The Speks present a lively show of nursery rhymes and sing-along songs set to acoustic Irish music which will have adults and kids jumping in their seats! Their hand-clapping, toe-tapping, hearty-laughing show is all about life on Glasses Island – a magical island off the coast of Co. Clare where everybody wears glasses! The Speks
1968: Having fallen on hard times, and desperate to re-establish herself, Judy Garland (an astounding Renée Zellweger) is left with no other choice than to accept a residency in London to perform a five-week, sold-out series of concerts. Separated from her children, who are back in Los Angeles where her ex-husband is fighting her for
When Pamela a free-spirited, fun-loving 44-year-old single mother becomes pregnant from a one-night stand, she is shocked! But not as shocked (and horrified) as her straight-laced teenage daughter Ally, who finds her mother’s behaviour embarrassing at the best of times. As both women have to come to terms with the impending new arrival, they are
Following their highly-acclaimed 2018 tour, and their extended sold-out run at the Peacock Theatre, Livin’ Dred Theatre present the award-winning Trad by Mark Doherty. An hilarious, absurd and poignant tale of a 100-year-old Irishman… and his father! Together they set out to discover the son they never knew he had. “There’s a child belonging to
Benedict Cumberbatch (BBC’s Sherlock, Doctor Strange) plays the title role of Shakespeare’s great tragedy. Now seen by over 900,000 people worldwide, the original broadcast returns to international cinemas to mark National Theatre Live’s 10th birthday. As a country arms itself for war, a family tears itself apart. Forced to avenge his father’s death but paralysed
Abominable takes audiences on an epic 2,000-mile adventure from the streets of Shanghai to the breathtaking Himalayan snowscapes. When teenage Yi encounters a young Yeti on the roof of her apartment building in Shanghai, she and her mischievous friends, Jin (Tenzing Norgay Trainor) and Peng (Albert Tsai), name him “Everest” and embark on an epic
Daniel is 20 and serving time in a young offenders’ institute, where he has found God and wants nothing more than to become a priest. But his violent past means that's an impossibility. Released on parole he is sent to a rural sawmill but makes a detour to the local church, where he is mistaken
SPACE TO PLAY is, an interactive, free-play space designed by Orla Kelly of Early Childhood Creativity in collaboration with Little Bigtop. Activities include a wide array of sensory play activities to explore light and dark, phones that link you to the sounds of outer space, soft planet reading rugs and mini rocket making. This exhibition in the McKenna
Moon Woke Me Up Nine times It was still 4am So I built a rocket with my friends And went on a journey that never ends Come up and away with us. Come and play with us. Come build a rocket that will BLAST OFF and take us on a magical journey to the moon.
Illustrator Victor and his wife Marianne seem to have nothing in common any more. He detests the modern technologies that she can’t seem to live without. When Antoine offers Victor a re-enactment service that allows customers to live in any era of their choice, Victor chooses to go back to the rainy day in 1975,
With the outbreak of WW2, the Irish government introduces internment without trial for all suspected IRA members, and Bernard Carroll – a naive young Dubliner who believes he is a revolutionary - is swept up with hundreds of others and held in a ramshackle internment camp on the plains of the Curragh. The camp is
This workshop is for anybody interested in working spatially with paper (teachers, artists, mathematicians and complete novices). The workshops will explore a range of paper folding techniques and methods; from simple one page folds to modular and complex geographic shapes, to Kirigami and other intricate paper engineering processes. We would like to invite you to
As part of FOLD/UNFOLD exhibition by Vanya Lambrecht Ward we are screening Between the Folds by Vanessa Goulds. Between the Folds is an award winning documentary which chronicles the stories of ten artists and intrepid theoretical scientists who have abandoned more conventional career paths to forge lives as modern-day paper folders. USA / 2008 /
Folding, bending, tucking, crumbling and flattening are but some of the things we need for making paper space. We like to invite you to come and play, explore and discover the making of paper spaces. We will build and construct great geometric shapes and other structures using only paper and no glue… Not just a
This workshop explores creating fictional character who travel backwards and forwards in time. Think of Back to the Future, Doctor Who and Hermione using the Time Turner in Harry Potter! The workshop covers key skills: character creation, opening the story, setting the scene and plot. Writers will return home with the beginnings of (and in
The Celtic Tenors – three tenors, one voice. This charismatic, globetrotting trio are the most successful classical crossover act to emerge from Ireland. The Celtic Tenors signed with Sony Classics in 2000 and have sold over 1 million albums worldwide to date, achieving Top 10 positions on Billboard Charts in the United States and Canada.
Writer-director Greta Gerwig presents this new adaptation of Louisa May Alcott’s classic novel about four sisters growing up at the end of the American Civil War. As the March sisters struggle to live their lives on their own terms, they all face challenges, both similar and different. Jo wants to be a writer; Meg longs
Crowman is Dan Lonergan’s account of the hilarious characters that inhabit his life on a daily basis and a true love story that never was. By turns poignant and comic, Jon Kenny carries the audience on a roller-coaster ride from his childhood to middle-age, from the hurling pitch to the pub and from one uproariously
Queen’s County draws inspiration from the fist trialled plantations operated by the English crown in Ireland in the 16th century in counties Laois and Offaly. The one in Laois became known as Queen’s County. This devised play explores displacement and alienation through the lens of young people’s experience today, and includes episodes on commuting, rural
Exiled on a remote mountainside in South America, the Monos are a group of teenage soldiers left to guard a single hostage: Doctora. Who they are and where they come from is not known. They have their orders from the Organisation communicated by radio, and also sporadic visits from the Messenger, serving as a voice
As imaginative as the creative process it documents, this is a uniquely intimate journey through the inspiration, writing and recording of a PJ Harvey record. A collaboration between writer and musician, Harvey, and award-winning photographer Seamus Murphy. Seeking first-hand experience of the countries she wanted to write about, Harvey accompanied Murphy on some of his
Over the last decade, Kildare County Council have funded a diverse range of films through the Short Grass Films bursary awards and film commission. The repertoire includes short film, animation, documentary, drama as well as feature length films, many of which have received national and international accolades. Kildare Short Grass Films have supported the making
This striking feature debut by Tom Sullivan, Arracht (Monster) is set in the wild shores of Ireland’s west coast as the potato blight descends in 1845. Stripped back and fierce, it’s an intense small-scale Irish-language drama which plunges the viewer into the cold desperation of those Famine times. Arracht is a visually expressive piece centred
Sam Mendes, the Oscar-winning director of Skyfall, Spectre and American Beauty, brings his singular vision to his World War I epic, 1917. At the height of the First World War, two young British soldiers, Schofield (Captain Fantastic’s George MacKay) and Blake (Game of Thrones’ Dean-Charles Chapman) are given a seemingly impossible mission. In a race
The Lonsdale Project is a new theatre show about the life and work of Kathleen Lonsdale (1903-1971) - chemist, crystallographer, anti-war campaigner, writer, mother, and former inmate of Holloway Prison. Despite being a pioneering Irish scientist and activist, Kathleen Lonsdale’s name and legacy are curiously unknown by the general public. Super Paua aims to change
Covid-19 COVID-19 (CORONAVIRUS) Following the measures announced by An Taoiseach on Thursday, 12th March, Riverbank Arts Centre is complying with the directive to close our building from 12th March (We are closely monitoring the situation and will reopen when advised that it is safe to do so). See statement by Riverbank Director here. This sudden
Due to the Government directive to close all public buildings until 29th March, unfortunately this event is not going ahead as scheduled. All ticket holders have been contacted. The Lonsdale Project is a new theatre show about the life and work of Kathleen Lonsdale - chemist, crystallographer, anti-war campaigner, writer, mother, and former inmate
We are missing our Monday night cinema programme - and we know many of you are very regular attenders of all the screenings, so we would like to offer an alternative Monday night cinema at home option for access to some of the best new, independent Irish and international cinema. First off, we can all
10 String Symphony were due to tour Ireland in May 2020 and play at Riverbank Arts Centre on 17th May, as part of a Music Network tour. Due to the ongoing Coronavirus outbreak, the artists have postponed the tour until May 2021. However, we are delighted that Christian Sedelmyer and Rachel Baiman of 10 String
Online Arts and Storytelling workshop with Paul Timoney What do alien animals look like? Are they huge like dinosaurs… or tiny like bugs? Or are they terrifying like huge bugs… or cute, like tiny dinosaurs? Can they talk? Or turn invisible? Or even fly? Wait… we have things that fly here on Earth - that’s
On her wild quest for love, 9-year-old Benni’s untamed energy drives everyone around her to despair. She is small, but dangerous. Wherever Benni ends up, she is immediately expelled. The wild 9-year-old girl has already become what child protection services call a “system crasher”. Profoundly affected by childhood trauma, Benni is by turns bright, funny
ER doctor Rike (Susanne Wolff) embarks on a one-woman solo sailing trip to Ascension Island in the Atlantic. When Rike comes across a sinking ship of refugees, she is quickly torn out of her contented world and must make a momentous decision. Aptly named after the mythological river that separates the living from the dead,
In this series of four early years music-making sessions with Ceol Connected’s Dr. Thomas Johnston, childcare educators will explore a range of ways of bringing music-making into young children’s everyday experiences. Thomas will explore connections between music-making and the Aistear framework, and share his own approach to facilitating music-making workshops which includes: developing aural awareness through
Tunes for Tiny online sessions are a gentle opportunity to join with other families and experience first-hand the soothing, joyful, fun, creative power of music-making with children. Come and join us to learn new songs and musical activities, and experience the joy and fun of making music in lots of different ways. In this series of
The film offers an artful and intimate meditation on the life and works of the legendary storyteller and Nobel prize-winner. From her childhood in the steel town of Lorain, Ohio to ‘70s-era book tours with Muhammad Ali, from the front lines with Angela Davis to her own riverfront writing room, Toni Morrison leads an assembly
Riverbank Arts Centre is working with Children's Books Ireland on this special FREE online book clinic on Saturday, 13th June, offered as part of Cruinniú na nÓg and supported by Kildare County Council and Creative Ireland. Are you a young reader? Looking for a new series to delve into? Feeling uninspired by your bookshelves at
UPDATE live link is HERE, join us at 9pm: https://www.facebook.com/riverbankartscentre/live/ Riverbank Arts Centre is presenting a work-in-progress of Keith Walsh’s debut play, Pure Mental, live-streamed from the Riverbank stage on Saturday, 27th June. Having finished up a 5-year stint presenting, in the pressure cooker that is a breakfast show, on National Radio, Keith Walsh finally found
++Update 11th August - the book clinics are now fully booked. Sorry to disappoint! ++ Riverbank Arts Centre is working with Children's Books Ireland on this series of FREE online book clinics. 3rd July - Go Places with a Book! 24th July - Walk a Mile in Someone Else’s Shoes 14th August- New Adventures, New
Artist Vanya Lambrecht Ward presents a workshop on The Art of Paper Folding, generally known as origami. This amazing art not only allows us to form a bridge between our 2D and our 3D understanding of the world but also has found all sorts of applications in our lives, from space travel to medicine. One
**Update 21st August: Due to the extension of local lockdown announced at 6pm today, Riverbank and Anna Newell Theatre Adventures are unable to present the planned performances of Sing Me To The Sea in County Kildare. We are presenting some performances in neighbouring counties (Dublin, Louth, Meath, Carlow) the week of 24th - 28th August. To
Kildare Art Collective & Friends present a collaborative project developed as a platform to process and document our lives throughout these strange times, while creating an opportunity for communication, conversation and crossover between disciplines. Participating artists worked collaboratively exchanging ideas and working together using alternative methods of communication such as email, letter, carrier pigeon, phone
On Friday 18th September, we are delighted to welcome singer-songwriter Luka Bloom to Riverbank Arts Centre to perform tracks from his new album, Bittersweet Crimson, interspersed with a conversation with Keith Walsh about making and recording music in 2020. This fusion of songs and stories will be broadcast live from Riverbank Arts Centre at 9pm.
Kildare Readers Festival 2020 – all online! Kildare Readers Festival is brought to you every year in October by Kildare County Library and Arts Service, culminating in busy closing weekend of events and activities at Riverbank Arts Centre. The festival aims to connect readers with authors and artists, working to bring the very best from
Shane Hegarty will talk about his new book in the Boot series, about a little robot with a big heart and answer questions from the children. Shane Hegarty is the bestselling author of the 'Boot' - about a toy robot with only two-and-half-memories. 'Boot' was recently Dublin UNESCO City of Literature Citywide Read. He also
The University of Wonder & Imagination is now enrolling students of all ages and magical abilities...and there’s a place with your name on it! The University of Wonder & Imagination brings the magic of theatre to young audiences at home with this groundbreaking immersive digital show. This fun, interactive hour-long experience takes place live in
