Jim Culleton is the Artistic Director of Fishamble: The New Play Company, for which he has directed productions on tour throughout Ireland, UK, Europe, Australia, New Zealand, Canada and the US. His productions for Fishamble have won Olivier, The Stage, Scotsman Fringe First, and Irish Times Best Director awards.

Jim has also directed for the Abbey, the Gaiety, the Belgrade, 7:84 Scotland, Project, Amharclann de hÍde, Tinderbox, Passion Machine, the Ark, Second Age, Dundee Rep, CoisCéim/Crash Ensemble/GIAF, Frontline Defenders, Amnesty International, Little Museum of Dublin, Fighting Words, Soho Theatre, Scripts Festival, and Baptiste Programme.  He has directed audio plays for Audible, BBC, RTÉ Radio 1, and RTÉ lyric fm. He has directed for Vessel and APA (Australia), TNL (Canada), Solas Nua, Mosaic, and Kennedy Center (Washington DC), Odyssey (LA), Origin, Irish Arts Center, New Dramatists, and 59E59 (Off-Broadway), as well as for Trafalgar Theatre Productions on the West End, and IAC/Symphony Space on Broadway.  Jim has taught for NYU, NUI, GSA, Uversity, the Lir, Villanova, Notre Dame, UM, UMD, JNU, and TCD.

Deirdre Kinahan is one of Ireland’s major contemporary playwrights. She writes about issues that affect modern Ireland as well as the issues that have clouded its past. She is a masterful, poetic writer, with a way with a phrase that just dazzles.’ The Slotkin Letter, Canada, Review.

An award-winning playwright, Deirdre is a member of Aosdána, Ireland’s elected affiliation of outstanding artists. She collaborates with artists and theatres all over the world, is literary associate to Meath County Council and has a large canon of regularly produced plays to her credit. Deirdre’s plays have been translated into many languages. She is published by Nick Hern Books.

Recent works include The Saviour for Landmark Productions & Irish Repertory Theatre NYC 2023, An Old Song Half Forgotten for the Abbey Theatre & Sofft productions 2023, TEMPESTA Glassmask Theatre/Cork Midsummer Festival 2024, Bloody Yesterday for GlassMask 2022, In the Middle of the Fields for Solas Nua Washington DC 2021, The Visit for Draíocht & Dublin Theatre festival 2021/22, Rathmines Road for the Abbey Theatre & Fishamble 2018 and her Irish Revolutionary Triology (written as part of the national commemorations) – OUTRAGE/EMBARGO/WILD SKY.

As well as REFUGE, Deirdre has a number of new theatre projects premiering in 2026; ADRIFT for NOMAD Touring Network, The Homecoming of Joseph Grace for Cork Midsummer Festival & Pavilion Theatre, and EXILE for Meath County Council & Dublin Port. She is also under commission to Landmark Productions, An Taibhdhearc and Fishamble. She has years of experience as a producer and enjoys curating or participating in multi-genre artistic projects for Meath County Council and other national festivals/events.

Representation: Emily Hickman at The Agency London.

Matthias Werner, born in Nordhausen, trained as an interior designer before studying architecture at the Bauhaus Weimar.

From 2000 to 2006, he worked as a stage design assistant with Jan Pappelbaum at the Schaubühne am Lehniner Platz, the Theater Nordhausen, and the Saarländisches Staatstheater Saarbrücken, among others.

Since 2004, he has been designing his own stage sets and costumes at the Schauspiel Stuttgart, Maxim Gorki Theater Berlin, Theater an der Wien/Neue Oper Wien, Schauspielhaus Bochum, Staatstheater Oldenburg, Staatstheater Braunschweig, and Ballhaus Naunynstrasse, among others. He has worked with directors such as Anna Bergmann, Helena Waldmann, Jan Neumann, Hendrik Müller, Neco Celik, Maguerite Donlon, Petra Wüllenweber, and Bob Ziegenbalg.

Matthias Werner also designs sets for films, most recently for Ramon Zürcher’s Das merkwürdige Kätzchen (The Strange Little Cat), which premiered at the 63rd Berlinale in 2013.

Ulrich Schneider was born in Hamm, Westphalia, in 1962. He studied mining and theater and event technology in Aachen and Berlin. From 1991 to 1995, he worked at the Schauspielhaus Cologne, most recently as lighting director.

From 1995 to 1999, he worked as lighting director at the Berlin Volksbühne am Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz under artistic director Frank Castorf. From 2001 to 2014, he was lighting designer and lighting director for the Nibelungen Festival in Worms. He held the same position at the Bad Hersfeld Festival from 2015 to 2019. Since January 1, 2020, he has been head of lighting and lighting designer at the Mainz State Theater.

Since 1999, he has been working as a freelance lighting designer and set designer for opera, musical, theater, and dance productions, as well as in the field of museum and exhibition lighting.

He has worked with directors such as Christoph Marthaler, Lars Ole Walburg, Nikolaus Lehnhoff, Karin Baier, Frank Castorf, Johann Kresnik, Karoline Gruber, Christoph Schlingensief, Vera Nemirowa, and Gil Mehmert for the Vienna State Opera, the Burgtheater Vienna, the Korean National Opera in Seoul, the Schauspielhaus Zurich, Philharmonie Luxembourg, Theater Basel, Kampnagel Hamburg, Staatsoper Stuttgart, Festspielhaus Baden-Baden, Aalto Oper Essen, Opéra de Metz, Schwetzinger Festspiele, Oper Graz, and Bad Hersfelder Festspiele.

In recent years, he has also been responsible for lighting design for world premieres such as Orlando by Olga Neu.

Lina Maria Stein, born in 1996 in the Vulkaneifel region, completed her voluntary social year in theater education at the Landestheater Detmold.

While still studying theater studies at JGU Mainz, she was hired as a set design assistant at the Staatstheater Mainz in 2019 and successfully completed her studies in January 2020. After numerous assistantships in stage and costume design and further training in fashion design and costume history, she went on to create her own sets, collaborate on productions, and design costumes for theater and opera, working with K.D. Schmidt, Mark Reisig, Simone Glatt, Gianluca Falaschi, and Fabio Godinho, among others.

Axel Heintzenberg grew up in Babenhausen in southern Hesse and appeared on stage in various musical productions as a teenager. After graduating from high school, he studied music education with a major in singing at Justus Liebig University in Giessen and subsequently worked as a musical director, vocal coach, and choir director.

He was a member of the Darmstadt Concert Choir under the direction of Wolfgang Seeliger, the Petruskantorei in Giessen under the direction of Herfried Mencke, and a founding member of the “Kicks’n’Sticks Voices” (vocal group of the Hesse State Youth Jazz Orchestra) under the direction of Wolfgang Diefenbach. Here he completed numerous work phases and workshops with renowned lecturers (New York Voices, The Real Group, Jeff Cascaro, among others), went on concert tours with the LJJO in China and South Africa, and participated in several CD recordings.

As a sound engineer and music producer, he worked for film and television—including DEIN SONG (ZDF/KIKA) and Das Mädchen und der Flüchtling (ARD)—and founded his own recording studio in Darmstadt with three colleagues in 2017.

Axel Heintzenberg has been employed at the Mainz State Theater since November 2022. In the 2024/25 season, he can be seen as Charon in Orpheus. The Art of Losing.

Outside of the theater, he continues to work as a vocal coach and composes music for children’s musicals.

Steve Wickham studied violin at the Royal College of Music in Dublin and emerged in the early 1980s as one of the most distinctive violinists in contemporary Irish music.

He joined The Waterboys in 1985, helping to shape the band’s defining sound, and has toured and recorded with them extensively ever since.

Over the course of his career, he has also recorded and performed with artists including U2, Sinéad O’Connor, and Shane MacGowan.

Alongside his work in rock and folk music, Wickham has developed a substantial body of work for
theatre. He has collaborated with The Abbey Theatre on productions by Michael Harding and Tom MacIntyre, including Caoineadh Airt Uí Laoghaire and Cúirt an Mheán Oíche.

In 2023, he was nominated for an Irish Times Theatre Awards award for Best Soundscape for Carpet Theatre’s Breath, in which he also performed. He has composed and acted in plays by Deirdre Kinahan,
including Tempesta and Refuge, as well as The Hare by Bob Kelly and Clare Monnelly.

Wickham has released eight albums with his own band, NoCrows, and has composed scores for
films including Prisoners of the Moon, Witness to the Future, and Groundswell for Bandit Films,
directed by Johnny Gogan. His music also appears in international films such as the Oscar-winning
Good Will Hunting and Waking Ned Devine.
Based in the northwest of Ireland, he continues to compose, perform, and exhibit as a visual artist.

Jörg Vorhaben was born in Hamburg and studied theater studies, sociology, and education in Erlangen, Berlin, and Amsterdam. During his studies, he worked as an assistant director at the Maxim Gorki Theater Berlin and co-organized ARENA—International Week of Young Theater in Erlangen.

In the 1999/00 season, he was assistant dramaturg at Schauspiel Hannover, from 2000 to 2002 dramaturg at the Nationaltheater Mannheim, and from 2002 to 2006 dramaturg at Schauspiel Köln. At these theaters, he worked with K.D. Schmidt, Albrecht Hirche, Niklaus Helbling, Friederike Heller, and Sebastian Baumgarten, among others. From 2006 to 2014, he was senior dramaturg at the Oldenburg State Theater and director of the Go West Theater Festival from Flanders and the Netherlands.

Since the 2014/2015 season, he has been chief dramaturg at the Staatstheater Mainz. He was dramaturg for the productions Ramstein Airbase – Game of Drones (director: Jan-Christoph Gockel), Sleepless (director: Hannah Barker), All das Schöne (director: Jana Vetten), ForsterHuberHeyne (director: ensemble and Peter Van de Eede), and Drei Mal die Welt (director: Jan Neumann), among others.

Boris C. Motzki, born in Worms in 1980, studied theater studies and German philology at Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz (graduating in 2006).

From 2006, he worked as an assistant director at the National Theater Mannheim, where he created his first productions. Since 2009, he has worked as a freelance director, including at the Staatstheater Darmstadt. His productions have been invited to festivals on numerous occasions.

From 2014 to 2017, he was deputy artistic director and head of drama at the Landestheater Eisenach.

In 2016, he was accepted into the German Academy of Performing Arts.

Since the 2018/19 season, he has been working as a dramaturg at the Staatstheater Mainz, but also continues to work as a freelance director (Madame Bovary, RLT Neuss 2024). He is responsible for the Literarisches Quartett series and works as a translator. He is also a guest lecturer and author, including for the FAZ. With the group Maier Motzki Schärf, he also performs as a reciter and, together with Istvan Vincze, runs the podcast Playspotting about drama.

Gavin Kostick is a playwright, literary manager and independent dramaturg.
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His works have been produced nationally and internationally. Favourite works for Fishamble include The Ash Fire, The Flesh Addict, The End of The Road and Invitation to a Journey (with CoisCeim and Crash Ensemble). The Leap is Gavin’s first play for children.
Further works include This is What We Sang for Kabosh, Fight Night, The Games People Play and At the Ford for Rise Productions and Gym Swim Party with Danielle Galligan in co-production with the O’Reilly Theatre. He wrote the libretto for the opera The Alma Fetish composed by Raymond Deane, performed at the National Concert Hall. As a performer he performed Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness: Complete, a six hour show for Absolut Fringe, Dublin Theatre Festival and the London Festival of Literature at the Southbank.
Gavin is currently the literary manager of Fishamble: The New Play Company, a tutor in playwriting and dramaturgy in both The Lir Academy and Trinity College Dublin as well as being a core mentor on the Tenderfoot Transition Year programme for young writers at the Civic Theatre.
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Particular favourite projects that Gavin has initiated and delivered with Fishamble include Show in a Bag (with Dublin Fringe and The Irish Theatre Institute), The New Play Clinic, The Dublin Fringe New Writing Award, Tiny Plays for Ireland and A Play for Ireland.
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Both for Fishamble, and as an independent dramaturg, Gavin’s projects and works he has supported have gained significant national and international award recognition including amongst others Irish Times Irish Theatre Awards, BBC Stewart Parker Trust, Zebbie Awards, Dublin Fringe Awards, Business to Arts, Olivier, Scotsman Fringe First, Herald Angel and Archangel and New York Critics’ Pick.

His own plays have also received similar national and international award recognition. Gavin has recently completed a new version of The Odyssey, supported by Kilkenny Arts Festival, ClassicsNow.

Katharina Greuel studied theater studies and cultural anthropology in Mainz and Lisbon. In addition to working as an assistant director in Germany and Switzerland, she organized local festivals and major events during her studies, including the youth political Open Ohr Festival Mainz.

At the Staatstheater Wiesbaden, she was involved in various capacities in all editions of the theater biennial NEUE STÜCKE AUS EUROPA (New Plays from Europe), most recently in 2014 as artistic director of the final festival edition. In the same position, Katharina Greuel organized and directed the International Büchner Festival in Giessen in 2013. At the Institut français Mainz, she took over the management of the cultural department together with the directorate in 2015, where she was responsible for the artistic program as well as production management and public relations.

In 2021, she moved to the Staatstheater Mainz for the TANZKONGRESS 2022 – SHARING POTENTIALS, where she was responsible for international artistic production as part of the management team.

Since the 2022/23 season, she has been co-directing the Mainz Residenz at the Staatstheater Mainz with Jörg Vorhaben and curating and managing the PLUG&PLAY Theaterfestival für junge Regie (PLUG&PLAY Theater Festival for Young Directors), which she co-founded.