Ages of the Moon

STEVE BUSCEMI is an actor, writer, director and producer who has built a career out of portraying some of the most unique and unforgettable characters in recent cinema. He starred in HBO’s Boardwalk Empire, which garnered him a Golden Globe® Award, two Screen Actors Guild Awards, and two Emmy® nominations. His directing work includes the films Trees Lounge and Interview, and TV credits including The Sopranos, which earned him Emmy® and DGA Award nominations, 30 Rock, Nurse Jackie, Portlandia, and Love. Buscemi’s latest directorial effort, The Listener, starring Tessa Thompson, world premiered at the 2022 Venice Film Festival before making its way to Tribeca for its North American premiere. Buscemi starred opposite Daniel Radcliffe in the TBS anthology series Miracle Workers. He most recently joined the cast of the hit Netflix series, Wednesday.

AIDAN QUINN has starred in more than 50 feature films including Desperately Seeking Susan, The Playboys, Avalon, Benny and Joon, Legends of the Fall, Michael Collins, Practical Magic, Unknown, and the upcoming HBO/Disney+ series Rematch. Aidan started his career on stage in Chicago and played the title role in the award-winning production of Hamlet, he starred on Broadway as Stanley Kowalski in A Streetcar Named Desire and Off-Broadway in Sam Shepherd’s Fool for Love and Lie of the Mind in the original cast directed by Sam Shepard. Most recently he starred in Horton Foote’s The Man From Atlanta at Signature Theatre. His television credits include the groundbreaking AIDS drama An Early Frost (Emmy nom. for Best Actor), All My Sons by Arthur Miller, See You in My Dreams, based on Sam Shepard stories from Cruising Paradise and Motel Chronicles, Empire Falls, Weeds, Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee (Emmy nom.), Elementary and the current HBO Max limited series The American Guest as Theodore Roosevelt. Some of his favorite films he’s done in Ireland are his brother Paul’s This is My Father, Aisling Walsh’s Song for a Raggy Boy (IFTA nom. for Best Actor) and Conor McPherson’s Eclipse for which he won the IFTA award.

CAITRÍONA McLAUGHLIN (Director) was appointed as Artistic Director of the Abbey Theatre in 2021. She was born in Donegal and studied science at the University of Ulster before moving into theatre. She was awarded a Clore Fellowship in 2007 and subsequently spent six summers with LAByrinth Theatre Company in New York developing new plays for Artistic Directors John Ortiz and the late Philip Seymour Hoffman, at their Summer Intensive. During this time Caitríona also directed a number of plays in New York including Killers and other Family (part of the OBIE award–winning Hilltown Plays) and plays at Atlantic Theatre, Rattlestick, and Bard Summerscape. She was Associate Director at the Abbey Theatre from 2017–2020, where her productions included: The Great Hunger by Patrick Kavanagh (with Conall Morrison); Citysong by Dylan Coburn Gray (ITTA nomination Best New Play); On Raftery’s Hill by Marina Carr (for which she won Best Director at the 2019 ITTA); and Two Pints by Roddy Doyle, which toured widely in Ireland and the USA. She also worked with theatre and opera companies on both sides of the border, including Wexford Opera, Hot for Theatre, INO, The Local Group, and Landmark, and she was the director on O’Casey in the Estate, a TV documentary shown on RTE. Prior to moving into directing, with Patrick McCabe’s Frank Pig Says Hello at the Finborough Theatre in London in 2003, Caitríona worked as a drama facilitator in Northern Ireland, working with young people and in conflict resolution. In London, she directed numerous productions, focusing primarily on new writing, and collaborated with the Royal Court in sourcing and developing a new theatre space.

SAM SHEPARD‘s first New York plays, Cowboys and The Rock Garden, were produced by Theatre Genesis in 1963. For several seasons, he worked with Off-Off-Broadway theatre groups including La MaMa and Caffe Cino. Eleven of his plays won Obie Awards, including Chicago, The Tooth of Crime, and Curse of the Starving Class. Other award-winning plays include Fool for Love, True West, A Lie of the Mind, and Buried Child, for which he won a Pulitzer Prize in 1979. In 1986, Shepard was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Letters and received the Gold Medal for Drama from the Academy in 1992. He was inducted into the Theater Hall of Fame two years later. As a screenwriter and director, he filmed Far North and Silent Tongue. As an actor, he appeared in numerous films, including The Right Stuff, Days of Heaven, and Resurrection. His final works of prose, The One Inside and Spy of the First Person, were published the year he passed away, 2017. 

As Ireland’s national theatre, the Abbey Theatre’s ambition is to enrich the cultural lives of everyone with a curiosity for and interest in Irish theatre, stories, artists and culture. Courage and imagination are at the heart of our storytelling, while inclusivity, diversity and equality are at the core of our thinking. Led by Co-Director’s Caitríona McLaughlin (Artistic Director) and Mark O’Brien (Executive Director), the Abbey Theatre celebrates both the rich canon of Irish dramatic writing and the potential of future generations of Irish theatre artists. Ireland has a rich history of theatre and playwriting and extraordinary actors, designers and directors. Artists are at the heart of our organization, with Marina Carr and Conor McPherson as Senior Associate Playwrights and Caroline Byrne as Associate Director.  The Abbey Theatre Resident Directors are Esosa Ighodaro, John King, Lianne O’Shea and James Riordan. Our stories teach us what it is to belong, what it is to be excluded and to exclude. Artistically our program is built on twin impulses, and around two questions: “who we were, and who are we now?” We interrogate our classical canon with an urgency about what makes it speak to this moment. On our stages we find and champion new voices and new ways of seeing, our purpose—to identify combinations of characters we are yet to meet, having conversations we are yet to hear. The Abbey Theatre gratefully acknowledges the support of The Arts Council / An Chomhairle Ealaíon and the Department for Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media.