the most significant theatrical talents came from Ireland. Writers such as George Bernard Shaw and Oscar Wilde turned their sights and wits on England to make their fortunes. CHANGING STAGES introduces these Irish writers in exile, who took a sharp scalpel to society and influenced the work of dramatists for the rest of the century. Against the background of rising political tensions and revolution, the great Irish poet William Butler Yeats and Lady Augusta Gregory conceived a national theater for Ireland. At the Abbey, Yeats championed the work of two of the most important voices in Irish drama -- J.M. Synge and Sean O'Casey, who brought a new energy to the theater and a belief that plays could be about contemporary events and the reality of people's lives. Eyre travels from the rugged landscape of the Aran Islands to the streets of Dublin to tell the story of Irish writers, and we meet actors such as Stephen Rea and Liam Neeson, who have appeared in the works of these writers.