About The Playwright

Brian Friel
Brian Friel is an Irish dramatist and short short stroy writer. He was born near Omagh, County Tyrone, in Northern Ireland, on Janurary 9, 1929, to Patrick a teacher, and Christina (MacLoone) Friel. When he was ten, the Patrick family moved to Londonderry, where his father became the principaly at Long Tower School, and the young Friel attended St.Columb’s College from 1941-1946. In 1946, he enrolled in a siminary at St.Patrick’s college in Maynooth, from which he graduated with a B.A. in 1948. Friel subsequently abandoned his plays to enter the priesthood, and entered St.Joseph’s Teacher Training College in Belfast, which he attended from 1949 to 1950.

From 1950 to 1960, Friel worked as a school teacher in Londonderry, during which time many of his short stories were published in the New Yorker. Encouraged by this success, Friel left teaching in 1960 to become a full-time writer of short stories and radio plays, as well as stage plays, which were produced at the Abbey Theatre in Dublin. In 1954, he married Anne Morrison, with whom he had five children.

First Plays
In order to learn more about the theatre Friel spent six months in 1963 at the Tyrone Guthrie Theatre in Minneapolis, Minnesota. This experience was followed by the production of his first internationally successful stage play, Philadelphia Here I Come! whcih was critically well recieved, first at the Dublin Theatre Festival, in 1964, and then in New York and London. The play concerns the thoughts and memories of a young Irishman shirtly before he leaves Ireland to emigrate to America. Philadelphia Here I Come! ran for over 300 performances at the Helen Hayes Theatre, Broadways’s longest run of an Irish Play.

Dancing At Lunghnasa
Friel subsequently wrote approximately one play per year, recieving such award at the New York Drama Critics Cirlce Award for best foreign play, 1989, for Aristocrats, and the Olivier Award, 1991, for Dancing At Lunghnasa. He has written about the dilemmas of Irish life for the troubles in Northern Ireland in such plays as The Freedom of the City(1973) and Making History(1988). Many of his plays – notably Translations(1980_ and Dancing at Lunghnasa(1990,Tony award;film1998) – deal with family relationships and their connection to language, customs and the land. His short story collections include The Diviner(1983).

The Field Day Theatre Company
In 1980, Friel along with Stephen Rea, founded the Field Day Theatre Company in Northern Ireland to provide Irish playwrights with an outlet for works of social and political significance. Friel’s most critically acclaimed play, Translations, was performed at the Field Day Theatre that same year. Friel has lived in Donegal, Ireland since 1973. Many of his plays are set in Ballybeg, a remotepart of Donegal, the town where his mother was born and where he moved in 1969. The recurring themes of his writings describe the conflict between traditional beliefs and modern values of Ireland.