(TOMS RIVER, NJ) -- The Ocean County College Repertory Theater Company presents Dancing at Lughnasa across two weekends from March 13-22, 2026 in the Black Box Theater. This extraordinary play by Brian Friel is the story of five unmarried sisters eking out their lives in a small village in Ireland in 1936.
Widely regarded as Brian Friel’s masterpiece, this haunting and evocative memory play is the playwright’s tribute to the spirit and valor of the past. In a small Irish village in 1936, five unmarried sisters live together in a spirit of familial unity. These women raise the narrator, Michael, the illegitimate son of one of the sisters, who reminisces on one fateful year amidst the celebrations of the festival of Lughnasa.
That summer, his elderly uncle returns after serving for 25 years as a missionary priest in a Ugandan leper colony. The sisters also acquire their first radio, whose music transforms them from correct Catholic women to shrieking, stomping banshees in their own kitchen. And he meets his father, a charming Welsh drifter who strolls up the lane and sweeps his mother away in an elegant dance across the fields. From these small events spring the cracks that destroy the foundation of the family forever.
The cast includes Kevin Polke (Michael Evans), Carol Kerdock (Kate Mundy), Justine Basquill (Maggie Mundy), Lindsey Santos (Agnes Mundy), Sophia Gallegos (Rose Mundy), Ruth Murano (Chris Mundy), Martin Kyne (Gerry Evans), and Brendan Keffner (Father Jack Mundy).
Performances take place Fridays at 7:30pm; Saturdays at 2:00pm & 7:30pm; and Sundays at 2:00pm. Tickets are available for purchase online. The theater is located on the Ocean County College campus in Toms River, New Jersey.
Dancing at Lughnasa premiered on Broadway at the Plymouth Theatre on October 24, 1991. Directed by Patrick Mason, the production featured Bríd Brennan, Catherine Byrne, Donal Donnelly, Robert Gwilym, Rosaleen Linehan, Gerard McSorley, Dearbhla Molloy and Brid Ní Neachtain. The play made its world premiere at the Abbey Theatre, Dublin on April 24, 1990, transferring to London’s National Theatre in October 1990.
Following its 1991 Olivier Award for Best Play, it would go on to win three 1992 Tony Awards, including Best Play; two 1992 Drama Desk Awards; the 1992 New York Drama Critics’ Circle Award for Best Play; the 1992 Outer Critics Circle Award for Best Broadway Play; and the 1992 Theatre World Special Award for Ensemble Performance.
Brian Friel (1929-2015), largely considered modern Ireland’s leading playwright, was born to a schoolmaster and a postmistress. After working as a teacher in Derry for ten years, he married Anne Morrison and moved to Donegal to begin writing in earnest. His first significant theatrical success was Philadelphia, Here I Come, which debuted to rave reviews at the Dublin Theatre Festival in 1964. He went on to pen The Loves of Cass McGuire, The Mundy Scheme, The Freedom of the City, Living Quarters, Faith Healer, an adaptation of Turgenev’s novel Fathers and Sons, Dancing at Lughnasa (winner of three Tony Awards, a New York Drama Critics Circle award for Best Play and an Olivier Award for Best Play) and Wonderful Tennessee. In 1980, Mr. Friel joined Stephen Rea in founding the Field Day Theatre Company, where they first staged the Ewart-Biggs Peace Prize-winning Translations, an adaptation of Chekhov’s Three Sisters. The Company’s productions explored the middle ground between the secular culture of Northern Ireland and the more traditional rural world.
Under the direction of Performing Arts Program Chair Paul Chalakani, the mission of the Ocean County College Repertory Theater Company (OCC/REP) is to create opportunities for college and community participation in various rich and diverse theatrical experiences. The Company seeks to engage, entertain, inspire, and educate to enhance the cultural life of Ocean County College and the surrounding communities.
The OCC/REP provides OCC students, faculty, staff, and residents of neighboring communities the opportunity to attend and/or participate in quality performances of theatrical works – musicals and plays, classical and modern, traditional and experimental, through a well-balanced theatrical season. Additionally, the OCC/REP provides an environment for students of their performing arts program to apply what they are learning in a collaborative and encouraging format. The OCC/REP celebrates the power of the theatre to illuminate and mirror the human experience.
The OCC Repertory Theatre Company is funded, in part, by the Ocean County College Foundation.
