Alice Sutter, age 16, of Burlington, Vt., for her question:

WHERE IS THE ABBEY THEATRE?

Abbey Theatre is a famous repertory theater company and the auditorium in which it performs. It is located in Dublin, Ireland, and was originally established to present native plays about native subjects. The company later expanded its repertoire to include classical drama, including those of William Shakespeare, and contemporary works.

The Abbey Theatre is a product of the Irish cultural revival that started late in the 19th Century. It was initiated largely by the Irish poet and dramatist William Butler Yeats.

In 1899 Yeats helped to establish the Irish Literary Theatre, reorganized in 1902 as the Irish National Theatre Society. This group established in 1904 a repertory company that became known as the Abbey Theatre, which, since 1924, has received an annual government subsidy.

The new group introduced realistic and poetic elements into the Irish theater and soon gained a popular following. Yeats died in 1939 and the auditorium was severely damaged by fire in 1951. The company moved temporarily to the Queens Theater. Then in 1966 the completely new, 628 seat Abbey Theater was opened on the site of its predecessor.