CFP: Druid Theatre at 50 – People, Place, Performance

Call for Papers

Department of Drama, Theatre & Performance

University of Galway

31st October – 2nd November, 2025 

Founded in 1975 in Galway, in the West of Ireland, Druid Theatre has grown to become one of Ireland’s most renowned theatre companies.  To mark Druid’s 50th Anniversary in 2025, the University of Galway will host a 3-day symposium, from Friday, October 31st – Sunday, November 2nd, featuring artist talks, academic panels, and artistic events.  Audiences and attendees will be invited to learn about the events ‘behind the scenes’ of Druid’s work, to reflect on the ways in which Druid has affected Irish performance, place and people over its past 50 years, and to explore what artistic directions Druid might take in its next 50 years.  

This symposium will be the first-ever broad reflection on Druid’s history and significance, and therefore the organisers intend that speakers who present papers as part of the symposium would be invited to contribute to a peer-review edited collection that would be published in 2026/27.

The organisers invite contributions that explore Druid’s history and practice from theatrical, literary, social, cultural or other perspectives.  This might include examining the wider social context of Druid’s 50 year body of work, including their extensive commitment to local, national and international touring.  It could also entail using Druid as a lens through which to interrogate the past, present and future of Irish theatre and performance.  Topics could include, but are not limited to:

  • The ‘Druid Ensemble’ as a concept and as a practical foundation in Druid’s work
  • Druid Cycles: as theatre ‘events’; as audience development; as ways of placing a playwrights works in coversation with each other; etc.
  • Producing Druid: what are the structures – funding, philanthropic, management, etc. – that have enabled Druid’s development, and are there lessons for how current and future theatre companies are supported?
  • Druid and the amateur theatre scene in Ireland
  • Druid and the Irish diaspora
  • Druid’s touring practice: From Unusual Rural Tours (URTS) to Broadway
  • Druid’s Artist and Creative Development iniatives: FUEL, Marie Mullen Bursary, Druid Debuts
  • Druid’s creative practice – especially in relation to directing, acting, and design
  • Key Druid playwrights: JM Synge, Geraldine Aron, Tom Murphy, Martin McDonagh, Sonya Kelly, etc.
  • Key Druid productions and revivals
  • Neglected features of Druid’s history
  • Druid and American drama
  • Druid in comparison – to other ensembles, nationally and internationally (e.g. Steppenwolf, Complicité, 7:84, and so on); other Irish theatre companies, past and present
  • Landscape, borders, islands – Druid’s response to place

Please email abstracts of max 300 words, with a brief biographical note of 150 words, to:

Mairead.nichroinin@universityofgalway.ie and ian.walsh@universityofgalway.ie

Deadline for submissions: July 6th, 2025

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