he Stage:

Stephen Rea will appear in the U.S. premiere of Sam Shepard's new play
Kicking a Dead Horse at The Public Theater in New York, June 24, 2008.

From April - June, 2004, Stephen Rea starred in the title role of Derek Mahon's new version of the timeless classic, Cyrano de Bergerac at London's National Theatre. Howard Davies directed the play's new adaptation and has also worked with Stephen Rea in the National Theatre productions of The Shaughraun (1988) and Piano (1990). Stephen Rea has also worked in the television films, Copenhagen (2002) and Armadillo (2001). Both were directed by Howard Davies.

Stephen Rea's last appearance at London's National was in Piano at the Cottesloe Theatre in 1990.

A few of Stephen Rea's theatre credits:

In 2000, Stephen Rea directed the production of The Plough and the Stars at the Gaiety Theatre in Dublin. In 1993, he was nominated for a Tony Award for Best Actor in the Broadway production of the Frank McGuinness play, Someone Who'll Watch Over Me. Stephen Rea also appeared at London's National theatre in The Shaughraun, Piano, and Tales from the Vienna Woods. Other credits include Shadow of the Gunman at the Mermaid Theatre as well as Comedians and the role of Christopher Mahon in The Playboy of the Western World.

For more info on Stephen Rea's credits and work with Field Day Theatre Company, see below.

In 1980, Stephen Rea and playwright Brian Friel founded the Field Day Theatre Company in Ireland. The Company toured Ireland for 10 years, bringing theatre to many towns where it had been neglected for years. However, to this day, Field Day is well known for more than just its attempts to bring theatre to larger audiences. The Company brought forth radical and genuinely intellectual ideas and challenged audiences to look at the theatre as something much more than just entertainment... Field Day invited much of Ireland to explore the social and political crisis the nation was facing at the time.

The Field Day Theatre Company is now recognized internationally for its many contributions to the theatre.

"Rea went on to describe the satisfaction he received while touring Ireland with the Field Day Theatre Company, saying, 'It was immensely stimulating to see the response of people in different towns.' When asked whether he thought the theatrical company functioned as a national theatre for Ireland, the actor responded, 'That opens up the questions:

What is a national theatre? What is a nation?'

The theatre company, he added, 'was about opening up new ideas,' and 'building up Irish theatre,' which was then lacking in his country, Rea said."

- From the Yale Bulletin & Calendar, taken from the Yale symposium on The Theater of Irish Cinema, published February, 2001.

Read the article from the Yale Bulletin & Calendar

In the book, The Company of Actors (1999), Stephen Rea comments on the formation of Field Day:

"When I first went to London, it was a very difficult transition to make from being an actor who worked in Dublin, to being an actor who could find his way around London, and be known and respected. It was very, very difficult indeed. Now it's more straightforward, and Field Day had a lot to do with that. It became automatic that our plays transferred, and that wasn't as a provincial company looking towards the metropolis; there was a belief that we should be able to survive in the most theatrically sophisticated circles."

In the Company of Actors, by Carole Zucker, 1999

Hollywood Irish In Their Own Words also published in Ireland as Leading Hollywood, by Aine O'Connor, 1997

More on Field Day:

"'We were very easily categorized as a bunch of Northern nationalists. But we wanted to be a unifying influence', he stresses. 'It was in no sense that we wanted to say that the nationalist experience was greater or more interesting than anybody else's experience. We wanted to talk about the areas that had contributed to us arriving in the situation we are in.'"

- Stephen Rea quoted from The Irish Times, March 22, 1997.

Stephen Rea as George McBrain in Comedians by Trevor Griffiths, named Most Promising New Actor in The Playboy of the Western World - From Plays and Players, London Critics 1975 Awards Photo copyright John Haynes

Sam Shepard

Derek Mahon

Sean O'Casey

Harold Pinter

9.12.1996

Samuel Beckett

10.91

Samuel Beckett

10.91

Samuel Beckett

10.91

Samuel Beckett

Sean O'Casey

John Webster

John Arden

John Webster

Trevor Griffiths

Trevor Griffiths

Anton Chekhov

August Strindberg

Richard Eyre

Richard Eyre

Tom Murphy

Brian Friel

Frank McGuinness

Frank McGuinness

Frank McGuinness

Terry Eagleton

Kenneth MacMillan

Sam Shepard

Brian Friel

Brian Friel

Sam Shepard

Mike Leigh

Bertold Brecht

Sam Shepard

2.21.1974

John Antrobus

Thomas Kilroy

Samuel Beckett

Brian Friel

John Antrobus

Chekhov/Trevor Griffiths

Brian Friel

Dion Boucicault

Stephen Poliakoff

Odon von Horvath

William Shakespeare

Carlo Goldoni

John Millington Synge

John Millington Synge

John Millington Synge

Antone Chekhov

Seamus Heaney

Terry Eagleton

Brian Friel

Stewart Parker

Thomas Kilroy

Derek Mahon

Tom Paulin

Athol Fugard

Brian Friel

Antone Chekhov

Brian Friel

Books:

Acting Between The Lines: The Field Day Theatre Company And Irish Cultural Politics, 1980-1984,
by Marilynn J. Richtarik, 2001

Changing Stages, by Richard Eyre and Nicholas Wright, 2000.

Websites:

Field Day Theatre Company:

Field Day Books

Emory.edu