Independent Artist Working Group Announcement

Al Bellamy is a theatre director from Wexford. Their directing credits across film and theatre include: The Merrow (Project Arts Centre, Short Cuts Award, 2022), Yellow (Draíocht Arts Centre, Granary Theatre, Neuroconvergence, National Festival of Youth Theatres, Bounce Disability Arts Festival) from November 2022 to July 2025, and Close All Tabs (Smock Alley Boys School, Scene + Heard Festival 2024). They developed and directed a groundbreaking new piece of theatre, Home Sweet Home, with Jody O’Neill and Suisha Inclusive Arts which premiered in the Granary Theatre in Cork Midsummer Festival 2024 and funded by their Arts Council Arts Participation Project Award. In 2022, they were funded by the Arts Council Agility Award for Mythics, creating a space for neurodivergent people to explore reworkings of Irish Folklore and Mythology. In 2023, they received the Arts Council Theatre Bursary to develop a holistic methodology for disability-inclusive practice. They have given workshops on Creatively Embedded Access in the Eduard Smilgis Theatre, Riga, for Disrupt Disability Arts Festival, Lasta Festival and Dublin Fringe Festival.

Eoghan Carrick is an artist based in Dublin, Ireland. He works primarily as a director in theatre.

Recent directing credits: KONSTANTIN (COBA: Cian O’Brien Arts+Once Off Productions/Dublin Theatre Festival, 2025), Theatre for One (Landmark Productions/Cork Midsummer Festival, 2019-25), The Misanthrope (The Lir, 2025), Guest Host Stranger Ghost (Once Off Productions/Dublin Theatre Festival, 2024), Haus of Fash Hun (FemmeBizarre/Dublin Fringe Festival, 2023), Songs from the Soil (The Ark Theatre, 2023), Good. Orderly. Direction. (Bitter Like a Lemon/Dublin Theatre Festival, 2022), Rescue Annie (Once Off Productions/Dublin Fringe Festival, 2021), Bodies of Water (Corn Exchange/Dublin Fringe Festival, 2019), INFINITY (Mermaid Arts Centre/Dublin Fringe Festival, 2018), Nora (Corn Exchange/Dublin Theatre Festival, 2017).

He was on the NCFA Steering Committee (2016-2022) and Chair of Praxis Artist Union of Ireland (2023-2025). He is an Adjunct Teaching Fellow in TCD’s School of Creative Arts and the Rough Magic Fellow in TCD’s Long Room Hub. Visit: www.eoghancarrick.com

Sinéad Cormack is a Carlow-based theatre maker, performer, designer and stage manager.
She played the part of Mum/Puppeteer in Pegasus the Clothes Horse by Alison Martin at the National Opera House 2024.

Sinéad has created works including The Shed at the Carlow Arts Festival 2022; An Murúch (a work in progress) at the George Bernard Shaw Theatre as part of the Carlow Arts Festival 2019; One in association with Carlow Arts Festival 2015; In/side the Box which premiered at the Carlow Arts Festival 2012 and went on to tour in Ireland and Canada; RUN FOR YOUR LIFE premiered in Aberystwyth Wales 2011 and went to tour Canada.

Stage Management work includes Teac Damsa’s Swan Lake (2016) and MÁM (2019); United Falls’ Birdboy (National & International tours) and Night Dances (National & International tours); and What We Hold by Jean Butler/Lovano at Dublin Theatre Festival 2022.

Tom Creed is a theatre and opera director, festival director and independent producer, originally from Cork and now based in Dublin. He has been Festival Director of Cork Midsummer Festival, Theatre and Dance Curator of Kilkenny Arts Festival and Associate Director of Rough Magic.

He a member of the Expert Advisory Committee of Culture Ireland and a board member of GAZE LGBTQIA Film Festival, and was previously on the steering committee of the National Campaign for the Arts, as well as the boards of Macnas and Dublin Fringe Festival.

As a director he has worked with the Abbey Theatre, Gate Theatre, Irish National Opera, Thisispopbaby, Rough Magic, his own company Playgroup, and many other Irish companies and performers. His work has been seen all the major Irish theatres and festivals as well as prestigious international venues and festivals including the Paris Opera, the Barbican in London, the Edinburgh, Perth and Melbourne International Festivals, and BAM, the Public Theatre and Irish Arts Center in New York.

Anderson de Souza is a Brazilian-born, Dublin-based performer, choreographer, and emerging producer with over twenty years of experience in dance theatre, contemporary performance, and interdisciplinary collaboration. Trained in Ballet, Contemporary Dance, Musical Jazz, and Modern Dance, he has worked extensively in Ireland and abroad, contributing to a wide range of stage and collaborative projects across the performing arts. His artistic practice is rooted in movement research, accessibility, and cross-cultural exchange, engaging audiences of all ages and abilities. Anderson holds an MFA in Theatre Producing from The Lir Academy, where he completed a professional internship with Rough Magic Theatre Company. As an emerging producer, he is dedicated to developing and producing theatre, dance, and multidisciplinary works that explore human connection, identity, and the expressive potential of the body within contemporary performance.

Originally from Sicily, Valentina is a costume designer and costume maker located in Ireland. She works across theatre, opera, dance, circus and with musicians.
Valentina is a Lecturer of Costume and Makeup Design at the Munster University of Technology. She is a committee member of the Irish Society of Performance Designers and a member of the board of directors of the Cork Theatre Collective.
Costume designer credits include: The Beacon (The Everyman Theatre), The Second Woman (Cork Midsummer), Shades Through a Shade (Gare St. Lazare), Grace (Dublin Theatre Festival), A Summer I Robbed the Bank (The Everyman), Home Sweet Home (Suisha Arts), The Weight (Centre Cultural Irlandais), The Magic Flute (Cork Opera House), Twelfth Night (Shakespeare Squared), The Glass Menagerie (Everyman Theatre), Contact (Corcadorca), The Small Things (Corcadorca), How it is (Gare St.Lazare).

Valentina holds a First-Class Honours MA in Media Studies from Palermo University.

Calvin is a theatre director, youth theatre practitioner, and socially engaged artist from Dundalk, Co. Louth. He is interested in how theatre can create change in communities and in people’s lives. He is the Theatre-Maker in Residence at An Táin Arts Centre, Community Liaison Officer at M.A.D Youth Theatre, and Youth Theatre Coordinator at Nenagh Arts Centre. Calvin also works as a facilitator with Run of the Mill as part of their Friday Ensemble in Maynooth University, and is currently leading Barnstorm Theatre Company’s See, Play, Create programme, a creative learning programme seeking to address the gap in youth theatre opportunities for young people with disabilities. Calvin is passionate about developing inclusive and integrated approaches to theatre-making that empower all participants to create and share their stories. Calvin serves on the Board of Directors of Youth Theatre Ireland.

Conan McIvor is a Director and Undisciplinary artist who tells stories across and in-between Cinema, Theatre, and Visual Art. Conan studied Interactive Multimedia Design at University of Ulster before receiving an MA in Film and Visual Studies from Queen’s University Belfast. In 2022, Conan was nominated for Best Video Design at The Irish Times Irish Theatre Awards, received the VAI Experience Award with Vivienne Dick, and received an Arts Council Bursary to expand his practice as a Theatre Director. From 2007-2025, Conan was the Video Designer on 57 productions across Theatre, Opera, Dance, and Music. Work in development with writer Michael J. Daly includes the VR Theatre Experience “Sick of Myself” and Contemporary Opera “De Profundis”, both supported by The Arts Council. Conan is currently an M.F.A. Theatre Directing student at The Lir, National Academy of Dramatic Art at Trinity College Dublin.

Dafe Pessu Orugbo is an award-winning multidisciplinary artist making a significant impact in Irish theatre. Selected as a lead artist for the 2022 Dublin Fringe, he created Filmore! an acclaimed work that earned him the prestigious George Fitzmaurice Award. In 2024, he continued to expand his theatrical practice by writing and starring in Monaco, a short play developed as part of Draíocht’s NEST. Dafe is a former Six in the Attic artist with the Irish Theatre Institute (2023/2024), a programme supporting emerging theatre talent in Ireland.

Additionally, Dafe has gained international recognition as part of the hip-hop duo Tebi Rex, with whom he has toured Ireland, the UK, and Europe. He is particularly interested in art that centres on the audience’s experience.

His music has been featured on projects such as the award-winning Normal People, Kin and national ads for the likes of Dubliner Whiskey and Eir. He writes on topics ranging from modern-day Ireland to Greek mythology and is an experienced public speaker, live performer, writer, spoken word artist and theatre maker. He holds an MA in Critical & Creative Media that saw him create a groundbreaking documentary on Irish subcultures and has since become a leading cultural commentator and a respected mentor to young people.

Hilary Woods is an Irish artist working across music composition, performance, video, recording, writing, and analogue filmmaking. She draws on diy experimental and improvisational practices. She has released records on Sacred Bones Records and Boomkat Editions. Her rare live performances have been supported by Culture Ireland since 2018. Past live shows include Pioneer Works at Public Records New York, Cafe OTO London and Le Guess Who? in The Netherlands. She is the recipient of the Arts Council of Ireland Film Project Award (2023), Music Project Award (2024), and Theatre Project Award (2018). She was awarded Dublin Fringe Festival’s “Next Stage Wild Card Award” in 2017.