The Fire Raisers
The Fire Raisers
The Fire Raisers may refer to* The Fire Raisers , a 1933 British film starring Leslie Banks* The Fire Raisers , aka "The Firebugs", a 1953 German play...
by Max Frisch
Max Frisch
Max Rudolf Frisch was a Swiss playwright and novelist, regarded as highly representative of German-language literature after World War II. In his creative works Frisch paid particular attention to issues relating to problems of human identity, individuality, responsibility, morality and political...
, The Glass Menagerie
The Glass Menagerie
The Glass Menagerie is a four-character memory play by Tennessee Williams. Williams worked on various drafts of the play prior to writing a version of it as a screenplay for MGM, to whom Williams was contracted...
by Tennessee Williams
Tennessee Williams
Thomas Lanier "Tennessee" Williams III was an American writer who worked principally as a playwright in the American theater. He also wrote short stories, novels, poetry, essays, screenplays and a volume of memoirs...
, Equus
Equus (play)
Equus is a play by Peter Shaffer written in 1973, telling the story of a psychiatrist who attempts to treat a young man who has a pathological religious fascination with horses....
by Peter Schaffer, Fool For Love and States of Shock both by Sam Shepard
Sam Shepard
Sam Shepard is an American playwright, actor, and television and film director. He is the author of several books of short stories, essays, and memoirs, and received the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1979 for his play Buried Child...
and the first European production of Orange Flower Water by Craig Wright
Craig Wright
Craig Wright is the name of:*Craig Wright , American playwright, television writer, and producer*Craig Wright , Scottish cricketer*Craig R. Wright, American baseball writer and proponent of sabermetrics...
.
Cast Members
Actors who have come through the ranks of the company include Irene Wright, Gary Lydon, Steve Gunn, Laura Way (daughter of the co-founders), Amy Joyce Hastings and Tim Dillard.