Lyric Players Theatre (Belfast, Northern Ireland)
Historical Note
The Lyric Players Theatre was founded in 1951 by Mary and P. Pearse O'Malley. The group originally had no permanent home. Instead plays were performed in private residences or other theaters, such as the Abbey Theatre. In 1952, the Lyric Players had a theater built on Derryvolgie Avenue in Belfast. They focused primarily on poetic drama, especially the works of Irish playwrights such as W. B. Yeats and Sean O'Casey. In the late 1950s, the theater was expanded to include first a drama school and later a children's theater. An in-house quarterly literary journal, Threshold, was established in 1957, edited by Mary O'Malley, with John Hewitt as poetry editor. The theater moved locations in 1965 to Ridgeway Street, where it still operates as of 2026. Poet Austin Clarke placed the cornerstone for the new building.
Sources:
Hartnoll, Phyllis and Peter Found. "Lyric Players Theatre." In The Concise Oxford Companion to the Theatre, Oxford University Press, 1996. http://www.oxfordreference.com.proxy.bc.edu/view/10.1093/acref/9780192825742.001.0001/acref-9780192825742-e-1898.
Rosenfield, Ray. "It all started like this ..." In Lyric Theatre: 1951-1968, Belfast: Lyric Theatre, 1968.
Welch, Robert. "Threshold." In The Concise Oxford Companion to Irish Literature, Oxford University Press, 2000. http://www.oxfordreference.com.proxy.bc.edu/view/10.1093/acref/9780192800800.001.0001/acref-9780192800800-e-2315.
Social Networks and Archival Context (SNAC) Identifier
Found in 4 Collections and/or Records:
Boston College collection of Belfast and Ulster theater and arts
This collection documents cultural life in Belfast and Ulster throughout the 20th century with ephemera created by educational, theatrical, and community groups, as well as fraternal organizations.
Collection is open for research.
Lyric Players Theatre collection
Collection of programs and playbills from the Lyric Players Theatre in Belfast, Northern Ireland.
Collection is open for research.
Review, Dominic Behan, Lyric Players Theatre (Belfast, Northern Ireland) production of Europe (includes correspondence), 1978 - 1978
Collection is open for research.
The Lyric Players Theatre, Belfast, 1977-2012
Collection is open for research.
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