Part history tour on acid, part vaudeville, and part test of the audience's patience, Solas Nua and the Performance Corporation's much-anticipated Swampoodle comes storming into the Uline Arena, injecting some theater into the arm of a neglected corner of the District. more ›

The Capital Fringe Festival may be a hot, steamy, distant memory, but don't tell Solas Nua that. To open their sixth season, the theater company has tapped into that festival's rag-tag, anything-goes spirit with their first musical, Improbable Frequency. The play, written by Arthur Riordan, with music by an Irish group known as Bell Helicopter, actually did start out as a Fringe hit: at the Edinburgh festival in 2006. With their D.C. production, Solas Nua takes over a bare, as-yet-unused floor of a new office building on K Street NE, and transforms it into an alternative performance space that makes full use of the size and openness provided. more ›

Washington, D.C's premier (only?) Irish arts organization, Solas Nua, is once again handing out free copies of books by contemporary Irish authors all day today, in celebration of St. Patrick's Day. They say they plan to hand out a total of 10,000 books, totally gratis. more ›

FILM: Solas Nua's Irish film series continues with tonight's screening of The Wind That Shakes the Barley, about two Irish brothers fighting the British in the 1920s. The film screens at 7 p.m. at Flashpoint, 916 G St., NW. Free. more ›

"The whole point of living is preparing to die," says one character at a pivotal moment in Solas Nua's new production of Woman and Scarecrow. It's not just the point of life, but the point of the play itself, most of which is spent inside the mind of an unnamed woman as she spends her final hours succumbing, with both relief and reluctance, to an unnamed malady. If that sounds quite dark, well, it is. You were expecting something a little more uplifting from an Irish deathbed drama? But if it also sounds dreary, that's where you'd be wrong. more ›

It’s sometimes poetic. It’s sometimes haunting. It’s consistently, well, long. more ›

What better time than the day after the State of the Union address to be reminded that exaggeration, obfuscation, and just-plain-making-shit-up can be employed for benign purposes as well as sinister ones? Solas Nua's Trad is a show that delights in benevolent hyperbole like no other in recent memory, and its pleasures are plentiful indeed. Playwright Mark Doherty's wry, spry meditation on tradition and familial identity and especially -- O! How we we wish there was another word for this! -- blarney, falls somewhere in between Waiting for Godot and Waking Ned Devine on the sliding scale of existential Irish fearlessness vs. adorable, tweed-jacketed stereotypes. more ›

This playful, irreverent melodrama, a splendid performance of the 2007 Capital Fringe Festival, is a presentation of Solas Nua, the nonprofit dedicated to presenting the contemporary works of Irish artists to better acquaint the District with modern culture of the Emerald Isle. Tom Murphy, the play’s celebrated playwright, has created this modern adaptation to reflect Irish politics of the Land League and tenants rights. As you might imagine, The Drunkard is fraught with Irish stereotypes, but its vernacular wit and vaudevillian roots come together to form a good ol’ fashioned story of justice served. more ›

FRIDAY: >> It may be that we've simply gotten so, so, so many press releases about The Horrors show tonight at the Rock and Roll Hotel, and we've been beaten into submission to mention it. Give the punky-garage rock revivalists a chance for $12 at 8:30 p.m., and let us know if they're worth all the fuss. Seattle's Schoolyard Heroes open, plus locals Scanner Freaks. >> One of the most anticipated new hip hop albums... more ›

FRIDAY: >> Print out this PDF and take it to Local 16 between 6 to 9 p.m. tonight to receive a free drink, courtesy the Not For Tourists Guide to Washington, DC 2007. They'll also be giving away free copies of the Guide. >> Local rockers The Pharmacy Prophets are brewing up a high-concept hootenanny at Iota tonight. When the band takes the stage, they'll simultaneously be filming live concert footage for a multimedia project... more ›

Today at the Fringe, ethnicity is explored through dance, a pair of cabaret acts make their debut, and some drenched French whores finally get their star-crossed production off the ground. But first, it looks like we spoke too soon about ticket availability for the One-Man Star Wars Trilogy--an alert DCist tipster dispensed the bad news last night--sold out straight up and down. A pity, because Charles Ross is headed to Edinburgh after the Capital Fringe... more ›

Of all the non-traditional spaces hosting performances hosting Fringe Festival performances, none was more...uhm, Fringey, than the one obtained by Solas Nua, a young arts organization devoted to modern Irish culture and DC's go to source for all the latest in Enda Walsh plays. For their Fringe presentation, La Corbiere-Anne La Marquand Hartigan's poetic drama about a boatload of French whores whose travel plans go awry (as they so often do), Solas Nua sought to... more ›