You used to swing me on our garden gate. In and out, in and out - out and in, me, on top of the gate, safe because I was in your arms, my father's big strong arms. Recalling events that may or may not have happened, people he may or may not have known, an elderly father weaves his life, funny, angry, poignant, as if in a dream.His daughter, perched outside his window, as close as the pandemic allows, responds with conflicting memories. They sing and argue, they broach dangerous ground, their profound love apparent despite themselves, until the visiting hour is up. Written during the Covid-19 lockdown of 2020, Frank McGuinness's The Visiting Hour premiered in April 2021 at the Gate Theatre, Dublin, in the first online Gate At Home production.

On 1 July 1916, the 36th (Ulster) Division took part in one of the bloodiest battles in human history, the Battle of the Somme. This enduring war play is a powerful portrayal of mortality, love and loss. In the extraordinary circumstances of World War I, eight ordinary men arechanged, changed utterly. In 2016, one hundred years after the battle, Observe the Sons of Ulster Marching Towards the Somme by Frank McGuinness was revived in a co-production between Abbey Theatre, Citizens Theatre, Headlong and Liverpool Everyman & Playhouse. This edition contains a new introduction by P. J. Mathews. 'There is a touch of genius in McGuinness's, sensitive, often bleakly comic exploration of the men's situation.' Daily Telegraph 'This is an epic drama that demands recognition for the male human animal in all his complexity, across any boundaries of belief or belonging we care to construct.' The Scotsman

The Sophoclean classic: When King Agamemnon returns from the Trojan War with his new concubine, Cassandra, his wife Clytemnestra (who has taken Agamemnons cousin Aegisthus as a lover) kills them. Clytemnestra believes the murder was justified, since Agamemnon had sacrificed their daughter Iphigenia before the war, as commanded by the gods. Electra, daughter of Agamemnon and Clytemnestra, rescued her young, twin brother Orestes from her mother by sending him to Strophius of Phocis. The play begins years later when Orestes has returned as a grown man with a plot for revenge, as well as to claim the throne.

Drama / 3m, 2f / Interior Written by acclaimed Irish author Frank McGuinness, whose Someone Who'll Watch Over Me earned a Tony(R) Award nomination, Gates of Gold is an acerbic duel between two lovers, the fashionable and eloquent theatrical trailblazers who founded Dublin's Gate Theatre. Gates of Gold is witty and moving - a vibrant celebration of art, love, and finally, life itself. "Compelling! This endearing love letter of a play!" -The New York Times "Moving! Provocative! Compelling performances!" -New York Post

Two poets, a playwright and a novelist - Michael Longley, Eavan Boland, Frank McGuiness and Anita Desai - explore in these essays aspects of the imaginative process as each has experienced it: four major writers, four sensibilities, four ways of seeing creativity and its contexts. MICHAEL LONGLEY writes with remarkable candour of his years - 1970 to 1991 - as arts administrator in Northern Ireland. Transforming anecdote into parable, this noted poet measures the cost of 'trying to remain true to yourself facing the "dark tower"' while being part of an essential but often soul-destroying bureaucracy. EAVAN BOLAND, merging the personal and the theoretical, contends that the place of women as writers in Irish society have been shaped by a ' fusion of the national and the feminine'. FRANK MCGUINESS, the internationally acclaimed playwright, offers a radically innovative reading of Oscar Wilde's De Profundis, while calling into being the material contexts of creativity - in this instance, a prison cell. The Indian novelist ANITA DESAI looks at her country's colonial heritage and a shared background that gave rise to the work of Nobel Laureate Rabindranath Tagore and the film-maker Satyajit Ray. Her fascinating lecture shows how a vibrant indigenous culture, coming into fruitful contact with the West at the end of the nineteenth century, blossomed into artistic creation - yielding parallels with Ireland.

Emily Watson stars as a grieving mother in this emotional drama adaptation. Based on the memoirs of Bristol priest Julie Nicholson (Watson), whose daughter Jenny (Nicola Wren) died in the terrorist attack on London on July 7th 2005, the drama follows the grief-stricken mother as she tries to overcome the heartbreaking loss and piece together the truth about her daughter's final moments.

2016 marks the centenary of the Easter Rising, known as "the poets' rebellion", for among their leaders were university scholars of English, history and Irish. The ill-fated revolt lasted six days and ended ignominiously with the rebels rounded up and their leaders sentenced to death. The signatories of the Proclamation of the Irish Republic must have known that the Rising would be crushed, must have dreaded the carnage and death, must have foreseen that, if caught alive, they would themselves be executed. Between 3 and 12 May 1916, the seven signatories were among those executed by firing squad in Kilmainham Gaol. Now 100 years later, eight of Ireland's finest writers remember these revolutionaries in a unique theatre performance. The forgotten figure of Elizabeth O'Farrell - the nurse who delivered the rebels' surrender to the British - is also given a voice. Signatories comprises the artistic responses of Emma Donoghue, Thomas Kilroy, Hugo Hamilton, Frank McGuinness, Rachel Fehily, Eilis Ni Dhuibhne, Marina Carr and Joseph O'Connor to the seven signatories and Nurse O'Farrell.They portray the emotional struggle in this ground-breaking theatrical and literary commemoration of Ireland's turbulent past. A performance introduction on the staging of the play is given by Director Patrick Mason, and an introduction by Lucy Collins, School of English, Drama and Film, UCD, sets the historical context of the play.

The McKenna family convenes at their remote West Ireland holiday home to mark the 21st birthday of their late son Gene. Eccentric cousin Bridget appears along the causeway, inviting herself for birthday cake and conversation, and ready to expose a family secret. Even Margaret, the unstoppable mother, and Leo, the ever-calm father, can't hold things together in the face of an unexpected visit from the past. There Came a Gypsy Riding premiered at the Almeida Theatre, London, in January 2007.

Nominated for an Antoinette Perry Award for Best Play

Frank McGuinness's play, introduced by Brian Keenan, explores the daily crisis endured by hostages whose strength comes from communication, both subtle and mundane, humor, wit and faith. In this play, an Englishman, an Irishman and an American are locked up together in a cell in the Middle East. As victims of political action, powerless to initiate change, what can they do? How do they live and survive?

Someone Who'll Watch Over Me, which opened at the Hampstead Theatre, is based on a true story chronicled in the book An Evil Cradling by Irish hostage survivor Brian Keenan, and presented in the movie Hostages (screenplay by Frank McGuinness).

A morality masterpiece, The Caucasian Chalk Circle powerfully demonstrates Brecht's pioneering theatrical techniques. This version by Frank McGuinness was published to coincide with the National Theatre's production which toured the UK in 2007. A servant girl sacrifices everything to protect a child abandoned in the heat of civil war. Order restored, she is made to confront the boy's biological mother in a legal contest over who deserves to keep him. The comical judge calls on an ancient tradition - the chalk circle - to resolve the dispute. Who wins? This version by Frank McGuinness was first presented by the National Theatre in 1997 and revived in 2007, opening at the Gulbenkian Theatre, Canterbury, on 8 January.

Frank McGuinness presents scintillating new versions of two of August Strindberg's plays.

Miss Julie is Strindberg's examination of power, sex, and class, set on a midsummer's eve in a nobleman's house and focusing on the shifting relationship between Miss Julie, the daughter of the house, and Jean, her father's manservant.

The Stronger is a short play that explores the complex range of emotions felt by Madame X when she encounters Mademoiselle Y, her husband's former mistress, at a fashionable café. Calling Mademoiselle Y worn out and evil, Madame X says that the triumph of her marriage proves she is the stronger of the two—even though these words ring hollow, as she attempts to deceive only herself.

Nora Helmer, wife to Torvald and mother of three children, appears to enjoy living the life of a pampered, indulged child. But as her economic dependence becomes brutally clear, Nora's acceptance of the status quo undergoes a profound change. To the horror of the bewildered Torvald, himself caught in the tight web of a conservative society which demands that he exert strict control, Nora comes to see that only possible true course of action is to leave the family home.

Frank McGuinness's version of A Doll's House received its London premiere in October 1996 and opened on Broadway in 1997, where the production won four Tony Awards.