Preview by Brad Balfour
Play: “Good Vibrations: A Punk Rock Musical”
Writers: Colin Carberry and Glenn Patterson
Director: Des Kennedy
Cast: Cat Barter, Connor Burnside, Darren Franklin, Marty Maguire, Odhrán McNulty, Chris Mohan, Christina Nelson, Jolene O’Hara, Gavin Peden, Dylan Reid, Glen Wallace, and Jayne Wisener
Presented in conjunction with the 25th anniversary of the Good Friday Peace Agreement, a new musical is coming to the United States and New York City this June. Written by Colin Carberry and Glenn Patterson — based on their BAFTA-nominated film — this Lyric Theatre, Belfast, production features an ensemble cast of 12 actor-singer-musicians. Directed by Des Kennedy (“Harry Potter & the Cursed Child”), the show debuts at the Irish Arts Center and will run from June 14–July 9th with its official opening on June 18th.
Recently named Best Theatre at the U.K. Stage Awards 2023, this five-week U.S. premiere presentation marks the first and largest-scale musical theater offering ever presented by and at Center. The production activates the expanded artistic canvas provided by its state-of-the-art theater.
Featuring this cast of a dozen, “Good Vibrations” chronicles the story of the beloved titular record-store/label—which served as a musical haven and inspiration during the sectarian strife of 1970s Belfast. Through the songs of punk rock legends like The Undertones, the Outcasts, and Stiff Little Fingers (including, respectively, “Teenage Kicks,” “Just Another Teenage Rebel,” and “Alternative Ulster”), it follows Terri Hooley (Glen Wallace), the real-life radical, rebel, and music-lover, who, when the Troubles shut down his city and his friends take sides, opens a record shop. He becomes the unlikely leader of a motley band of kids who join his mission to create a new community, an alternative Ulster, and bring his hometown back to life.
With its boundless energy and eruptive theatricality, “Good Vibrations” celebrates the power of music to bring people together; now it arrives here during a year of commemorations of the historic Good Friday Agreement.
The show was met with rave reviews and sold-out performances when it made its world premiere in 2018 at Belfast’s Lyric Theatre. The Irish Times said, “The full-throated spirit of punk is alive and roaring” in this “glorious” production. The Irish News described audiences “losing their hearts to [the] fascinating character” of Terri Hooley. The Belfast Telegraph described, “Joy may be a surprising word to describe a bunch of pogo-ing punks playing their 100-mile-an-hour music, but it’s the right word to describe the atmosphere at the Lyric for the opening night of ‘Good Vibrations.’”
The Lyric Theatre playhouse is a creative hub for theater-making, a space for nurturing talent, and embodies an unwavering passion for creating connections through the arts. From its modest beginnings in 1968, the place has been a springboard for internationally acclaimed playwrights, poets and actors. As Northern Ireland’s only full-time theater to produce its own productions from page to stage, it maintains a high-quality, diverse and inclusive program that captures audiences, leaving them changed, charged and empowered.
Now, that same energy is being brought across the Atlantic. Based on 11th Avenue, the new state-of-the-art Irish Arts Center is renowned for presenting dynamic, collaborative experiences of the evolving arts and culture of Ireland and Irish America. In its new home (726 11th Avenue), the organization draws on the capacity and flexibility of its new theater to bring provocative, thoughtful, and inventive work across a range of disciplines to New York audiences — including “Good Vibrations” which is at the very heart of this effort with its explosive energy and pulsing sound.