‘Heart of a Dog’ will be staged at the Everyman tonight, Thursday, and run until Saturday.

Live audiences finally return

By Katie O'Keeffe

After 547 days of closure, The Everyman will reopen its doors to live audiences this evening, Thursday.

“It’s been a long time coming, it feels amazing but it’s a little bit scary. It’s been so long since we have seen people walk through those doors, it really feels like it’s the final moment before we get back to normal,” explained Artistic Director Sophie Motley.

She added: “We were ready to open the building last October and we’ve been ready to go since then. We had everything in place we just needed that go ahead so to finally have it is just a fantastic feeling.”

The theatre will reopen its doors tonight with a sold-out world premiere performance of ‘Heart of a Dog’ by Éadaoin O’ Donoghue. The play, inspired by Mikhail Bulgakov’s, follows the adventure of a dog who is turned into a man.

“It’s completely normal but utterly surreal at the same time to be back on stage knowing we will be in front of a live audience,” Éadaoin said.

She added: “It’s been a very confusing strange time for the arts. At times it felt we all had to justify our importance, so it is amazing to be back.”

Across the River Lee, the Cork Opera House opened its doors last night with ‘Least Like The Other: Searching for Rosemary Kennedy’, an opera which traces the events in the life of Rosemary the eldest daughter of Joe and Rose Kennedy and sister of JFK.

Ahead of the performance, the Cork Independent spoke to the CEO of Cork Opera House, Eibhlin Gleeson believes the arts being able to reopen will have a positive impact on society’s return to normality.

She said: “Society has been through something really difficult and we still don’t understand how to process what we have been through, so places like the Opera House really give people the chance to reflect and enjoy themselves and escape for a little while. “

For the next few weeks, the Opera House will be implementing all Covid-19 guidelines. However with the final Covid-19 restrictions set to end in October, Eibhlin hopes they can plan for more events especially leading into the Christmas period.

“We have shows coming up that have been cancelled since 2020, so we are looking forward to finally get them on our stage and we hope to add even more events as things open up. It really is getting back to business for us at the moment,” she added.