Venue: Lyric Theatre
Address: 55 Ridgeway Street, Belfast, County Antrim, BT9 5FB, Northern Ireland
Town: Belfast, GB

The Lyric Theatre, or simply The Lyric, is the principal, full-time producing theatre in Belfast, Northern Ireland. In January 2023 it won The Stage's Theatre of the Year award in recognition of "its programme...as well as for its online festival of skills development sessions... and the their work to attract under-represented audiences through LGBT+ productions, as well as for their extensive education and outreach programme." The theatre's current Executive Producer is Jimmy Fay, previously the founder and Artistic Director of Bedrock Productions. The theatre was first established as The Lyric Players in 1951 at the home of its founders Mary O'Malley and her husband Pearse in Derryvolgie Avenue, off the Malone Road, and moved to its new site on Ridgeway Street in 1968, between the Stranmillis Road and Stranmillis Embankment. The poet Austin Clarke laid the foundation stone in 1965 - a deliberate choice by O'Malley to build a link back to her artistic hero W. B. Yeats. In 1974 the theatre staged Andrew Lloyd Webber's Jesus Christ Superstar, leading to protests. In 1976 Liam Neeson appeared in Brian Friel's Philadelphia Here I Come!. Neeson's association with the Lyric has continued since, and he is currently the theatre's patron. Several of Friel's plays have been staged at the theatre, including Dancing at Lughnasa in 1996 and 2015. A number of Marie Jones plays have been staged there including A Very Weird Manor. Charles Nowosielski was Artistic Director of the theatre from 1991 to 1993. He directed the Lyric Players in productions of Daphne Du Maurier's Rebecca, with Orla Brady in the title role, in January/February 1992, George Bernard Shaw's Arms and the Man in October 1992 and Willy Russell's Stags and Hens in October 1993. In 2004 the theatre announced a fundraising campaign to redevelop the theatre on its existing site. In June 2007 a £1m donation by Northern Irish businessman Dr Martin Naughton kickstarted the development. Naughton's donation was the large