Geesala in north Mayo, the three Aran islands and Dún Chaoin in the Kerry Gaeltacht are among the first locations identified by Galway's Druid Theatre Company for an "ambitious celebration" of the work of playwright John Millington Synge.
Rehearsals began in Druid's Chapel Lane premises yesterday for Synge's classic The Playboy of the Western World, originally set in Geesala.
This has been chosen as the first of six dramas to be staged by the international award-winning company, from February 10th of this year.
The entire Synge repertoire will then be staged as the project draws to a close in 2005, just four years before the centenary of the writer's death.
Born in Rathfarnham, Dublin, in 1871, J.M. Synge decided to live for three summers on the Aran islands on the advice of W.B. Yeats. He began a book - The Aran Islands - and his first two plays, based on stories he had heard there, and encountered hostility at home and acclaim among British critics.
The Playboy of the Western World caused a riot in the Abbey Theatre on its first production in 1907.
Internationally known Irish actor Cillian Murphy - best known for his films Intermission and Disco Pigs - and Anne-Marie Duff - who starred in The Magdalen Sisters, Amongst Women and the new Channel 4 television series, Shameless - are among the "exciting and dynamic" cast for The Playboy. Murphy will play Christy Mahon, while Duff has been cast as Pegeen Mike.
Druid's director, Ms Garry Hynes's "roll call" of Irish acting talent also includes Sonya Kelly, Simone Kirby, Gary Lydon, Gillian McCarthy, Eamon Morrissey, Chris O'Dowd, Frank O'Sullivan, Aisling O'Sullivan and David Pearse.
The Playboy was Druid's first production when the company started out in Galway in 1975. It was regarded by most of the NUI Galway students involved as the "school play" until they were midway through rehearsals, Garry Hynes explained yesterday.
When the production team and cast realised "how marvellous" it was, they made a commitment to "do it again" and "get it right", if the company continued, she recalled.
Druid staged The Playboy again - in 1977 and 1982 - and the latter production toured the world, Ms Hynes said.
Synge had a "unique vision", and it was always a "dream" held by the company to stage his entire body of work.
The mayor of Galway, Cllr Terry O'Flaherty, attended yesterday's rehearsal opening, and described it as "the start of a very exciting journey for Druid, for Irish theatre and for Galway".
The Playboy of the Western World will open in the Town Hall Theatre, Galway, on February 10th, and will run for two weeks before transferring to the Gaiety Theatre in Dublin from February 23rd.