Dead Centre founded by Bush Moukarzel and Ben Kidd in Dublin in 2012 has gained a reputation as one of Europe’s most innovative and exciting young theatre companies.
Work includes: LIPPY (2013), winner of the Irish Times Theatre Award for Best Production, a Fringe First, a Herald Angel, a Total Theatre Award and two OBIE Awards. It has toured around the world, including to the Young Vic in London, Schaubühne, Berlin and Traverse, Edinburgh; Chekhov’s First Play (2015) which has toured to destinations including Schaubühne, Berlin, Brisbane Festival, Helsinki Festival, Battersea Arts Festival (London), and many more; Hamnet (2017) has toured throughout the world, including BAM in New York, Hong Kong Festival, and the Southbank Centre, London; Beckett’s Room, (2019) has toured to Warwick Arts Centre, Theatre de Liège and to Teatro Piccollo, Milan; To Be a Machine (Version 1.0) was created in 2020 during the pandemic, and was streamed live to audiences around the world. It has since been streamed to festivals in Liège, Hong Kong and Paris. A German-language version, Die Maschine in Mir, was created for Burgtheater, Vienna; Good Sex (2022) which premiered at Dublin Theatre Festival and subsequently won 4 Irish Times Theatre Awards before touring to Noorderzon Festival of Performing Arts and Kampnagel Summer Festival; and To Be a Machine (Version 2.0) (2023) at Dublin Theatre Festival.
The company has also created work with the ensembles at some of Europe’s major theatres, including at Schaubühne, Berlin (Shakespeare’s Last Play, 2018), Burgtheater, Vienna (The Interpretation of Dreams, 2020, Alles, was der Fall ist, 2021, and Katharsis, 2023), Göteborgs Stadsteater (The Silence, 2021), Ruhrtriennale (Bählamms Fest, 2021) and Deutsche Oper, Berlin (Il Teorema di Pasolini, 2023).
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www.deadcentre.org
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1. Dan Reardon in Lippy by Dead Centre. Photo credit: Jeremy Abrahams (2013)
2. Chekhov’s First Play by Dead Centre. Photo Credit: Adrian Bulboaca.
3. Good Sex by Dead Centre with Emilie Pine. Photo Credit: Ste Murray (2022).
4. Jack Gleeson in To Be A Machine (Version 1.0) by Dead Centre. Photo Credit: Ste Murray (2020)
★★★★★
Dead Centre has established itself as one of Ireland’s most exciting companies… its tricksy, teasing work pushes the boundaries of theatre. This production layers world upon world, Inception-style, deconstructing our sense of reality and our sense of self.
—The Stage (To Be a Machine (Version 2.0))
★★★★★
Raw, unsettling, seductive, provocative and very, very funny… turns the recent Covid past into an urgent interrogation of both our bodies and the nature of theatrical illusion.
— The Irish Times (Good Sex)
★★★★★
Like nothing else you’ll see
— The Irish Times (Lippy)
★★★★
In Dead Centre’s wildly ambitious production, there is meaning in the magic.
— The Irish Times (Beckett’s Room)
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