1960s Timeline +
Focus Theatre
1967
The Focus is one of the wonders of the poverty-stricken theatre life of Dublin. The very fact that it continues to exist – and without sending up amplified death rattles every time the Arts Council is getting ready to hand out money – lends a touch of the heroic to each new production.
John Banville, Irish Press, 6 October 1978
Deirdre O’ Connell was born in the United States of Irish parents and in May 1963 she established in Dublin an acting studio called the Stanislavski Studio. She set up the Studio at the Pocket Theatre, Dublin, at the invitation of its director Ursula White Lennon. Following the closure of the Pocket theatre in 1964, the Studio was forced to stage productions in small theaters and venues in Dublin until it converted a disused factory in Pembroke Lane into the 72-seater Focus Theatre which opened in Autumn 1967.
From the beginning, the group wished to create a full-time repertory company – something that was idealistic but certainly impractical without sponsorship and substantial funding from the Arts Council.
The Council was clearly supportive of Focus but was in no position to provide major funds. It did sanction grants totalling £3,488 between 1967 and 1973.
Focus had to close for extensive renovations in 2006 and performed in other venues until it reopened in 2010. Many prominent people in theatre began their careers at Focus, including actors Tom Hickey, Gabriel Byrne, Johnny Murphy, Áine Ní Mhúirí, designer Joan Bergin and playwright/director Mary Elizabeth Burke-Kennedy.
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Tom Hickey and Joe Pilkington in Trespasser by Declan Bourke Kennedy - Focus Theatre 1973
Ena May, Declan Bourke Kennedy and Tom Hickey from The Night of the Iguana by Tennessee Williams - Focus Theatre 1974 (Actors: Tom and Ena May, Director: Declan Bourke Kennedy.)