How do you have sex on stage? How do you even have sex?

To try and find an answer, each night, two brand new performers tell a story of desire, betrayal and loneliness. They have never rehearsed together or read the script. They are strangers.

But they are not alone — to help and guide them they are joined on stage by an Intimacy Director, trained in the art of teaching people how to touch. So you can rest assured that the sex is safe. It is consensual. And it is good.

After two years when touching was a transgressive act, and our bodies were sites of sickness, Dead Centre and award-winning novelist and essayist Emilie Pine created Good Sex, a love story for a loveless age.

GOOD SEX premiered 29th September 2022 at Samuel Beckett Centre, as part of Dublin Theatre Festival.

GOOD SEX toured to Noorderzon Festival of Performing Arts & Society, Groningen and Kampnagel International Summer Festival, Hamburg in August 2023, kindly supported by Culture Ireland.

For all touring info, please contact info@deadcentre.org

“Raw, unsettling, seductive, provocative and very, very funny… turns the recent Covid past into an urgent interrogation of both our bodies and the nature of theatrical illusion.”
★★★★★
Irish Times

“Puts performance and physical proximity under the spotlight… Playing with expectations of reality and theatrical illusion, this feels dangerously live, unfolding with cleverly inventive wit.”
★★★★
The Guardian

“Beguiling, chaotic, hilarious and profound. A production that says little definitive, but invites contemplation about much: art, live experience, relationships, consent… a brilliant, vital piece of theatre.”
★★★★★
Irish Examiner

Featuring
LIV O’DONOGHUE, ALEXANDRA CONLON, BARRY MCKIERNAN

Cast for 2022 Dublin run
MUIRIS CROWLEY & NIAMH MCCANN
AOIBHEANN MCANN & RORY NOLAN
PATRICK MARTINS & TONI O’ROURKE
JEANNE NICOLE NÍ ÁINLE & DANIELLE GALLIGAN
JOLLY ABRAHAM & IAN TONER
CHRIS WALLEY & SIOBHÁN CULLEN

Onstage Crew CIARAN MURPHY, EMMA-KATE O’REILLY

Stage Design AEDÍN COSGROVE
Lighting Design STEPHEN DODD
Sound Design & Music JENNY O'MALLEY
Costume Design MAE LEAHY

Intimacy Directors SUE MYTHEN AND ABIGAIL KESSEL

Sound Engineer LEON HENRY
Wardrobe Assistant EIMEAR HUSSEY
Fight Director CIARAN O’GRADY
Production Manager ANTHONY HANLEY
Stage Manager OLIVIA DRENNAN
Assistant Stage Manager ANIKA KIDD
Assistant Director EFTYCHIA SPYRIDAKI
Props DYLAN FARRELL

With thanks to SIMON ALTEEN, KIA GATES, CHLOE O'REILLY, BEN WADDELL, MACLEOD STEPHEN, MOLLY WHELAN, LIAM BIXBY, HAZEL CLIFFORD, HOLLY HANNAWAY, ADAM RICHARDSON, MAEVE BRADLEY and CATHAL RYAN

Text DEAD CENTRE with EMILIE PINE
Dramaturg BUSH MOUKARZEL
Producer NATALIE HANS
Associate Producer KILLIAN COYLE
Company Producer MAGS KEOHANE
Director BEN KIDD

IMAGES by Ste Murray