In 1903 a number of playwrights, actors and staff from several companies went on to form the Irish National Theatre Society, later to become the Abbey Theatre. It performed plays by W.B. Yeats (1865–1939), Lady Gregory (1852–1932), John Millington Synge (1871–1909), and Seán O'Casey (1880–1964). Equally importantly, through the introduction by Yeats, via Ezra Pound, of elements of the Noh theatre of Japan, a tendency to mythologise quotidian situations, and a particularly strong focus on writings in dialects of Hiberno-English, the Abbey was to create a style that held a strong fascination for future Irish dramatists.