The Limerick Gathering | Tuesday Programme

Julie is a Theatre Director and Producer. She holds a BA and an MA in Drama & Theatre Studies from UCC and was the 2022/23 Jerome Hynes Clore Leadership Fellow. Current projects include the redevelopment of Evening Train, a musical by Mick Flannery.

Directing credits include: Found by Aideen Wylde (BrokenCrow/Cork Midsummer Festival), The Lonesome West by Martin McDonagh (The Everyman), Bluetooth by Rachel Thornton (The Everyman), Autumn Royal by Kevin Barry (The Everyman, associate director for remount), Dancing At Lughnasa by Brian Friel (The Everyman), The Factory Girls by Frank McGuinness (The Everyman), The Strange Undoing of Prudencia Hart by David Greig (The Everyman), Lovers by Brian Friel (The Everyman), Mantle by Ronan FitzGibbon (BrokenCrow).

Producing credits include the world premiere of Mick Flannery’s Evening Train musical (2019), the world premiere of Asking for It by Louise O’Neill (Landmark Productions and The Everyman, 2018), the world premiere of Autumn Royal by Kevin Barry (The Everyman, 2017) and the Irish premiere of Futureproof by Lynda Radley (The Everyman, 2017), and The Scarlet Letter, devised by Conflicted Theatre Company after Nathaniel Hawthorne (2013).

She was Artistic Director/CEO at Mermaid Arts Centre, Bray from 2020 – 2024 and Artistic Director of The Everyman, Cork from 2014 to 2020. She has a professional background in performance (acting and singing) and worked as an actor, director & producer with numerous Irish arts organisations and companies, including Painted Bird, Conflicted, BrokenCrow, Kinsale Arts Week, Cork Midsummer Festival, Hammergrin, Corcadorca, Meridian, Dublin Theatre Festival, Fabulous Beast Dance Theatre, The Performance Corporation, Gare St. Lazare, Once Off Productions, Landmark Productions, and Siren Productions. Most recently, Julie completed MAKE an artist development programme presented by Cork Midsummer, Dublin Fringe Festival and Project Arts Centre.

Julie joined the board of Graffiti Theatre Company in September 2017 and is the current chair. She sits on the Irish Playography Panel at Irish Theatre Institute and served on the board of Theatre Forum from 2016 to 2022, taking on the role of Chair in the final three years of her term.

Lian Bell is an artist working across artforms. With a background
in scenography, visual art, cultural project management, and social activism, she has worked for over 25 years with some of the most significant arts organisations and contemporary performance makers in Ireland.

She is interested in formally experimental contemporary performance, often collaborating on works that are devised and/or site specific. She brings together groups of artists and arts workers to foster solidarity and community across
geography and discipline. She advocates for mitching, slowing down, and travelling without flying, and designs ways to build community and create space for reflection.

Lian coaches artists and arts workers, and designs and facilitate artists’ programmes in collaboration with a number of different organisations. She was Campaign Director of #WakingTheFeminists, the grassroots campaign for equality for women that changed Irish theatre.

She studied at Trinity College Dublin, Central Saint Martins, and NCAD, and has received numerous awards for her work. Whether making material-based work, or shaping intangible encounters, all aspects of Lian’s practice overlap aesthetically and ethically.

Paula Clarke is Deaf artist, performer, theatre-maker,
Deaf consultant, and activist from Northern Ireland. A pioneer in accessible and inclusive arts, Paula is recognised as one of the most influential Deaf creatives working in the UK and internationally. Fluent in both British and Irish Sign Languages, she creates powerful, visually rich performances rooted in Deaf culture and lived experience.

Her work spans theatre, film, visual poetry, and live performance, with major appearances from Belfast to Bogotá, and collaborations with renowned artists including Amanda Coogan. Paula is the co-founder of the NI Deaf Arts Festival and a trusted Deaf Artist consultant for leading theatre companies and broadcasters. Her artistic mission is bold: to break barriers, elevate underrepresented voices, and prove that accessibility is an artform in itself. Through her company, AccessFab, Paula leads a new wave of creative, intersectional, and radically inclusive storytelling.

Sarah Durcan is CEO of Science Gallery International, a global network focused on art-science collaboration. Sarah was one of the lead organisers of the #WakingTheFeminists campaign for gender equality in Irish theatre. She has served on the boards of The Abbey Theatre, Theatre Forum, and GAZE Film Festival, and on the advisory panel of Dublin City Council’s Culture Company.

Sarah is the author with Lian Bell of WTF Happened:
#WakingTheFeminists and the movement that changed Irish theatre to be published by UCD Press later this year. She has also contributed to Five Years On – Gender in Irish
Theatre: An Interim View (2020) and Queering Science Communication (2023). She holds degrees in Communications (Dublin City University) and Cultural Policy & Arts Management (University College Dublin).

Karen Fricker is a critic, editor, and educator based in Toronto who focuses on sustaining theatre criticism and nurturing academic fields-in-formation, including circus studies and Eurovision Song Contest studies. She has written and broadcast about theatre for the Toronto Star, The Irish Times, The Guardian, Variety, RTÉ, the BBC, and the CBC; and is editorial advisor of Intermission Magazine (2022-present). She is co-leader on a number of projects around equitable theatre criticism including the free online course Youareacritic.com, developed with Nathaniel Hanula-James and Jose Solís; and the 2023 Intermission/Stratford Festival IBPOC Critics Lab. She is a member of the core team of Staging Better Futures/Mettre en scène de meilleurs avenirs, a nationwide partnership addressing systemic inequities in theatre higher education in Canada.

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 believes designing for theatre is a collaborative act because working with others leads to original solutions, she has a hands-on approach and interacting directly with materials informs her final designs.

Costume designer credits include: 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), The Four Lovers (Circus Factory), (Un)Holy Blood (Live at St. Luke’s), ’La Bohème’ (Cork Opera House), Whale (Cork Opera House), A Safe Passage (Firkin Crane), Contact (Corcadorca), The Small Things (Corcadorca), Cosy
(Gaitkrash), How it is (Gare St.Lazare).

Valentina is a Lecturer of Costume and Makeup Design at the Munster University of Technology. She was awarded the MAKE residency at Annaghmakerrig in 2024, in 2022 she was granted an Agility Award to work with Macnas (Galway) and in 2017
was granted an Art Disability Award to mentor an artist with intellectual disabilities.

Valentina holds a First-Class Honours MA in Media Studies from Palermo University. She is a committee member of the Irish Society of Performance Designers.

Gabriel Graves is a theatre maker born in Spain who spent most of his life in Argentina and is now rebuilding his career in Ireland.

He has premiered over 25 plays across independent,
official, and commercial circuits, receiving various awards for his work. He is a co-founder of La Polenta Teatro, a company that worked with migrant actors in Argentina for five years. He
also worked as a playwright for Malvado Colibrí, a company specializing in clown technique.

In Ireland, he was awarded an Agility Award, which led to a work-in-progress presentation of his play The Cure for Cancer, where he served as both writer and director. His first “Irish”
play, Anhedonia, received a Project Award for text development and was presented at Project Arts Centre, Dublin. Additionally, he was awarded the Bursary Award and the Listowel-New York Residency to develop new work.

Andrew Keegan is a 2nd Year Student studying Theatre and Drama in Mary Immaculate College Limerick. He has been involved with theatre from a very young age and has been a part of a wide variety of performances, from plays, to musicals, to cabarets all
over the country. Andrew is delighted to be involved with the Performing Arts Forum, and hopes you enjoy the event!

Georgina graduated from The Gaiety School of Acting and has worked as a freelance actor for twenty-two years.  She was Belltable’s Artist in Residence in 2022. Her autobiographical
show Freefalling (co-produced by Rough Magic and Lime Tree/Belltable in association with Fidget Feet Aerial Dance Company) premiered at the Cork Midsummer Festival in 2023 and
played at the Dublin Theatre Festival in 2024. Some theatre credits include Jilly Morgan’s Birthday Party (Lime Tree/Belltable Production), Bread Not Profits (Gúna Nua), The Lighthouse Keeper (Amalgamotion), A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Mouth on Fire for Dublin Castle), The Country Girls (Red Kettle), The Big House (Abbey Theatre), Unravelling the Ribbon (Guna Nua), The Well of the Saints (Big Telly) and The Snow Queen (Graffiti). Television credits include Pure Mule, Trouble in Paradise, The Clinic and Fair City. Georgina has narrated television documentaries, voiced international marketing campaigns and has performed in numerous radio dramas.

Choy-Ping Ní Chléirigh-Ng 吳彩萍 (°1997, they/she) is a Hong Kong-Irish writer, director and designer. They were born and raised in Enniskerry, Wicklow. Ping works across theatre, film, dance, music and opera. After graduating with an MA in Performance Design from Bristol Old Vic Theatre School, they won both a Linbury Prize and John Elvery Prize for their set, costume and video designs. They have worked at venues including the Abbey, Bristol Old Vic, Singapore Repertory Theatre and on the West End. Their most recent personal piece WINDOW A WORLD (2022) was co-produced by Dublin Theatre Festival and BUDA Belgium as part of the EU’s Be SpectACTive! project. Ping received the Arts Council of Ireland’s Next Generation Award (2022) and is currently part of Irish Theatre Institute’s Six in the Attic Programme. They are also supported by the three-year Propel Programme Award (2023) with Strollers Network.

Zoe is an award-winning theatre, film, and music maker from Dublin. She is co-artistic director of One Two One Two, a multi-disciplinary production company founded in 2018 with
her sister Maud Lee. Zoe was selected for a Clore Fellowship in 2022, a tailored leadership programme in the UK. She makes experimental work that brings her practice as a musician
and songwriter into a theatrical context. Tá cuid dá cleachtadh déanta trí Ghaeilge. One Two One Two has made three award-winning films in Irish, their latest Éist liom (listen to me) will
screen at Fastnet Film Festival in Schull on May 22nd.

Since 2022, Zoe has collaborated with young people, directing ‘Horse Ape Bird’ a youth opera for Irish National Opera by
Carys Coburn and David Coonan, and Kabin Studio’s ‘Sound of The Northside’ a co-production with INO at the Everyman Theatre July 2024. One Two One Two wrote the Kabin Crew Christmas Special for RTÉ (broadcast on Christmas Eve 2024, Best Entertainment Award at Royal Television Society).

Áine Stapleton is a dance and film artist from Wicklow. For the past decade, she has created dance films exploring the biographies of lesser-known female artists, particularly dancer Lucia Joyce – “A must-see” Film Ireland. Her work Horrible
Creature premiered at the Irish Film Institute, and her recent installation Somewhere in the Body premiered at Project Arts Centre and Dublin Dance Festival. Áine develops and presents her work through national and international partnerships, collaborating with arts organisations and Irish diplomatic missions abroad. Her current feature film in development, When Life is Silent, explores the dance history of Monte Verità in Switzerland and is funded by The Arts Council. Prior to working in film, she was co- director of Fitzgerald & Stapleton Dance Theatre with Emma Fitzgerald – “Touches deeper, stranger chords” The New Yorker. She is also a collaborator with Irish electronica band Everything Shook. Áine is a member of the NCFA Steering Committee and a recent MA graduate in Cultural Policy & Management.

shaéirah, aka Ayesha, an adopted Dubliner of Punjabi-Pakistani-Swiss roots, is a multidisciplinary artivist, creative director and social justice advocate. As a 3CK, she is avidly curious about the themes of identity, belonging and migration. With her Sufi lineage and background in Sociology serving as her compass, shaéirah’s artistic practice shape shifts by the provocations around her. As a theatre maker, shaéirah examines intersectionality in non-conformist ways – she has created impactful work through the Dublin Fringe Festival (2023), Scene + Heard Festival (2024) and the #BlindianProject in New York, Berlin, London and beyond. shaéirah was awarded a place at the Summer School on Collaborative Practice and Social Change, by Create & Counterpoints Arts earlier this year. She holds the titles of Community Manager at GORM Media where community building and storytelling unite and Managing Editor of the #BlindianProject, where she focuses on positing decolonisation as an everyday practice for Black x Brown allyship.

Fadi Zmorrod is a contemporary circus artist and director from Jerusalem, Palestine. He is currently Artistic Director of Doulab for Circus and Dance and of Rí Rá Festival of Children’s Arts.

He has been working in the field for almost 20 years, and is specialised as an artist in the Chinese pole, acrobatics, and more recently Cyr wheel. He graduated from Cirko Vertigo in
Italy, and spent the following years touring worldwide with companies like Cinque Blu, Circus Cirkör & Malmö Stadtsteater, Les Ballets C de la B & the Royal Flemish Theatre, Yaa Samar
Dance Theatre, Khashabi Theatre, as well as with his own award winning work. He also co-founded the Palestinian Circus School and has taught, mentored and trained professional artists and young people all over Palestine, Europe and globally. He is currently a recipient of the 2025 Arts & Inclusion Bursary from DLR County Council, and was the 2023/24 SEVN Bursary Awardee.