I can’t remember exactly when, but sometime in late 2024, my friend Lindsey and I started talking about organizing a theater retreat in Ireland. She had lived there for about 10 years and had met and worked with incredible Irish theater artists. Ireland also has an amazing reputation for storytelling. For such a small country, it has produced an extraordinary number of celebrated writers, actors, and poets.

I also never had the chance to study abroad, an experience I’ve always been a little jealous of when comparing college experiences with fellow actor friends, so the idea of creating something similar felt especially exciting. It felt like an opportunity to make that experience happen not only for myself, but for others who might be craving it as well.

A few months before we started talking about the Ireland trip, Alison quit her day job and started running Green Shirt with me full-time. In college, she had studied abroad in Dublin at the Gaiety School of Acting, so she was excited to help plan the trip. In May 2025, she booked us flights to Ireland so we could scout locations, meet people, and start putting the pieces together.

During that planning trip, I got the sense that we were creating something really special, a chance for us and whoever might come along to experience something truly unique. It felt like an artistic and cultural adventure unlike any other. Because of Lindsey’s connections, it was also deeply rooted in the local community.

Fast forward a year and a lot of planning, and we took 19 Green Shirt students on a seven-day trip to Dublin and Gorey to see plays, take workshops, and explore Ireland’s incredible sights.

Despite our jet lag, we spent our first night in Dublin at a small theater seeing a two-person play, The Argument of Us, at The New Theatre, a small black box space that felt like a Chicago theater if there were more arts funding available for theaters in the U.S. The next day we saw a lunchtime performance at the famous Bewley’s Café of Elysium Nevada, a darkly comic play by Irish playwright Barry McKinley. We then toured the Guinness Storehouse and spent the night out in Dublin.

Our last experience in Dublin was a poetry stroll through Merrion Square, where our guide Remco sang us poems by famous Irish writers that he had set to music. We also stopped by Sweny’s Pharmacy, which famously inspired a location in James Joyce’s Ulysses, now run by a very interesting character who sang us poems in Irish.

The next three days we spent in Gorey, a small town about 90 minutes south of Dublin. Each day there, we worked with director Sally Stevens at her home, where she welcomed us in to devise theater in her beautiful garden. It was one of the most magical places I’ve ever been. Students prepared scenes from Irish plays and worked with Sally in different spaces around her house and garden. On our final workshop, we performed the scenes as a show, traveling promenade style through the garden.

We also got a tour of Enniscorthy from local actor Fintan, who grew up there and shared so much of the town’s history with us. He took us up Vinegar Hill, a steep incline where a famous battle was fought during the Irish Rebellion of 1798, while some of us stayed at the bottom and drank pints at the pub instead.

We also did a poetry workshop in Gorey with playwright Eoghan Rua Finn and actor Ronan P. Byrne, who introduced us to several famous Irish poems and guided us in devising short pieces from them together. They were also joined by poet Ben Maccaoilte, who performed some of his poems for us.

One of my favorite moments was watching him perform. His poems and performance were truly incredible, and I learned more about Ireland in 45 minutes than I ever had before. It was also one of the first times I really felt a connection to my Irish heritage, since most of my family is from there.

A huge thanks to Lindsey, Alison, and all the artists we worked with over there. We’re going back in May next year, dates to be announced soon. We’re planning to spend more time in the countryside, seek out additional workshops, and create even more opportunities to collaborate with Irish theater artists. Join this list to get all the info when it’s available.