The Dublin Theatre Festival launched its programme today with an incredible selection of online and in-person events to choose from, including some that would definitely be of queer interest.

Running from September 30 to October 17, the festival promises something for everyone. As venue numbers are limited due to Cover restrictions, tickets are sure to be snapped up. Unless you’re a Friend of the Festival, however, you’ll have to wait two weeks until tickets are released to the general public – so keep your eyes peeled!

Festival Director, Willie White, shared, “We’re really looking forward to meeting audiences again. It’s a moment that we will have been waiting for more than a year and a half. Our current plans are for capacities of up to 50 people but we would really benefit from an acceleration in the pace of reopening.”

There are new works from Marina Carr, Enda Walsh, Mark O’Halloran and Deirdre Kinehan in store, and fans of queer theatre will have their attentions grabbed by Once Before I Go written by Phillip McMahon of THISISPOPBABY.

Told against the backdrop of Dublin’s burgeoning gay rights movement of the 1980’s and 1990’s and the contemporary LGBTQ+ community of today, the play charts the close friendship of Lynn, Daithí, and the luminous Bernard, and sits on the exhilarating edge between comedy, tragedy and melodrama.

Exploring the fragile yet resilient bonds of Irish queer lives across four decades in Dublin, London and Paris, Once Before I Go steps between the early days of the AIDS crisis and today’s LGBTQ+ community, living in an era of marriage equality, gender self-determination, and untransmittable HIV.

At once political, joyous and heartbreaking, Once Before I Go honours the fabulous people we lost along the way, and celebrates those who fight on.

Check the Dublin Theatre Festival website for more information on all the shows available and how to get your hands on tickets.