Enda Walsh: The Same

Catherine Walsh trained at the Samuel Beckett Centre, Trinity College Dublin. Her theatre work includes Dancing at Lughnasa at the Gate Theatre, Dublin; Sharon’s Grave directed by Garry Hynes for Druid Theatre, Galway; Eden by Eugene O’Brien (for which she won the Irish Times/ESB Best Actress of the Year Award 2002), The Gigli Concert by Tom Murphy (Abbey and Australian Tour), Translations by Brian Friel, Love in the Title by Hugh Leonard, Kevin’s Bed by Bernard Farrell, Blackwater Angel by Jim Nolan and At Swim Two Birds, all at the Abbey (Dublin) and Peacock (London) Theatres; A Christmas Carol and Phaedra at the Gate Theatre; and Werewolves at the Druid Theatre.

Walsh appeared in Playboy of the Western World and The Shadow of the Glen as part of Druid Theatre Company’s DruidSynge for Galway Arts Festival, part of Edinburgh International Festival 2005, and later as part of the Lincoln Center Festival 2006 in New York. She appeared in the Enda Walsh play The New Electric Ballroom for Druid Theatre company at the Edinburgh Festival 2008, which won Fringe First and Herald Angel Awards and held performances in Australia, the UK, Ireland, and the US. Walsh appeared in the National Theatre of Scotland’s premiere of Zinnie Harris’s play The Wheel at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival 2011 (directed by Vicky Featherstone), which was nominated for a Fringe First Award and won the Amnesty International Freedom of Expression Award 2011. 
 
Her TV and film credits include Holby City and Family for BBC and RTÉ; The Ambassador for BBC; On Home Ground for RTÉ; The Last September, directed by Debra Warner; and The Stag (aka The Bachelor Weekend), produced by Treasure Films and directed by John Butler. Radio includes Eden for BBC Radio 4 and The Monotonous Life of Little Mr. P by Enda Walsh for BBC Radio 4.

Eileen Walsh's work in theatre includes The Seagull at Druid Theatre, Medea and Beginning at The Gate Dublin, Absolute Hell and Liola at National Theatre London, Little Eyolf at The Almeida, The Tempest at Northern Stage, The Believers at the Tricycle Theatre, The Internet is Serious Business, Sand, and Crave at the Royal Court, The Plough and the Stars, The Playboy of the Western World, Terminus (also at the Edinburgh Festival and New York; Irish Times Award-winner, Best Actress), Saved, Portia Coughlan (title role), Ariel and Lady Macbeth (Macbeth) at the Abbey Dublin, The Same, Request Programme, The Merchant of Venice, Phaedra's Love and Disco Pigs for Corcadorca; Conversations on a Homecoming, Whistle in the Dark, Famine and The Gigli Concert for Druid; Medea (title role) for Siren Productions; Mary Stuart for National Theatre Scotland/Royal Lyceum; The Drowned World, Splendour, Tiny Dynamite (for Paines Plough) Quizshow Traverse Theatre, Troilus and Cressida for Oxford Stage Company; Boomtown and Danti Dan for Rough Magic; The Entertainer at Liverpool Playhouse; Crestfall at the Gate, Dublin; Hamlet and Lippy (for Dead Centre) at the Young Vic; Kitchen (for Rooms) by Enda Walsh for the Galway Arts Centre.  

TV includes Death In Paradise (BBC), Modern Love (Amazon Prime), South Westerlies (RTÉ), Women On The Verge (Merman), On the Hemline, Can't Cope, Won't Cope and Pure Mule for RTÉ; Melrose and Delicious for SKY; Castastrophe (season 1,2,3) for Channel 4/ Merman.  

Films includes Wolf, The Children Act, Maze, Gold, Snap, The Ballad of Kid Kanturk, Triage, The Maid of Farce, Eden (TriBeCA Film Festival and IFTA – winner, Best Actress), 33X Around the Sun, Nicholas Nickleby, Magdalene Sisters, Miss Julie and Janice Beard.

Enda Walsh is a Tony and BAFTA Award-winning playwright and screenwriter (Once on Broadway/West End, Hunger) renowned for his career-long work with Galway International Arts Festival (GIAF), including the 2017 GIAF and IAC Irish Arts Center co-presentation of the installation Rooms in New York. He also collaborated with David Bowie on the musical Lazarus, which opened at New York Theatre Workshop in December 2015 and transferred to Kings Cross Theatre in London in November 2016. His new work, Medicine, featuring Domhnall Gleeson, will open at St. Ann’s Warehouse this fall, where he also has a long running relationship for presenting his work in New York.

Walsh shot to fame when he won both the George Devine Award and the Stewart Parker Award in 1997 with his play Disco Pigs. In 2007 and 2008, he won Fringe First Awards at two consecutive Edinburgh Festivals for his plays The Walworth Farce and The New Electric Ballroom. The former led the Guardian to name him "one of the most dazzling wordsmiths of contemporary theatre." In 2011, Once, his adaptation of the film by John Carney, opened off-Broadway. Critically acclaimed, it moved to Broadway in 2012, where it picked up eight Tony Awards, including Best Book. The West End run of Once opened in April 2013.

Since his initial success as a playwright, Walsh has gone on to write for the screen. His 2008 biopic, Hunger, told the story of the final days of IRA hunger striker Bobby Sands and won a host of awards, including the Caméra d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival and the Heartbeat Award at the Dinard International Film Festival. It was nominated for seven BIFAs (including Best Screenplay), six British Film and Television Awards (including Best Screenplay and Best Independent Film), and BAFTA’s Outstanding British Film Award in 2009.

Walsh's opera The Last Hotel had its world premiere at the Lyceum Theatre as part of the Edinburgh International Festival and transferred to Dublin, London, and New York. His play The Same, commissioned by the Corcadorca Theatre Company to mark the Irish theatre company's 25th anniversary, was first performed in the old Cork prison in February 2017.

Walsh has had a strong relationship with Galway City and the Galway International Arts Festival from the very beginning of his career. The festival, along with Anne Clarke’s Landmark Productions, recently produced his plays Misterman and Ballyturk. His play Arlington had its world premiere at the Galway International Arts Festival in July 2016 and his latest opera, The Second Violinist, premiered at the festival in July 2017. In 2013, he was awarded an honorary doctorate by Galway University.

Most recently, Walsh wrote the book for a musical adaptation of the 2016 John Carney film Sing Street, which was due to open on Broadway in spring 2020. For TV, he is currently working on Troubles with Blueprint Pictures and This House with Nexus Studios.

Pat Kiernan is artistic director of Corcadorca Theatre Company, which he founded in 1991. Kiernan has directed almost 50 productions for the company, with work staged in every theatre in Cork as well as non-theatre venues such as Sir Henry’s (A Clockwork Orange), Cork City Goal (A Christmas Carol), and the Vertigo Suite County Hall (medEia). Outdoor productions include The Trial of Jesus on St. Patrick’s Hill, A Midsummer Night’s Dream and The Tempest in Fitzgerald’s Park, Woyzeck at Haulbowline Naval Base, and Far Away on Spike Island. Disco Pigs, directed by Kiernan, won an array of awards and toured internationally for two years.

In 2005, Kiernan programmed the three shows for Corcadorca’s Relocation project as well as directing The Merchant of Venice, for which he received a nomination for Best Director in the Irish Times Theatre Awards. Woyzeck was nominated for Best Production and Best Lighting in 2007. Kiernan directed two co-productions with Cork Opera House: The Winter’s Tale (2011) and Romeo & Juliet (2012). In 2013, he directed Pat McCabe’s The Big Yum Yum at the Half Moon Theatre, Cork, as well as Sacrifice at Easter in 2016, a creative collaboration between Corcadorca, Pat McCabe and composer Mel Mercier, staged at the old Elizabeth Fort on Barrack Street. 

In 2017, Kiernan directed The Same, the third in a trio of site-specific productions of Enda Walsh texts produced by Corcadorca. How These Desperate Men Talk was staged at Graepel Metal Perforation factory for the Kinsale Arts Festival 2014 and Gentrification was staged at Cork Savings Bank the following year. Kiernan was nominated for the Irish Times Theatre Award for Best Director in 2016 for Gentrification, and The Same went on the win two Irish Times Theatre Awards: Best New Play and a joint award for Catherine Walsh and Eileen Walsh for Best Actress.

Owen Boss (set designer) is a designer and visual artist based in Dublin. In 2009 he co-founded ANU Productions.

Design work with Corcadorca includes Hail to the Great Wave (Triskel Art Centre), Contact (Cork Midsummer Festival, 2020), and The Same (Galway Arts Festival, 2018, Cork Prison, 2016).
 
Works with ANU include The Book of Names (Dublin Theatre Festival, 2021), The Secret Space (Project Arts Centre, 2021), Beyond These Rooms (Tate Exchange, Tate Liverpool, 2019), Faultline (Dublin Theatre Festival, 2019), The Anvil (Manchester International Festival, 2019), The Lost O’Casey (Dublin Theatre Festival, 2018), These Rooms (Art:16 Arts Council commission 2016, 14-18-Now Commission, 2018), Pals the Irish at Gallipoli (National Museum of Ireland 2015), Angel Meadow (HOME Manchester commission 2014), Boys of Foley Street (Dublin Theatre Festival 2012), Laundry (Dublin Theatre Festival 2011), and Fingal Ronan (Robert Wilson Watermill Center, New York, 2010).

Other recent set and costume design includes Mabel’s Magnificent Flying Machine (The Gate, 2021).

Peter Power is a multidisciplinary visual artist, composer, sound designer, and director from Waterford, Ireland. He is the artistic director of the award-winning company Sparsile Collective, creating immersive experiences led by music. Currently the Artist-In-Residence in the Cork Midsummer Festival, Peter is the outgoing Artist-In-Residence in the National Sculpture Factory of Ireland. He is the winner of the Arts Council of Ireland Music Bursary Award, Music and Theatre Project Awards, Theatre Bursary Award and most recently the AGF Award and Visual Arts Commission Award. His current interests are in the connections between digital and live art.

Michael Hurley, lighting designer, is delighted to be working again with Corcadorca. Beginning his career in theatre in 1994, he has worked on numerous major productions. Michael's lighting and video designs for Cork Opera House include Grease, Kiss of the Spider Woman, Michael Collins, Dido & Aeneas, West Side Story, The Good Sisters, The Nina In Me, and Jesus Christ Superstar; along with many pantomimes. Other recent works include The Same and Contact (Corcadorca) and How It Is (Part 2) (Gare St Lazare). Michael has worked across opera, drama and musical theatre, with other highlights including Faust (Everyman/Cork Operatic Society), Der Vampyr (Everyman/Cork Operatic Society), Orpheus (Everyman/Cork Operatic Society), Sweeney Todd (Cork Operatic Society), Guerilla Days In Ireland (GDI Productions/Verdant Productions), The All Star Wars (Theatrix) and Romeo & Juliet (Video Design - Corcadorca/Cork Opera House). Michael also works in the live events sector as a technical director and event technologist.

Ronan O’Shea is a lighting designer, lighting programmer, and technical consultant based in Cork City, Ireland. He holds a bachelor’s degree in Film and Screen Media (Hons) specializing in Lighting Design and Directing from University College Cork. 

Ronan is the proud recipient of the ETC Fred Foster Mentorship Award 2019/2020. 

His credits as lighting designer include (UN)Holy Blood (Circus Factory), Joseph and his Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat (I.N.E.C. Arena), ELECTRA (KINO Cork), DNA, Katty Barry: Queen of the Coal Quay (Cork Arts Theatre), Straight On ‘Til Morning (Theatre Development Centre), Woman and Scarecrow, The Things I Could Never Tell Stephen, A Bunch of Amateurs and The Children’s Hour (Granary Theatre). 

Credits as associate/assistant lighting designer include The Same (LD. Michael Hurley, Irish Arts Center, New York), Gregory Porter (LD. Al Crawford, Royal Albert Hall, London), The Lost Colony (LD. Josh Allen, Waterside Theatre, NC, USA), This Girl Laughs, This Girl Cries, This Girl Does Nothing (LD. Hanan Sheedy, Irish National Tour).

Grace Schultz* is based in NYC. For the past seven years, she has been the AEA resident stage manager at Irish Arts Center, where she has enjoyed calling many amazing shows. Over the last 10 years, she has worked on/with Macy’s Day Parade, Village Halloween Parade, NYC Fashion Week, Columbia University, Bard Spiegltent, the Juilliard School, and a few dance tours: Flamenco Vivo and Moscow Ballet’s Nutcracker. She graduated from Bard College with a BA in theater focusing in stage management and producing. She attended the Juilliard School’s professional stage management program to further her experience and education in the profession. She is excited to be working with this company/production to present the first theatrical production of IAC’s new home!

*ACTORS’ EQUITY ASSOCIATION (AEA) The U.S. stage managers employed in this production are member of Actors’ Equity Association, the union of professional actors and stage managers in the U.S. AEA was founded in 1913 as the first of the American actor unions. Equity’s mission is to advance, promote, and foster the art of live theatre as an essential component of our society. Today, Equity represents more than 40,000 actors, singers, dancers, and stage managers working in hundreds of theatres across the United States. Equity members are dedicated to working in the theatres as a profession, upholding the highest artistic standards. Equity negotiates wages and working conditions and provides a wide range of benefits including health and pension plans for its members. Through its agreement with Equity, this theatre has committed to the fair treatment of the actors and stage managers employed in this production. AEA is a member of the AFL-CIO and is affiliated with FIA, an international organization of performing arts unions.

Sam Shapiro* returns to IAC for her fifth show. Her New York credits include Actors Studio Rep Season, Playbill's Curtain Up!, E! Live From Met Gala, and Mirrors (Parity Productions). Select Miami stage manager/director/choreographer credits include Ragtime, Hairspray, The 25th Annual...Bee, Fiddler on the Roof, The Producers, and Sister Act. Film credits include Spielberg's The Kidnapping of Edgardo Mortara (casting PA). Sam is a former high school drama teacher and proud member of the Stage Managers' Association. Thank you, Dad! For my late grandmothers.

*ACTORS’ EQUITY ASSOCIATION (AEA) The U.S. stage managers employed in this production are member of Actors’ Equity Association, the union of professional actors and stage managers in the U.S. AEA was founded in 1913 as the first of the American actor unions. Equity’s mission is to advance, promote, and foster the art of live theatre as an essential component of our society. Today, Equity represents more than 40,000 actors, singers, dancers, and stage managers working in hundreds of theatres across the United States. Equity members are dedicated to working in the theatres as a profession, upholding the highest artistic standards. Equity negotiates wages and working conditions and provides a wide range of benefits including health and pension plans for its members. Through its agreement with Equity, this theatre has committed to the fair treatment of the actors and stage managers employed in this production. AEA is a member of the AFL-CIO and is affiliated with FIA, an international organization of performing arts unions.

Aoife Clarke is a producer and stage manager based in Cork and is currently the assistant producer at The Everyman Theatre. Aoife holds a graduate diploma in Cultural Policy and Arts Management (UCD) and a BA in Drama and English (UCC). 

Recent work includes City by John McCarthy (assistant producer), Heart of a Dog by Éadaoin O’Donoghue (assistant producer), and Marina Carr’s To The Lighthouse (production assistant) for The Everyman.

Aoife has worked extensively as a stage manager throughout Ireland, with credits including Watt by Samuel Beckett (Tom Creed), How It Is: Part 2 (Gare St. Lazare), The Same (Corcadorca), The Bluffer's Guide To Suburbia (Once Off Productions), 1000 Moments Of Extraordinary Pleasure (BAMM), The Shakespeare Sessions (Cyclone Rep/National Tours), Lex Talionis (Wandering Star), The Lonesome West (The Everyman), In Clouds (Sparsile Collective), Punk Rock (Granary Theatre), NEON Western (Conflicted Theatre), Bedbound (Wandering Star), Dancing At Lughnasa (The Everyman, 2017), American Idiot: The Musical (CIT Musical Society), Debris (Wandering Star) and Fleabag (Wandering Star).

CORCADORCA [n. 1. Dimly-lit district of Cork City (from Irish, Corcaigh Dorcha: Dark Cork). 2. Pertaining to often disregarded topical issues.]

Established in 1991, Corcadorca is a professional text-based theatre company based in Cork City that has pioneered the art of producing large-scale and intimate theatre performance in non-theatre spaces, as well as developing and producing work by new and established playwrights in Ireland. Corcadorca has produced new plays by Enda Walsh, Conal Creedon, Raymond Scannell, Ger Bourke, Ailís Ní Ríain, Pat McCabe and now Éadaoin O’Donoghue.
Corcadorca has created over 50 productions and garnered multiple awards along the way.

Early productions such as A Clockwork Orange in Sir Henry’s in 1995 established Corcadorca as a company that was pushing the boundaries of theatre. In the three decades since, the company has transformed warehouses, parks, nightclubs, forts, factories and more. Down through the years it has also played a role in civic celebrations, such as the Millennium, the European Capital of Culture 2005 and the 1916 Centenary. 

Corcadorca offers support and mentorship to emerging and established theatre artists through various residencies and placement opportunities with the company and in the Corcadorca Theatre Development Centre (CTDC). Established in 2011, the CTDC is a studio space based at Triskel Arts Centre where the company develops and presents new work.

Corcadorca believes in theatre as an essential artform and constantly strives to create the highest standard of work through rigorous process and collaboration with the best theatre practitioners.

Corcadorca is deeply committed to being an inclusive open theatre company that reflects a contemporary society.