Farewell to St Andrew's Lane

As a theatre goer, I have always loved Andrew’s Lane in Dublin.

There is something very “off Broadway” about the place. The fact that actors and punters end up drinking together at the bar afterwards and its staging of certain plays that might otherwise never have been produced in any Dublin city centre theatre attest to this.
Not that the latter necessarily applies to its current production – Paul Meade and David Parnell’s Trousers. Or, for that matter, to its upcoming productions of Conor McPherson’s Dublin Carol or Roger Gregg’s The Stuff Of Myth.
But the point is that they will be two of the last plays ever staged in Andrew’s Lane Theatre because it is up for sale. There will be one final production, yet to be named, but now seems like the right time to talk with Pat Moylan, who’s been running the theatre for nearly 20 years.
She reveals that some of the things theatre goers love about Andrew’s Lane also finally led to its undoing as a venue for theatre.
“I am in this building 20 years in June and always thought if I stay anywhere for 20 years, I should make a move and do something else,” Pat explains.
“But one of the main reasons is that the building itself is in such bad condition. For example, the roof over the auditorium is a flat roof and has been giving trouble for a long time, even though it’s been fixed and fixed. We need a new roof, which would be very expensive. Also, the air-conditioning is banjaxed and so on. It’s just two old buildings stuck together with sellotape actually!"
Since Andrew’s inception, nine theatres have opened in the greater Dublin area, all state of the art, with sophisticated lighting, sound equipment, banks of dressing rooms and even showers. That’s what companies that produce plays are used to, and what Andrew’s Lane notably lacks.
Pat also admits that the no-smoking ban and the don’t-drink-and-drive campaign before Christmas both adversely effected business. As, indeed, did the opening of those nine other Dublin-based theatres.
“Business obviously has been spread since those theatres came on stream,” she says. “But what really hit us was the downturn in our bar income, which was a very, very big part of our income and very important to us here, if only because there is a mortgage to pay. All of those are the reasons, I guess, I finally decided it was time to go.”
However Pat Moylan will still be involved in theatre vis-à-vis her company Lane Productions which produced the hugely successful and highly lucrative I, Keano and Alone It Stands. In the meantime, she has that handful of plays running at, or coming to, Andrew’s Lane, and we can only thank her for nearly 20 years of the theatre and wish her well.
Trousers is currently running at Andrews Lane Theatre. ‘Dublin Carol’ opens March 30.