Brian Friel’s plays to be brought home to cross-border Irish terroir that inspired them

Brian Friel sitting in the Gaiety Theatre, Dublin, during rehearsals for Philadelphia Here I Come! Photograph: Julien Behal/PA

Plays by the acclaimed Irish dramatist Brian Friel, who has been referred to as an “Irish Chekhov”, have been performed in London, Dublin, on Broadway and elsewhere.

Now an ambitious five-year project is bringing the works home to “the terroir, the communities and the landscapes” that inspired them, culminating in all 29 running across County Donegal, County Derry and County Tyrone – places that Friel lived – during the centenary of his 1929 birth.