{"id":600747,"date":"2026-08-22T01:54:09","date_gmt":"2026-08-22T01:54:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/600747\/"},"modified":"2026-08-22T01:54:09","modified_gmt":"2026-08-22T01:54:09","slug":"theatre-director-patrick-sutton-dies-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/600747\/","title":{"rendered":"Theatre director Patrick Sutton dies \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Acclaimed Irish theatre director Patrick Sutton, who worked with the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/gaiety-theatre\/\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/gaiety-theatre\/\">Gaiety Theatre<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/smock-alley-theatre\/\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/smock-alley-theatre\/\">Smock Alley<\/a>, died on Thursday.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Paying tribute to Sutton in a joint statement on Friday, both establishments said he had \u201cshaped a generation of Irish theatre\u201d.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Sutton served as the director of the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/gaiety-school-of-acting\/\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/gaiety-school-of-acting\/\">Gaiety School of Acting<\/a> from 1993 until his retirement in early 2024.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">He was also the founder and \u201cdriving force\u201d behind the restoration of Smock Alley Theatre. He worked as an actor and director in Ireland, England and France.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">His held leadership roles at the Wexford Arts Centre, Team Theatre Company and the National Festival of Youth Theatres. He also held governance roles with the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/arts-council\/\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/arts-council\/\">Arts Council<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/culture-ireland\/\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/culture-ireland\/\">Culture Ireland<\/a> and other cultural organisations. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph b-it-article-body__interstitial-link\">[\u00a0<a aria-label=\"Open related story\" class=\"c-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/culture\/art-and-design\/architecture-design\/creativity-within-constraints-1.537070\" rel=\"noreferrer nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Creativity within constraintsOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Will Wollen, director and chief executive of the Gaiety School of Acting, said: \u201cPatrick Sutton leaves an astonishing cultural inheritance for Ireland and for Dublin.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">\u201cFor 30 years he led the Gaiety School of Acting from strength to strength and it is because of his leadership that generations of artists working in Ireland and around the world carry something of his work with them. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">\u201cWe are shocked and saddened to learn of his passing, as he had only recently joined us at one of our 40th anniversary celebrations.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">He described the \u201crevolutionary spirit\u201d that runs through the Gaiety school and its alumni as his \u201cundeniable legacy\u201d.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">\u201cIt was a privilege to know him. Our love and thoughts are with Mo and his family,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">\u201cSmock Alley stands today in no small part because of Patrick\u2019s vision, determination and belief in what this extraordinary building could become,\u201d said Oonagh Murphy, chief executive of Dublin Municipal Theatre at Smock Alley.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">\u201cHe understood the importance of its history but, more importantly, he understood that a theatre only truly lives when it is filled with artists, audiences and new ideas.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">She added they would remember him with \u201cenormous gratitude and affection.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Acclaimed Irish theatre director Patrick Sutton, who worked with the Gaiety Theatre and Smock Alley, died on Thursday.&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":600748,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[22810,143171,615,93,254508,71186,61,60,96322],"class_list":["post-600747","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-arts-council","tag-culture-ireland","tag-dublin","tag-entertainment","tag-gaiety-school-of-acting","tag-gaiety-theatre","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-smock-alley-theatre"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/600747","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=600747"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/600747\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/600748"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=600747"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=600747"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=600747"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}