Irene Worth (Winnie) in Happy Days | © Broadway Digital Archive
This St. Patrick’s Day, we’re highlighting our varied collection of Irish theatre and literature, including full-length theatrical productions, lesson plans, teaching guides, and more audio-visual resources.
Access all of these resources (and more!) with a free trial to Digital Theatre+ today.
Theatrical Productions
With 650+ productions to choose from, here are some teacher-favorite Irish productions available to stream on Digital Theatre+:
The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde
The most famous (and perhaps notorious) playwright of his day, Oscar Wilde, was an Irish writer and playwright known for his witty epigrams and popular stage comedies.
Published in 1895, The Importance of Being Earnest is a dazzlingly subversive piece of entertainment and the most frequently revived play of the Victorian era.
In this 2011 production from L.A. Theatre Works, Wilde’s comedy of manners was brought to Broadway for the first time in 34 years, and stars Brian Bedford as the formidable Lady Bracknell.
Happy Days by Samuel Beckett
Known for his radical, minimalist approach to dramatic narrative and stagecraft, Irish novelist, poet, and playwright Samuel Beckett is considered to be one of the most important influences of contemporary theatre and performance.
Following the 1953 premiere of Waiting for Godot, Beckett’s posing of questions – and the idea of performance as interrogation and coercion – became the main structuring principle of his plays. This is seen in the world of Happy Days, where perennial optimist Winnie is trapped in a mound of earth and forced awake each day by the harsh ringing of a bell.
A canny and touching comedy, this Broadway Digital Archive production of Happy Days stars Irene Worth in a tour-de-force performance.
The Song of Wandering Aengus by William Butler Yeats
William Butler Yeats was an Irish poet who won the Nobel Prize for literature in 1923. He wrote 26 plays, mainly verse drama, and founded major Irish theatres dedicated to fostering a Modernist tradition aligned with Irish cultural nationalism.
If a full-length production isn’t possible this St. Patrick’s Day, bring Irish literature into your classroom with our Poetry in Action collection. Access an audio-visual recital and a written print-out of The Song of Wandering Aengus on Digital Theatre+.
Irish Practitioners
In addition to studying specific texts, it’s important that students learn to consider the Irish playwrights, poets, and novelists who created these literary and dramatic works.
A great place to start is with our Concise Introductions series, which features essays by leading scholars on core topics and practitioners, including:
To complement our practitioner guides, we’ve also got A Concise Introduction to Irish Theatre, which includes an exclusively commissioned essay from Lionel Pilkington, Professor of English at NUI Galway.
Looking for audio-visual resources? Start with the BBC documentary, Samuel Beckett: As the Story was Told, which follows Beckett’s life from his Dublin childhood to his days in Paris, associating with Picasso and Chagall, through to old age.
Or spark engagement with a familiar face. In this extended interview, Irish actor Cillian Murphy discusses playing the lead role in Ken Loach’s Palme d’Or-winning film, The Wind That Shakes the Barley.
Lesson Resources for St. Patrick's Day
After introducing your students to specific texts and practitioners, it’s time to apply what they’ve learned. Where better to start than with our Practical Workshop Guides?
For example, if you’re teaching Beckett’s Waiting for Godot, you can use Zoe Waites’s Practical Workshop Guide, which includes four 40-minute lesson activities.
Here’s an excerpt from this guide:
Objective: Develop an understanding of how an actor might engage with and deliver the language and meaning of a scene.
You will need: Copies of the Estragon/Vladimir scene in Act II of Waiting for Godot.
-
Standing in a circle, ask the students to read one character’s speech at a time.
-
Get the students to read round again immediately, but this time focusing on the energy to one another so that the dialogue bounces along, and the silence becomes more prominent.
-
Stop at any point and get them to have another go if they are inserting silences where there are none, or not coming in with the dialogue quickly enough.
- Debrief. Ask students if it felt good to play with that level of ‘zing’, and if it reminded them of anything. Perhaps the banter and strange logic of a comedic double act?
About Digital Theatre+
Digital Theatre+ is an all-in-one digital platform for theatre, English, and the wider humanities. With powerful planning tools, theatrical performances, and curriculum-aligned resources, we’re here to help deepen student engagement and bring learning to life.
Explore the full library today with a free trial. Submit this short form to get started!