Gaiety Theatre

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This article is about the theatre in Dublin. For the now demolished theatre in London, see Gaiety Theatre, London.

The Gaiety Theatre is a theatre on South King Street in Dublin, Ireland, off of Grafton Street and close to St. Stephen's Green. It specialises in operatic and musical productions, with occasional dramatic shows.

Designed by architect C.J. Phipps and built in under 7 months, the Gaiety was opened on 27 November 1871 with the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland as guest of honour and a double bill of the comedy She Stoops to Conquer and the burlesque La Belle Sauvage.

The Gaiety was extended by renowned theatre architect Frank Matcham in 1883, and, despite several improvements to public spaces and stage changes, it retains its Victorian charm and remains Dublin's longest-established, continuously producing theatre.

Recent and renowned performers and playwrights associated with the theatre (Maureen Potter, Twink, John B Keane, Anna Manahan and Niall Toibin) have been celebrated with hand-prints cast in bronze and set in the pavement beneath the theatre canopy.

It is well known for its annual pantomime every Christmas which is a Dublin institution with families attending generation after generation, and has taken place without interruption since the mid 1850's .

In the 1960s and the 1970s the theatre was run by Fred O'Donovan and the Eamonn Andrews Studios, until - in the 1980s - Joe Dowling (former Artistic Director of the Abbey Theatre) became Director of the Gaiety. In the 1990s Groundwork Productions took on the lease and the theatre was eventually bought by the Break for the Border Group. The Gaiety was purchased by music promotor Denis Desmond and his wife Caroline in the late 1990s, who have since undertaken a refit of the theatre, with further changes planned for 2007. The Department of Arts, Sport and Tourism have also contributed to this restoration fund.

A nightclub is run every Friday and saturday night in the Gaiety, with live bands on different floors, which is the latest-opening non-private members nightclub in the city.