Chekhov's First Play

Alexandra Conlon is an Irish actor and graduate of the BA Acting course at The Lir, National Academy of Dramatic Art (2015).

Most recently, she starred in the national tour of Tarry Flynn by Livin' Dred Theatre Company directed by Aaron Monaghan. Alexandra also reprised her role as Sofya in Chekhov’s First Play by Dead Centre for its return run at Project Arts Centre (2022). Her other stage work includes Bang! by Michelle Read (DTF 2021), Anna Karenina by Marina Carr at The Abbey Theatre, Sunder, On Corporation Street, and These Rooms by ANU Productions & CoisCéim, Finding Love in an Abattoir by Melissa Nolan and Sounds of Wood on Muscle by Collapsing Horse.

Her screen work includes Aaron Monaghan's Ghost Light, which premiered at the Galway Film Fleadh 2021. Alexandra also plays the role of Mel' in Hiding Trout by Springheel Productions, available on all major streaming platforms.

Born in London and raised in the Wicklow countryside in Ireland, Tara Egan-Langley has been involved in performance since her verse speaking competitions at the age of 5. She trained at The Royal Irish Academy of Music, Dublin and then studied at The Gaiety School of Acting also in Dublin. Since then, she has worked extensively on stage, screen, and the vocal booth. She wrote, recorded and toured two of her own albums, and has collaborated and guest appeared on many others. 

Tara played Beth in the first stage version of Jeff Wayne's musical The War of The Worlds which toured venues such as Wembley Arena and London’s Albert Hall. Some of her favorite roles include Bottom in A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Victoire in A Little Hotel on The Side. She played the lead role of Constance in The Constant Wife at The Gate Theatre in Dublin and toured internationally with Donald Sinden’s stage show 7 Deadly Sins, 4 Sinners. Her screen work includes the TV series The Fall, the Sophie Hyde film Animals, and most recently, she appeared opposite Jane Seymour in the new Acorn TV detective series Harry Wild, and as TV presenter Carrie in the dark political drama Red Election from Election Productions. She has just completed composing the music for a new Irish play FreeFall, written by Georgina Miller which is due to be produced early next year. She has toured with Dead Centre Theatre Company’s Chekhov’s First Play to Russia, Hong Kong, and London, and is now delighted to be in the Irish Arts Center with this wonderful show. 

Daniel Reardon was born in New York City in 1946. He was educated at Loyola School, Fordham University and Trinity College Dublin. He has worked in Irish theatre, film, TV and radio as actor, playwright, producer and director for nearly 50 years. He tours nationally and internationally with the award-winning theatre companies, Pan Pan (The Rehearsal, Playing the Dane; The Seagull and Other Birds), Dead Centre (Lippy), and Brokentalkers (This Beach) for which he was nominated Best Supporting Actor for the Irish Times Theatre Awards. In 2019, he toured with Dead Centre’s Chekhov’s First Play to Hong Kong, Newcastle, and Liverpool. He was a member of the Radio Eireann Players, performing in a multitude of radio plays and adaptations by authors such as Hugh Leonard, Bernard Farrell, Tom Kilroy, and Tom Murphy, and for fifteen years he was “Willie Bracken” in Harbour Hotel by Lee Dunne. Shakespearean roles on radio include Prospero, Shylock, MacDuff, Feste, Puck, Fool in King Lear and Friar Laurence in Romeo and Juliet. Film and TV credits include My Left Foot, Night Train, Love Eternal, Extraordinary, The Silver Tassie, The Man Within, Fallout, The Clinic, Fair City, and The Tudors. 

As playwright, Daniel’s stage plays include Spenser’s Laye (Dublin, Cork, Edinburgh), The O.K. Thing To Do (Abbey/Peacock), Fun With Bamboo (Winner Bewley’s Café Theatre Award), and Bleeding Poets (Nominated Best New Play for the Irish Times Theatre Awards). He wrote many plays for radio including the daily serial Riverrun. His poetry appears regularly in magazines and journals in Ireland, the UK, America and Australia. His book of poems In the Lion House was published by Gallery Press. A second volume of poems, Fond Pageant, was published by Somerville Press. His play Fond Pageant is based on the book, written and performed by himself appeared at the Smock Alley Theatre, the New Theatre and the O'Donoghue Theatre Galway. For the Dublin Theatre Festival 2019 he acted in Pasolini’s Salo Redubbed at the Abbey/Peacock. Chekhov’s First Play appeared at the Sarajevo National Theatre last November and most recently at The Project Arts Centre in June of this year.

Paul’s most recent credits include Derry Girls for Channel 4 and Hattrick; the TV series Harry Wild alongside Jane Seymour; and the role of Aaron alongside Hazel Doupe in Kate Dolan’s horror feature You are Not My Mother, which premiered at the Toronto Film Festival. He has just wrapped filming a lead role as D.I. Rory Mahon in the feature The Last Girl alongside Antonio Banderas and Alice Eve.

Further recent work includes the role of the role of Mr. Taylor in the comedy feature Nan directed by Josie Rourke; two seasons of Finding Joy alongside Amy Huberman, directed by John Butler; Oggie Gildersleeve in The Alienist, directed by David Caffrey for Paramount and TNT; the role of Derek in Collapsible by Margaret Perry, directed by Thomas Martin at the Abbey Theatre; The Professionals, directed by Bharat Nalluri; and the role of Robert alongside Rafe Spall in the horror feature The Ritual, directed by David Bruckner for The Imaginarium.

Stage credits include the role of Martyn Wallace in the Corn Exchange’s Dublin by Lamplight, directed by Annie Ryan; Chekhov’s First Play, directed by Ben Kidd and Bush Moukarzel for Dead Centre; and notably the part of Gar (Public) in Philadelphia, Here I Come!, directed by Lyndsey Turner at the Donmar Warehouse.

Dylan Tighe is an actor, writer-director and musician from Dublin. He graduated with a BA in Spanish and Italian from Trinity College Dublin and an MA in Performance Making from Goldsmiths College, London. Dylan has performed with many Irish companies including the Abbey Theatre and has collaborated and toured extensively with Dead Centre, Pan Pan, and with Slovenian company Via Negativa. His own productions for stage include Pasolini’s Salò Redubbed (Abbey Theatre, 2019), RECORD (Dublin Theatre Festival 2012), and No Worst There is None (Best Production Irish Times Theatre Awards 2009). Work for radio includes No Love Lost (2021), Pulse Music / Ceol Cuisle (2016), and Record (Nominated Prix Europa, 2013) all for RTÉ Drama on One. Also a musician, Dylan has released two critically acclaimed albums.

Ali White is an actor, voiceover artist, and writer. Her 2022 performances include Joyce’s Women by Edna O’Brien, Three Monologues by Jennifer Johnston, and Bloody Sunday: Scenes from the Saville Inquiry, all at the Abbey Theatre Dublin. Ali also performed recently in The Treaty by Colin Murphy at the National Concert Hall Dublin and the Irish Embassy London, and in the upcoming film The Last Rifleman for Arty Pictures.  

Other recent performances include Asking for It (Landmark); The Effect (Rough Magic Theatre Company); and Northern Star (Rough Magic Theatre Company), for which she won Best Supporting Actress at the 2016 Irish Times Theatre Awards. Ali last performed in New York in This Is What We Sang by Gavin Kostick, which won Best Production at the First Irish Theatre Festival 2010, and in The Steward of Christendom by Sebastian Barry, produced by Out of Joint, at the Brooklyn Academy of Music in 1997. 

Recent Film and TV performances include Christmas at Castle Hart (Hallmark), The Windermere Children (BBC), and The Secret (ITV).

Bush is co-artistic director of Dead Centre. Based in Dublin, he began his career in theatre as an actor working with Irish companies such as Pan Pan and Druid. This acting work involved travelling to international theater festivals allowing Bush to watch work from all over the world and broaden his sense of theatrical possibility. As an actor he has also worked with Thomas Ostermeier performing in Returning to Reims which premiered at Manchester International Festival 2018 and then had runs at the Schaubuhne, Berlin and St Ann’s Warehouse, New York. As co-artistic director of Dead Centre, Bush has co-authored and co-directed all of the company’s productions, mostly recently The World is Everything That is the Case, at the Burgtheater, Vienna, Bählaams Fest at Ruhtriennale, Germany and an adaptation of Ingmar Bergman’s The Silence at Gothenburg State Theatre, Sweden. Other Dead Centre directing/writing credits include LIPPY, Chekhov’s First Play, Hamnet, Beckett’s Room (co-production with the Gate Theatre, Dublin), and To Be A Machine (Version 1.0), a co-production with Dublin Theatre Festival. Upcoming work includes an adaptation of Flights by Nobel-Prize winning author Olga Tokarczuk at Burgtheater, Vienna, and an operatic adaptation of Pasolini’s Teorema at Deutsche Oper Berlin in June 2023.

Ben is joint artistic director of Dead Centre. He has directed Good Sex (Dublin Theatre Festival) and co-directed Bählamms Fest (Ruhrtriennale), Alles, was der Fall ist and Interpretation of Dreams (Burgtheater, Vienna), To Be a Machine (Version 1.0) (Dublin Theatre Festival), Beckett’s Room (Gate Theatre), Shakespeare’s Last Play (Schaubühne) and Chekhov’s First Play (Dublin Theatre Festival). All Dead Centre’s work has toured internationally throughout Europe, Asia, Australia and North America. 

As a freelance director, his work includes In the Night Time (Before the Sun Rises) (Gate Theatre, London); Spring Awakening (Headlong); and The Shawl (Young Vic).

Theatrical appearances include: Sex with Strangers (American Stage: Tampa Bay Theatre Award nomination for Outstanding Actress in a Leading Role); Disgraced (Shadowland Stages), Heisenberg (Shaker Bridge Theatre); Long Day's Journey Into Night (Palm Beach Dramaworks), Cymbeline (Orlando Shakespeare), Taming of the Shrew (Soho Rep), Exodus Code (The Flea Theatre); Much Ado About Nothing and Twelfth Night (Tennessee Shakespeare Co); Romeo & Juliet (Sierra Rep and American Globe). TV/Film: The Deuce (HBO); Quantico; Hands of Fate, Chime of Destiny; Framed.  Since 2020, Carey has been part of Matias de Stefano’s global YoSoy.red project, traveling extensively in Egypt and (soon) Argentina. She is delighted to make her Dead Centre/IAC debut, thanks to Cally Shine.

Joey Shaw was born and raised in Seattle, where he began making theatre at the University of Washington. With Seattle Shakespeare Co. he appeared in Antony & Cleopatra and Twelfth Night*; with Book-It Rep, I Am of Ireland, a compilation of Irish short stories and folk music. After some years of travel and regional acting work in Memphis (TN Shakespeare: Romeo & Juliet, Midsummer Night’s Dream*, All’s Well That Ends Well, Comedy of Errors) Maine (Opera House Arts: The Merry Wives of Windsor), and California (Sierra Rep: Hank Williams Lost Highway) he moved to New York, earning an MFA from NYU’s graduate acting program in 2020. TV credits: The Nash Bridges Movie (USA network), and Law and Order: SVU. *also composing original music

Andrew Clancy is an award-winning sculptor and graduate of the National College of Art and Design (1991). His work is in both public and private collections, and over the last twenty-five years he has exhibited widely. He also lectured in Bronze Casting at NCAD for ten years. He has designed about thirty stage productions including Pan Pan Theatre’s DEFLOWERFUCKED, Mac-Beth 7, One – Healing with Theatre, Oedipus Loves You, The Idiots and Embers, winning Best Set Design (2014) at the Irish Times Theatre Award for his work on their production of Embers. Other work for theatre includes Dead Centre Theatre Company's Souvenir, Lippy and Chekhov's First Play and Hamnet, Barnstorm Theatre’s Jack, Monday's Child, The Messenger, Barney Carey and The Boy with the Suitcase, The Patient Gloria for the Dublin Theatre Festival 2018, and In Vena Cava for Ella Clarke Choreography. Upcoming productions include Collapsing Horse's A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings, and Chekhov's First Play by Dead Centre. 

Stephen Dodd is a Lighting Designer for theatre, dance, and opera. Based between Dublin and Cork, he trained at The Samuel Beckett Centre, Trinity College. He recently won Best Lighting at the 2022 Irish Times Theatre Awards. Recent lighting designs include: for The Abbey: An Octoroon and The Long Christmas Dinner. For United Fall: Night Dances, Birdboy, Girl Song, Dancehall, Dogs, and Listowel Syndrome. For John O’Brien / The Everyman: Heart of a Dog. For Attic Projects: Volcano. For Irish National Opera: A Thing I Cannot Name and Orfeo ed Euridice. For Liz Roche Company: The Here Trio, I/Thou, and Wrongheaded. For Junk Ensemble: Crossing Skin, Dances Like a Bomb, The Misunderstanding of Myrrha. For Dead Centre: To Be a Machine (Version 1.0), Beckett’s Room, Hamnet, Chekhov’s First Play, LIPPY. For Brokentalkers: The Examination, The Circus Animal’s Desertion. For Company SJ: Company. For The Emergency Room: Riverrun.

Grace O’Hara is a freelance special effects, costume and set designer for theatre and film. For Dead Centre, she has designed special effects, costume and onstage design for LIPPY and Hamnet and costume design for Souvenir. O’Hara has also recently designed special effects and onstage design for Philip Connaughton’s Extra-terrestrial Events. She was previously associate designer to Pan Pan Theatre and worked on many projects with Pan Pan, including Quad, Americanitis, Everyone is King Lear In His Own Home, The Rehearsal Playing the Dane, All That Fall, and A Doll House.

Jimmy Eadie is an audio engineer/producer and educator who works within the field of recording, production and sound design. He uses a variety of media which are often presented through extended hybrid forms of installation and performance. His award-winning work has been presented in many Irish and international galleries and venues (National Concert Hall Dublin, Cork Opera House, Irish Museum of Modern Art, Edinburgh International Festival, Brooklyn Academy of Music, Lincoln Centre for Performing Arts, and the Barbican Centre, London). His research interests include creativity and innovation in engineering, intermedial and hybrid art; remediation, sampling and quotation; audio development and interactive sound design. His textual outputs have been published in peer-reviewed journals such as Organised Sound (Cambridge), Leonardo Journal (MIT) and Routledge & Focal Press, Springer Scientific. He is a founding member of the Crash Ensemble (IRE) and was principal audio engineer and technical manager for seventeen years, thereafter, becoming a creative partner. Jimmy has worked and collaborated with notable composers and artists; Phil Niblock, Joanna MacGregor, Steve Reich, Gavin Bryers, Terry Riley, Bang on a Can, Louis Andriessen, Nico Muhly, Bill Whelan, Heiner Goebbels, and many more. He has been nominated (2013) and won the Irish Times Theatre Award for best sound in (2011) and (2015). He has trained extensively in the area of audio engineering with international companies; Meyer (USA), L'Acoustic Audio (FR) and Rational Acoustics (UK), and trained in film sound production with Screen Training Ireland (IRE). Jimmy has collaborated with artists, composers and performers from varied backgrounds, earning music and creative award nominations and much critical acclaim during this time. He has worked in notable recording studios such as Windmill Lane (IRE), Blackbox (FR), and The Church (UK). Jimmy has toured internationally with Irish acts as an engineer/producer and sound designer, working in such prestigious venues as, Carnegie Hall (USA) Royal Albert Hall (UK) Le Gran Rex (FR). He was a professional musician for many years and released material on Chrysalis, Ensign and Setanta Records.

Kevin Gleeson is a 30-year-old composer, music producer and theatre artist from Tipperary, Ireland. After completing an MPhil in music technology at Trinity College Dublin, Gleeson began working with award-winning theatre company Dead Centre. Over the last six years they have premiered work at Burgtheater (Vienna), Schaubühne (Berlin), Stadsteater (Gothenburg) & Gate Theatre (Dublin). Gleeson has toured work to theatres in over 25 countries including BAM (New York), Internationaal Theater Amsterdam, Hong Kong Cultural Centre, Southbank Centre & Alexandrinsky Theatre (St. Petersburg). Chekhov's First Play was awarded Best Sound Design at the 2016 Irish Times Theatre Awards. Gleeson produces and releases music under the moniker Sour Blood. Good Nevers was released in 2021, a four track EP of original music blending various styles from dream pop & rock to minimal electronic & ambient drone.

Liv O'Donoghue is an actor and dancer based in Dublin. She trained at the Northern School of Contemporary Dance in the UK, graduating with an Outstanding Achievement award in 2007. Since then, she has worked across theatre, dance, film and opera touring widely throughout Europe, Australia, China and the USA. Notable companies include; Dead Centre; The Abbey Theatre; Irish National Opera; Dumbworld; Liz Roche Company; Fearghus Ó Conchúir; United Fall; Irish Modern Dance Theatre, and Junk Ensemble. O'Donoghue's own work for the stage has been presented in Norway, France, the USA, Austria, Italy, the UK, Sweden and Germany

Cally Shine is a freelance theatre producer based in Dublin. She holds a BA in theatre and a minor in Irish studies from the University of Montana and a graduate diploma in cultural policy and arts management from University College Dublin. As associate producer at Once Off Productions, Cally line produced Rescue Annie by Eoghan Carrick and Lauren Shannon Jones (Dublin Fringe Festival, 2021), The Performance Corporation’s Emperor 101 (Dublin Theatre Festival 2021), Looking For América by Federico Julián González and Janet Moran (Edinburgh Festival Fringe, 2021; Irish Tour, 2022), and Absent The Wrong by Dylan Coburn Gray (Dublin Fringe Festival, 2022). Cally is also an associate producer with Fishamble: The New Play Company, with whom she line produced Duck Duck Goose by Caitríona Daly (Dublin Theatre Festival and Irish Tour, 2021), The Treaty by Colin Murphy (international Tour, 2021), Outrage by Deirdre Kinahan (Irish Tour 2022) and the upcoming Heaven by Eugene O’Brien (Dublin Theatre Festival and Irish Tour, 2022; Off-Broadway Transfer, 2023). Originally from Seattle, WA., Cally has worked across the United States as an actor, teaching artist, company manager and creative producer. 

Sam Shapiro returns to IAC for her fourteenth show! NYC: Brooklyn Academy of Music, Actors Studio Rep Season, Playbill’s Curtain Up!, and E! Live From The Met Gala. Film: Spielberg's The Kidnapping of Edgardo Mortara (Casting PA). Former high school drama teacher and proud member of the Stage Managers' Association. Instagram: @TheSamShapiro

Jacob Russell is a creative multi-disciplinary theatrical stage manager. Currently he is developing work with Primary Stages. Theatre credits include: Here There Are Blueberries, to the yellow house, Kiss My Aztec!, The Who’s Tommy benefit concert (La Jolla Playhouse), Temporary Occupant (Clubbed Thumb), David Mamet’s The Christopher Boy’s Reunion (Odyssey Theatre), Lisa D’Amour’s Mad Moon (The NOLA Project), This Random World (Actors Theatre of Louisville),The Essential Straight and Narrow (The Mad Ones @ New Ohio Theatre), The Library (The Public Theater), and Sarah Flood in Salem Mass (The Flea Theater). Other stage management credits include Pilobolus’s Big FIVE-OH tour (PSM), Dave Harris’s Cat Sitter (1st AD/OSF), SummerFest ’18 (La Jolla Music Society). Education: M.F.A. from UCSD.

Eoin Gleeson has worked as touring sound assistant with Dead Centre on Chekhov's First Play and To Be A Machine v1.0. He also works as a sound recordist for film in Ireland, and acts and writes for theatre.

Nora Kelly Lester is a multidisciplinary artist, performer and theatre-maker from Dublin. She discovered her great passion for clown theater in 2018 after she trained with internationally acclaimed clown expert Sue Morrison in Clown Through Mask. As an artist she explores ideas that challenge audiences’ perceptions of female identity in playful, funny and provocative ways. Nora has worked and toured extensively with theatre company Dead Centre. Her credits as assistant director include Lippy, Chekhov’s First Play and Hamnet. She has also created work as Catalyst artist in residence with Dublin Circus Project and Dance Ireland and as Director in Residence at The New Theatre. Her previous directing work includes Drawing Crosses on A Dusty Window Pane (Dublin Fringe) by Dylan Coburn Gray, Dead Air (Bram Stoker Festival 2017) Belvedere House, Mother Stoker’s Sickly Stories (Bram Stoker Festival 2016), and The Assassination of Brian Boru The New Theatre (National Tour 2014/2015).

Alannah O’Leary (assistant stage manager, U.S.) is a graduate of the stage management and technical theatre BA degree from the Lir Academy. During this time, she specialized in stage management where she worked on productions such as Three Sisters, Appropriate and Summerfolk. She has stage managed for companies such as ANU productions and THISISPOPBABY. Alannah has worked as a dresser with companies such as Irish National Opera, ANU productions and Shinawil productions on Dancing with the Stars Ireland. Alannah worked as assistant stage manager in the Dublin run of Chekhov's First Play while at the Project Arts Centre, and is thrilled to be working on the New York run