“The Bad Daters” is a deliciously dark comic exploration of the sometimes, impossible,
difficulties of love. Set in Dublin and unfolding over a series of dates, a misguided dating website brings Wendy and Liam together for a blind date neither wants.
"A winning blend of sharp Irish wit and disarming emotional honesty...
as affecting as it is entertaining—a love story that earns its
poignancy without sacrificing its bite."
— Deirdre Donovan, OffOffOnline
“A romantic comedy that has the good sense to distrust romance, and the better sense to proceed anyway… a work of surprising delicacy and cumulative emotional power.”
— Tony Marnelli, TheaterScene.net
★★★★★
“A delicate dual character study… excellent”
— Juan A. Ramirez, Brooklyn Rail
"Positively brilliant...This play is a unicorn."
— Nicole Jesson, Theatre Beyond Broadway
“Improbably funny, and decidedly dark “
— TandBontheAisle
Shows run Thursdays through Sunday, April, 23 - May 17
Tickets are available on Eventbrite.
About the Playwright
Derek Murphy was born and raised in Ballyfermot, Dublin. He moved to NY in his twenties.
His plays have been produced in Ireland, Scotland, Canada and New York. They include, The Bad Daters (Edinburgh Fringe Festival) and The Good Cheaters (Dublin’s Viking) Stand Up Man (Baby Grand Opera House. Belfast).
He’s had several plays produced in NY including, A Short Wake, Appendage, Dyin’ for It and Inside Danny’s Box. His other plays include The Burke Sisters, A very Irish Killing, both produced in Dublin’s famed Smock Alley Theatre.
During the Covid lockdown Derek wrote all 52 episodes of the wildly funny radio comedy/drama Dial M For Mammy, which was set in his
beloved Ballyfermot, and produced by Ballyfermot’s Basement Production, and filled with a plethora of local Dublin actors.
Much to the annoyance of his mother, Derek still spends as much time as he can in his family home in Ballyfermot.
LOVE YOU, BYE
By Cael Sullivan
Emma (Lola Blackman) and Lyla (Adeliade Lobenthal), a pair of estranged sisters from Virginia, are forced to reconnect in their hometown to make a decision about their dying mother. The sisters clash with contradicting lives and perceptions of their conservative mother, as they unearth past traumas and navigate a new one. A battle of martyrdom—Love You, Bye is about the politics of forgiveness. A meditation on how we metabolize our childhoods and handle differences of belief in modern America.
Love You, Bye marks the second play written by Cael Sullivan. Hailed as an exciting new voice in theater, Sullivan’s previous project, Boutonnière, had a sold-out run at The Brooklyn Center For Theater Research in June 2025. Tony-award winning actor John Benjamin Hickey praised the show as “a wise, funny, haunting play about the mysteries of the human heart.”
“Love You, Bye” is running from May 14-May 17 at the Paradise Factoryand tickets can be purchased here:
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/love-you-bye-tickets-1984490156479.