Pulitzer Prize-Winning Poet Paul Muldoon on Handcart’s The Burial at Thebes

“I simply can’t imagine a better production of The Burial at Thebes. Handcart Ensemble is a spectacularly gifted group, absolutely equal to the subtleties of Heaney’s text. I’ll go anywhere to see anything they do.” —Paul Muldoon

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Coole Lady

By Sam McCready

A one-woman play starring Joan McCready

Coole Lady is a portrayal of Lady Gregory, the playwright, folklorist, and political firebrand whose patronage of Yeats and founding of the Abbey Theatre launched a literary renaissance in Ireland. Her public confrontations, numerous setbacks, and triumphant role in renewing a vanishing culture embody the sacrifice and indefatigable will that underlie all great art. Her story is that of Ireland itself in its struggle to preserve a national identity.

Coole Lady was performed by Belfast Lyric Theatre alumna Joan McCready. It was written and directed by her husband Sam. Having met and married as founding members of the Lyric, the McCreadys have together spent four decades producing, directing, and performing the dramatic masterworks of their native country.

Location

THEATRE 315
315 W 47th St
New York, NY 10036

Schedule

Opened Wednesday, April 20, 2005
Closed Saturday, April 30, 2005
Ran Wednesday - Saturday at 8:00 PM
Monday night at 7:30 PM
Saturday matinees at 4:30 PM

Cast

Joan McCready

Director

Sam McCready

Lighting Design	Eric Cope
Music	Richard McCready
Publicity	Elias Stimac

‘Coole Lady’ on Other Sites

Reviews

New York Theatre Experience
OOBR.com

Interviews & Press Articles

Interview with Sam and Joan, nytheatre voices
Searching for the Right Space (BackStage.com password required)
Strong Women in Theatre (scroll down)

Listings

Irish Echo
TheaterMania
offoffonline
OOBR.com

Related Sites

Reference Articles on Wikipedia.org

Lady Gregory
W.B. Yeats

Topical Sites

Abbey Theatre
Lyric Theatre

About Us

Old Wine in New Bottles

Handcart Ensemble produces new adaptations, new translations, and new works for the theater, drawing primarily from classical sources. Read our mission statement for more information.

Gearing Up for 2008/09

Thanks to our patrons for supporting Oedipus at Colonus, touted by NYTheatre.com as “another feather in Handcart’s cap as the city’s most reliable and interesting presenter of contemporary renditions of classic theatre texts.” Our one-night benefit performance of W.B. Yeats’s Purgatory was another success, its sell-out box office returns laying the groundwork for an ambitious 2008/09 season that will include Dylan Thomas’s Under Milk Wood as you’ve never seen it before. Watch for more details on this thrillingly crafted production, arriving in New York after years of development and acclaim at international theater festivals…