From A Dorchester Triple Decker to Today, Local Play Celebrates Irish Culture Through Family

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Local audiences will have the opportunity to travel back in time for a uniquely Irish experience – life in Dorchester, 1965. The Irish Cultural Centre, working with True Rep Theatre, presents Ellen’s Boys, by Braintree, MA playwright Jim Sullivan.

Tickets are $25 general admission, $20 ICC members, $30 at the door.

Ellen’s Boys focuses on the Flaherty family, living in their Dorchester triple decker, in 1965. Ellen, a widow who has raised six children on her own, must learn to accept the changing times and her aging children’s embrace of the future. Her middle son, Gil, now in his thirties, still lives at home and struggles to come to terms with his sexuality, in the face of his staunch Irish Catholic upbringing, as his mother attempts to marry him off. We follow the Flaherty family through a tumultuous year of upheaval in which no secrets are safe, no boundaries are respected, and only their love for one another, and their sense of humor, can save them.

“True Rep strives to provide an opportunity for local playwrights to be heard. We are thrilled to be working with the Irish Cultural Centre to bring Ellen’s Boys to a wider audience,” says Artistic Director Donald Sheehan, who plays Gil in the True Rep production.

Adds Victoria Bond, who plays Ellen, “Anyone with Irish relations or friends will recognize this family. They act out of love and are beautifully imperfect and impossibly strong.”

Paul Noonan, artistic advisor at True Rep, who plays the eldest son, John, adds, "Audiences can’t help but root for the Flaherty family – just as we are rooting for this play."

The playwright, Jim Sullivan, who has been writing plays for 30 years, says, “I am humbled by the work True Rep is putting into my play, and thrilled by the level of talent they bring to this production. Having Ellen’s Boys play at the Irish Cultural Centre is a thrill and an honor.”

For more information on the Irish Cultural Centre and to purchase tickets, please visit https://www.irishculture.org/whats-on/events. For more information on True Rep Theatre and to purchase tickets please visit https://www.truereptheatre.com