The Moon's Awake - Play Premiere

Following the success of Catherine McKernan Doris’s play “Enough to Wake the Dead” which premiered at NAFA in 2021, the playwright has now completed a trilogy known as “The Wake Series.” “The Moon’s Awake” is both a stand-alone work and a prequel.

Set in 1969, during a particularly hot Irish summer, at least two things were happening simultaneously. Men were landing on the moon, and the political landscape in Ireland was about to be thrown into turmoil with the onset of the Troubles. The Quinn family and their friends were also suffering - primarily from hangovers, but also from inequality, from the risk of having to leave the country to go to England for work, and from the threat of violence.

This is a story of a family and their friends trying to make the best of every day, with varying degrees of success. It’s a story of loyalty, love, secrets, and the struggle to be heard amid the noise of bureaucracy and discrimination, and is as relevant today as it was 50 odd years ago.

Image credit: Images by Ten Jorgensen and Glenn Shield