Enda Walsh was born in Kilbarrack, North Dublin on 7 February 1967. His father ran a furniture shop and his mother had been an actress. He is the second youngest of six children. Walsh states that he saw his father, a salesman, as the 'lead actor' in the business, but as Ireland's economy fluctuated, so did furniture sales. Notably during the recession in the 1980s, when profits were low, Walsh says that he was earning more money managing his own newspaper round enterprise than his father was bringing home from the shop.[1] Life in the large family was full of incident and Enda has claimed[1] that many of his plays find their origin in his relationships with his father, his mother and her friends, his three brothers and two sisters.
Enda attended Greendale Community School where he was taught by both Roddy Doyle and Paul Mercier. After studying Communications at Rathmines College and acting for the Dublin Youth Theatre,[2] Walsh travelled in Europe working as a film editor. On his return to Dublin he found few opportunities and so moved to Cork where he acted for theatre-in-education Graffiti Theatre. In 1993 Walsh began working with Pat Kiernan, director of Corcadorca, a collaborative ensemble which devised what Walsh calls 'terrible'[3] plays. In 1996 his Disco Pigs premiered at the Triskel Art Centre in Cork. This was the start of an international career writing for the stage and screen. Feeling himself to be 'too comfortable'[4] in Dublin, in 2005 Walsh and his wife, Jo Ellison, who is currently editor of the Financial Times's How to Spend It, moved to London. They live in Kilburn with their daughter, Ada, and their cockapoo, Alvin.
Starting with his experience at Corcadorca, Walsh has never restricted himself to straight plays but has been happy to cross genres. Originally he would write music for one member of the ensemble and opportunities for dance for others. In the list of Walsh's works, there are musicals, an opera, art installations, and radio plays, such as Four Big Days in the Life of Dessie Banks for RTÉ and The Monotonous Life of Little Miss P for the BBC.
Many of Walsh's plays including Disco Pigs,[5]Bedbound, Small Things, Chatroom, New Electric Ballroom,[6]The Walworth Farce, Penelope and Misterman, have been translated into more than 20 languages and have had productions throughout Europe and in Australia, New Zealand and the US.
The Last Hotel by Walsh and Donnacha Dennehy, Edinburgh International Festival 2015
The Galway International Arts Festival has played host to a new departure for Walsh, involving art installation rooms with audio monologues, including Room 303 featuring the voice of Niall Buggy (2014), A Girl's Bedroom featuring the voice of Charlie Murphy (2015), Kitchen featuring the voice of Eileen Walsh (2016) and Bathroom featuring the voice of Paul Reid (2017). These installations have also been shown in the Kennedy Arts Centre, Washington (May 2016) and the Irish Arts Center, New York (May 2017).
Walsh wrote the book of the musical Sing Street adapted from the film of the same name written by John Carney. Like Once, the musical was produced at New York Theatre Workshop, with performances beginning in December 2019. The musical was slated for a spring 2020 Broadway premiere before being postponed by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Walsh writes screenplays too, starting with his short film Not a Bad Christmas (1999). He adapted his play Disco Pigs, for the screen and co-wrote the screenplay of Hunger which was directed by Steve McQueen and starred Michael Fassbender as Bobby Sands, the IRA hunger striker who starved himself to death. He also adapted his play Chatroom for a film directed by Hideo Nakata. He is currently under commission for three films, an adaptation of the children's story Island of the Aunts by Eva Ibbotson (for Cuba Pictures), a film entitled Jules in the City based on the life and music of Rufus Wainwright and an adaptation of Gitta Sereny's book Into That Darkness, about the life of Franz Stangl, the commandant of the Sobibor and Treblinka extermination camps.
Walsh states that his plays are about 'some sort of love and need for calm and peace'.[15] He says that his play Penelope is about 'longing, love, lost love".[16] He says that 'all the plays are effectively about theatre, about writing'.[1] Also that 'all the plays are about routines'.[1] Walsh has often suggested that what interests him is 'about me actually getting through the day, you know'.[1] He speaks of his experience, in London, of extreme OCD. He sees his characters as needing 'to proclaim and proclaim and proclaim ... and to what? You know, to what, construct rules and sort of mechanisms within their living room but to what end? Only to try to escape them again and probably build more and more routines and patterns and all that sort of thing'.[1] Walsh also states 'what motivates me in theatre has always been to get close to characters who're on the edge of madness, or have entered it. It invigorates me to think that we're all the same….'[17] Another statement Walsh made was 'I don't like seeing everyday life on stage: it's boring. I like my plays to exist in an abstract, expressionistic world: the audience has to learn its rules and then connect with these characters who are, on the surface dreadful monsters'.[2]
Chatroom (2005)– Behind The Scenes Theatre Company, Buckhaven Theatre, Fife. National Theatre, London. & etc.
The New Electric Ballroom (2005)– Munich Kammerspiele. Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh Festival. World Tour including New York, Los Angeles, Perth and London[18]
Sixty Six (2011)– one of 66 writers who contributed a contemporary response to each book of the King James Bible, Bush Theatre, London.
Once (2011)– Musical adaptation of the film Once, New York Theatre Workshop (Off-Broadway: December 2011 – January 2012) and Bernard B. Jacobs Theatre (Broadway: from March 2012).
Rooms (2016) combining the art installations 'Room 303', 'A Girl's Bedroom' and 'Kitchen', featuring the voices Niall Buggy, Charlie Murphy and Eileen Walsh, which premièred at the Galway Arts Festival last summer, followed by the Irish Arts Center, New York (May 2017).
The Same (2017) with Eileen and Catherine Walsh. Corcadorca Theatre Company. Premiered in February 2017 at Old Cork Prison.
The Second Violinist,(2017)– An opera with music by Donnacha Dennehy, featuring Aaron Monaghan, in the lead role, with singers Máire Flavin, Sharon Carty and Benedict Nelson, together with the Chorus of Irish National Opera, and Crash Ensemble. Landmark Productions and Irish National Opera. Premiered in July 2017 at the Galway International Arts Festival, followed by the Barbican Centre, London (September 2017) and the Dublin Theatre Festival (October 2017).[25]
Grief Is the Thing with Feathers (2018) - Enda Walsh adapted Max Porter's award-winning novel which premiered at the Black Box Theatre in Galway; In April 2019 the play was presented at the Barbican Theatre in London.
Disco Pigs (1996): George Devine Award and Stewart Parker Awards. Best Fringe Production Award 1996, Dublin Fringe Festival. Arts Council Playwrights Award 1996. Critic's Award 1997, Edinburgh Festival.
Once (2011): Winner of 3 Lucille Lortel Awards, including Outstanding Musical, with 4 additional nominations. Best Musical Award 2012, New York Drama Critics' Circle. Outstanding Broadway Musical, Outstanding Book and Director of Musical 2011, Outer Critics Circle Awards, with 4 additional nominations. Distinguished Production of a Musical 2012, Drama League Award, with 2 additional nominations. Winner of 4 Drama Desk Awards, including Outstanding Musical, with 2 additional nominations. Winner of 8 Tony Awards in 2012, including Best Musical and Best Book of a Musical, with 3 additional nominations. Best Musical Theater Album 2013, Grammy Award. Winner of 2 Laurence Olivier Awards in 2014, with 6 nominations including Best New Musical.
Ballyturk (2014): Best Production, Irish Times Theatre Awards. Best Production and Sound Design 2014, Irish Times Theatre Awards.
Caulfield, Mary P.; R., Walsh, Ian (2015). The theatre of Enda Walsh. Carysfort Press. p.75. ISBN9781909325777. OCLC932593851.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
