Lyric Theatre, Theatre on Ridgeway Street, Belfast, Northern Ireland
The Lyric Theatre is a riverside performance venue in Belfast, Northern Ireland, with two distinct halls of different sizes. The main auditorium seats around 390 people, while the Naughton Studio offers a smaller format for more experimental work.
The theatre was founded in 1951 by Mary O'Malley in her own home, with a focus on Irish drama from the start. Over the years the project grew and moved into a purpose-built building that opened on the banks of the River Lagan in 2011.
The Lyric Theatre is known for staging plays written by people from Northern Ireland, and audiences often find themselves watching stories drawn directly from local life. Productions move between the large hall and the smaller studio depending on the tone and scale each work calls for.
The theatre has a café bar that opens before performances, which makes it easy to arrive early and settle in before the show. The building is fully accessible, so visitors with different mobility needs can move through all areas without difficulty.
In 2012, two leading politicians from opposing sides publicly shook hands in the theatre foyer, a gesture that drew attention across Northern Ireland. The fact that this happened in a cultural building rather than a political setting gave the moment a particular weight.
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