South King StThe Gaiety Theatre is a theatre on South King Street in Dublin, Ireland, off Grafton Street and close to St. Stephen's Green. It specialises in operatic and musical productions, with occasional dramatic shows.
Performers and playwrights associated with the theatre have been celebrated with hand-prints cast in bronze and set in the pavement beneath the theatre canopy. These handprints include those of Luciano Pavarotti, Brendan Grace, Maureen Potter, Twink, John B Keane, Anna Manahan, Niall Toibin and Brian Friel. The theatre played host to the 1971 Eurovision Song Contest, the first to be staged in Ireland, during the Gaiety's centenary year. Clodagh Rodgers (a contestant in that particular contest) later presented her RTÉ TV series The Clodagh Rodgers Show from the theatre in the late 1970s. The Gaiety is known for its annual Christmas pantomime and has hosted a pantomime every year since 1874, though no production was possible in 2020 due to the COVID-19 crisis, with the scheduled panto, The Little Mermaid postponed until 2021. Actor and director Alan Stanford directed both Gaiety productions of Snow White and Sleeping Beauty. Irish entertainer June Rodgers starred in the Gaiety pantomime for years, until she began to headline the equally established Olympia Theatre panto. The Gaiety's pantomimes have included Irish performers that appeal to homegrown audiences, including a number of Fair City actors.