A body pulled from a bog sets off a reckoning for one Northern Ireland family in Jez Butterworth’s “The Ferryman,” and Ensemble Theatre is giving the Tony-winning drama its regional premiere this month. The production, which follows former IRA man Quinn Carney as old loyalties resurface around him, runs through Oct. 18, 2026.
According to Ensemble Theatre, the play is set in Northern Ireland in 1981 and centers on Carney, a former IRA member who has built a new life only to see it upended when a relative’s body surfaces. The script won the 2019 Tony Award for Best Play, a distinction the theater highlights in its season materials. Ticket listings on SimpleTix bill the staging as a regional premiere, while coverage from BroadwayWorld confirms the Oct. 2 through Oct. 18 run dates and credits the script to Butterworth.
Director duties fall to Ian Wolfgang Hinz and Rebecca Moseley, per the same BroadwayWorld listing. Anyone expecting a quiet drawing-room drama should note the production’s livestock: a live rabbit, a live goose and a gunshot effect are all part of the staging, SimpleTix notes, alongside content warnings for strong language, themes and staged violence.
Where Exactly Is the Show?
There’s a wrinkle in pinning down the venue. Ensemble Theatre’s own season page states that all of its shows perform in the former Coventry Elementary School at 2843 Washington Blvd. in Cleveland Heights, and the theater also notes that its facilities are ADA accessible. But a separate announcement from John Carroll University describes Ensemble Theatre as currently presenting its productions in the university’s Marinello Little Theatre on its University Heights campus. The two sources conflict, and nothing in the available record resolves which location hosts this particular run of “The Ferryman.”
As Cleveland.com first reported the staging under the Northeast Ohio premiere banner, Ensemble Theatre’s broader slate for the season includes a world premiere, two Cleveland premieres and a revival, the outlet’s theater listing notes.
A Full Season Ahead
“The Ferryman” is just one piece of a packed Ensemble Theatre calendar. The season also includes “She Walks in Beauty” and “The Reclamation of Madison Hemings,” both named on the theater’s season page. BroadwayWorld’s listing fills in the scheduling details: “The Burial at Thebes” runs Feb. 5 through Feb. 21, 2027, while “The Reclamation of Madison Hemings” follows from May 28 through June 13, 2027.
From London’s Royal Court to Cleveland
Butterworth’s drama has traveled a long road to reach Northeast Ohio stages. Per the Tony Awards, the play had its world premiere at London’s Royal Court Theatre in spring 2017 before transferring to the West End and eventually Broadway, where it was set in rural Derry in 1981 and built around the Carney family’s harvest preparations disrupted by an unexpected visitor. The original Broadway run, staged at the Bernard B. Jacobs Theatre, clocked in at 3 hours and 15 minutes including a 15-minute intermission and a brief three-minute pause, according to Playbill. That production’s company included 21 adult actors, an infant, and the same live goose and rabbit combination now appearing in Ensemble Theatre’s staging, the Tony Awards’ profile of the show notes.
The play’s roots run deeper than theatrical spectacle. The Tony Awards’ account states that Butterworth’s script draws in part on the real disappearance and killing of Eugene Simons, who vanished on New Year’s Day 1981 after being murdered by the Irish Republican Army — a piece of history embedded in the fictional Carney family’s unraveling.
