make 2018

Ragnheiður Skúladóttir was born and raised in Reykjavík.  She finished her BA in theatre and multimedia at the University of Iowa in 1991 and her MFA at the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis in 1996. Following her studies she moved to New York City where she  lived and worked for four years. In 2000, following a 13 year stint in the U.S, she moved back to Reykjavík  after being offered the position of  Dean of Department of Theatre and Dance at then newly founded Iceland Academy of the Arts.

Ragnheiður worked at the Academy until 2011, initiating new programs in contemporary performance practices and contemporary dance. In 2008 she co-founded the LÓKAL International Theatre Festival, an annual event that presents new local and international work in the field of theatre and performance. She was artistic director of the Akureyri City Theatre from 2012 to 2015. She is currently the managing director of Iceland Dance Company.

Ragnheiður has years of experience as teacher and mentor (at IAA, University of Syracuse, Academy for Scenekunst in Fredrikstad, MAKE Ireland). She has also worked with various artists/groups as a producer and served as a critical friend (Kviss búmm bang, Dance for Me, Room 408, Shalala, Margrét Sara Guðjónsdóttir).

Since 2003, Maiko has been an Artistic Director of Theatre Replacement, a company she formed with fellow artist James Long. The company’s work has focused on building performances that react to contemporary existence through a highly evolved and extended process of collaboration, and explores unique and challenging ways of exploring content and staging material.

In addition to her work with TR, Maiko directs, writes, teaches and creates performance for a diverse range of companies and venues. She holds a BFA in Theatre from Simon Fraser University’s School for the Contemporary Arts and a MAA in Visual Arts from Emily Carr University of Art + Design.

An iconic feminist musician, producer, director, and performance artist, Peaches has spent nearly two decades pushing boundaries and wielding influence over mainstream pop culture from outside of its confines. She’s collaborated with everyone from Iggy Pop and Daft Punk to Kim Gordon and Major Lazer; had her music featured in cultural watermarks like Lost in Translation, The Handmaid’s Tale, and Broad City; and seen her work studied at universities around the world. Dubbed a “genuine heroine” by the New York Times, Peaches has released five critically acclaimed studio albums blending electronic music, hip-hop, and punk rock while tackling gender politics, sexual identity, ageism, and the patriarchy.

Uncut has raved that her work brought together “high art, low humour and deluxe filth [in] a hugely seductive combination,” while Rolling Stone called her “surreally funny [and] nasty.” Peaches has directed over twenty of her own videos, designed one of the most raw and creative stage shows in popular music, and has appeared at modern art’s most prestigious gatherings, from Art Basel Miami Beach to the Venice Biennale. She mounted a one-woman production of Jesus Christ Superstar—redubbed Peaches Christ Superstar—which earned international raves, composed and performed the electro-rock opera Peaches Does Herself, which premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival, and sang the title role in a production of Monteverdi’s epic seventeenth-century opera L’Orfeo in Berlin. It’s all documented beautifully in the book What Else Is in the Teaches of Peaches, a collection of Holger Talinski’s photos accompanied by text from Yoko Ono, Ellen Page, and Michael Stipe, among others. Her latest album,Rub, is her most audacious and unequivocal work to date, and she continues to tour behind it relentlessly, spreading joy and empowerment as she mixes the profane and the political in the singular way that only Peaches can.

www.facebook.com/officialpeaches

www.peachesrocks.com
www.youtube.com/PeachesTV

Shanna May Breen is an Offaly-born Dublin-based theatre maker who is invested in making devised theatre with groups of exciting people in interesting places. Previous works have seen her track Ireland’s obsession with alcohol while drinking a bottle of whiskey live on stage, climbing a glacier to develop a show about “journey” and creating a 45 minute soundtrack for her hometown that local audiences experienced on a moving bus. Shanna has been commissioned to make work on bridges, mountains, graveyards and stages all over the world including Iceland, America, Croatia and Ireland.

Shanna completed her MA in Advanced Theatre Practice at The Royal Central School of Speech & Drama in 2014 and her BA in Devised Theatre at Dartington College of Art in 2010. Throughout Shanna’s academic research she mainly examined the notion of the ‘Uncanny’ in live contemporary performance.

Shaun Dunne is a Dublin-based theatre-artist who merges testimony and documentary material with new writing. He works primarily with Talking Shop Ensemble and their work to date includes the multi-award winning Death of the Tradesmen and Advocacy. Other recent work includes RAPIDS at Dublin Theatre Festival, 2017 and The Waste Ground Party at The Abbey Theatre. Shaun is currently Artist in Residence at The Ark, Dublin where he works with responsibility to the Children’s Council. In 2018, Shaun will create an inter-generational film project in Ringsend while also presenting Everybody Sings at Bealtaine.

Una Mullally is a writer from Dublin. She is a journalist with The Irish Times, and her writing has also appeared in The Guardian and Granta. She is the author of In The Name Of Love (The History Press, 2014), an oral history of the movement for marriage equality in Ireland, and editor of the upcoming anthology Repeal The 8th (Unbound, 2018). Her first feature film, Get The Boat, co-written with Sarah Francis, is currently being developed with the support of the Irish Film Board.

She co-founded the touring spoken word event Come Rhyme With Me with Vickey Curtis in 2012. She has performed her poetry at the Dublin Fringe Festival, Electric Picnic, Body & Soul, First Fortnight, Project Arts Centre, the Olympia Theatre, Kilkenny Arts Festival, Dublin Pride, GAZE, Outhouse, Outburst Belfast, and elsewhere. She is currently developing a long-form poem, ‘Alone Together’, and writing her third book. Website: unamullally.com

The Irish composer Ailís Ní Ríain aims to produce work that challenges, provokes and engages. She is a classical composer, pianist and writer and a regular collaborator with artists in other art-forms including visual art, theatre and literature. Her artistic interests are diverse and include music-theatre, chamber music, installation and short opera. Her music has been performed throughout Europe and in the USA and on BBC Radio 3 and RTE.

In 2016 she was awarded the prestigious 50K Paul Hamlyn Award for Composers in addition to being selected as an Associate Artist at the Atlantic Center for the Arts in Florida. In 2017 she was awarded a residency at The Irish Cultural Centre in Paris, a Fellowship at ArtOMI in upstate New York and had new works premiered in Serbia, Ireland, UK, Greece and France. Her plays are published by Bloomsbury and have been produced in Germany, Ireland, Sweden and the UK. www.ailis.info

Melanie Jame Wolf is an Australian born artist who lives and works between Melbourne and Berlin. She makes work about economies. Sometimes solo, sometimes with friends.

Melanie Jame’s expanded practice incorporates text, choreography, video, sound, and performance. She is primarily interested in ideas and questions of persona and staging. The form of her work occurs with increasing fluidity at points where live performing bodies and video intersect.

Melanie Jame has shown work in a wide range of gallery, theatre, and film festival contexts including: Hebbel am Ufer – HAU; Kiasma Museum of Contemporary Art, Helsinki; NgBk Berlin; Festival of Live Art Melbourne; VAEFF Film Festival, NYC; Arts Santa Monica, Barcelona; Schwulesmuseum, Berlin; & Sophiensaele, Berlin.
Between 2010 – 2015, Melanie Jame was a member of Triage Live Art Collective. With Triage she made, performed in, and toured multiple socially engaged and participatory Live Art works including the Green Room Award nominated An Appointment With J Dark.

She has worked as a performer with numerous collaborators on a variety of theatrical and installation based projects including: Sister’s Hope, Damian Rebgetz, Sam Smith, Andreas Liebmann, & Jason Danino Holt; and as a costume designer and art director for choreographers such as Martin Hansen and Ania Nowak.

Sadhbh Barrett Coakley is a producer, actor and stage manager from Kerry. She holds a BA in Theatre and Drama Studies from CIT Cork School of Music where she studied performance and production studies including stage management and producing. She completed the Smock Alley Creative Producers GENERATOR training programme 2016/2017.

Her stage managing credits include; How It Is (Gare St Lazare Ireland, Everyman Cork), My Real Life (Ed Fringe 17, Irish Tour, 2016/2017), Eggsistentialism (Ed Fringe 2017), What Good Is Looking Well When You’re Rotten On The Inside (Dublin Fringe 2017, Galway Theatre Festival 2017), Noël (National Opera House, 2016) & Animal Farm (Donal Gallagher, CIT Cork School of Music, 2016).

Sadhbh is co-artistic director of ALSA Productions. ALSA Productions are a Cork based company who collaborate with artists from a variety of disciplines and art forms. ALSA’s work is inspired by people and stories, paying particular attention to identifying the energy that informs the stories we tell. ALSA are currently Theatre Graduates-In-Residence in CIT Cork School of Music and are also under the mentorship of Gare St. Lazare Ireland in association with The Everyman, Cork. They have presented work at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, Cork Midsummer Festival, Limerick Fringe & Clonmel Junction Festival.

Al Dalton is a freelance director, performer and production manager. He holds a first class honours degree in Theatre and Drama studies from CIT Cork School of Music.

Previous production and direction credits include works with; Cork Opera House, Graffiti Theatre Company, CIT Cork School of Music, Cork Midsummer Festival, Conflicted Theatre Co., Corcadorca Theatre Company, Farna Theatre Company, CIT Musical Society, Strive Theatre and the Urdang Academy of Musical Theatre (London). In 2018, he will be production managing both Bombinate Theatre’s (Dublin) nationwide tour of their award-winning play Half Light and Lantern Productions’ Erin Connolly and The Children of Lir at The Everyman Cork. Al has also participated on the Fishamble The New Play Company Directing Mentorship Programme in association with Belltable:Connect, facilitated by Jim Culleton, Gavin Kostick & Marketa Dowling (2016-2017).

Al is co-artistic director of ALSA Productions. ALSA Productions are a Cork based company who collaborate with artists from a variety of disciplines and art forms. ALSA’s work is inspired by people and stories, paying particular attention to identifying the energy that informs the stories we tell. ALSA are currently Theatre Graduates-In-Residence in CIT Cork School of Music and are also under the mentorship of Gare St. Lazare Ireland in association with The Everyman, Cork. They have presented work at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, Cork Midsummer Festival, Limerick Fringe & Clonmel Junction Festival.

Zoe is an independent theatre writer-director and musician from Dublin. To date, she has made three original pieces of theatre; The Well Rested Terrorist, Recovery, and a work-in-progress called Everything I Do (working title). Zoe is interested in exploring how music functions in theatre, and the spiritual crisis of connection that is breaking her heart.

Zoe received the Pan Pan International Mentorship Bursary 2018 to develop a new Irish language play, Éist Liom. She is a member of contemporary alt-pop band, Maud in Cahoots, founded in NYC in 2009 with her long-term collaborator Maud Lee.

Website: http://www.zoeniriordainworks.com
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/maudincahoots

Karen Cogan trained as an actor at RADA. Since graduating, she has performed at the Old Vic, Southwark Playhouse and the Gielgud Theatre and on film for Michael Winterbottom, and Pinewood Studios.
Karen’s second play Drip Feed was shortlisted for the Verity Bargate Award. She reached the top 6 of 1,200 submissions. Drip Feed is in development with the Soho Theatre and will have full production in 2018.
She is Playwright In Residence at MOMMO Theatre and her play The Half Of It played a found space as part of the Dublin Fringe Festival 2017. The Half Of It was nominated for 5 Fringe Awards and won the First Fortnight Award for challenging mental health stigma through the arts.
Karen is shortlisted as a Hospital Club Emerging Creative 2018.

Karen is RADA’s submission for the Adopt A Playwright Award 2018, hosted by OffWestEnd Plays and Playwrights. Karen is represented by Ikenna Obiekwe at Independent Talent.

Ursula McGinn is a theatre-maker working as a director, designer and stage manager. Her recent directing credits include Luna (Galway Theatre Festival, May 2018), To be a Bird (Teachers Club, March 2018), The Infanta Project (Dlight Studios, January 2018) and Nothing (Samuel Beckett Theatre, 2016). Her devising and development credits include Half Light, Efficacy 84 (Dublin Fringe Festival, 2017) and Briseis After the Black (Tiger Dublin Fringe, 2016). Design credits include Peep (Bewley’s Cafe Theatre, 2018), Half Light (Dublin Fringe 2016, First Fortnight 2017, Irish National Tour 2018), King Lear (Gaiety School of Acting, 2017) and Sunny Dayz (Samuel Beckett Theatre 2017). Ursula is an aluma of Dublin Youth Theatre.

She holds a BA in Drama and Theatre Studies from Trinity College.

Ursula is a co-founder of Bombinate Theatre, an award-winning collective of emerging theatre makers, creating work for families and young audiences. Bombinate Theatre are currently artists in residence at Dlight Studios.

Mollie is a director and theatre maker based in Dublin. She directed Half Light (Dublin Fringe 2016, First Fortnight 2017, National Tour 2018), devised by Bombinate Theatre and the Ensemble. Half Light was winner of the First Fortnight Award at Dublin Fringe 2016 and is published in Fresh Cuts: Plays from Dublin Fringe Festival 2015 & 2016 (Oberon Books). Assistant Directing credits include Peep (Dir: Gavin Kostick, Bewley’s Cafe Theatre, 2018). Mollie is a graduate of Drama at TCD and a trained Drama Facilitator with Youth Theatre Ireland.

Mollie is the founding director of Bombinate Theatre, an award-winning collective of emerging theatre makers, creating work for families and young audiences. ‘​Bombinate’ means to make a humming or a buzzing sound. We encourage children to make noise, to ask big questions and to stay on their own buzz. We endeavour to inspire children to engage with the arts in all its forms.

Stephen Quinn is a theatre and performance maker, a based in Dublin, whose work incorporates a broad range of contemporary issues; notably gender; sexuality; identity politics etc., and is characterised by rigorous, aesthetic artistry and a passionate interrogation of the status quo. Recent credits include STO Union’s Trophy at Dublin Fringe (2017), directed by Oonagh Murphy and Maeve Stone, Zoe Ni Riordan’s Recovery at Project Arts Centre, Dublin and the Centre Culturel Irlandais, Paris (2016/17); and Brokentalkers/Junk Ensemble’s It Folds at the Abbey Theatre, Peacock stage (2015). Stephen is also the co-creative director/host of the regular, ad-hoc queer variety show SPICEBAG and, as stage alter ego Stefan Fae, has performed in various contexts, including a self-authored, solo show Cabaret Mattachine at Tiger Dublin Fringe (2014).

Lady K is a musician, cabaret performer, and stand up comedian. She is a co-founder and producer of alt-cabaret night Undercurrent and is a regular performer on the alt-cabaret scene (Spicebag, Bon Bon Room, Glitter Hole). She has worked with a wide variety of singers over the years and put together shows for Dublin Fringe Festival and Dublin Gay Theatre Festival. Other performance credits include: Pride In London Arts Festival, Queertopia in Belfast, Bella Agogo’s Day Of The Dead and Steampunk shows in the Sugar Club, and the Irish Blog Awards.

SillySeason is a collective of young artists, founded in 2012. Having theatre as a starting point, the collective has developed a line of work that encourages dialogue between different artistic languages. Therefore, we have been establishing, for the last years, collaborations with artists from different fields, from visual arts to music.

The collective refuses the logocentric tradition of the artistic creation, that is, the classic idea that the text is the main engine of the theatrical show. It is, therefore, imperative to state that the main forces of SillySeason’s shows are the sound, light, video, text, photography, movement, among others. All these elements become contaminated by each other in order to create a dramaturgy that goes through several dialectics and transposes several interpretive layers. Along with the principle of collective creation, SillySeason advocates the democratization of the various scenic and poetic materials.