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.

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.

Sabine Dargent has won two Irish Times Best Set Design Awards and been nominated for two others.  She is a freelance Set and Costume Designer, working mostly in theatre, with various directors and companies.

Sabine has designed a few times for Jim Culleton and Fishamble Theatre Company which she always enjoys!  As well as other shows for Jim, including Monged, Strandline, Tiny Plays for Ireland 1 & 2, and Spinning, she designed set and costumes for The Pride of Parnell Street, also written by Sebastian Barry, and designed by the same team. Sabine works with Mikel Murfi very often, also for Michael Keegan Dolan, Conall Morrison, Enda Walsh, Paul Mc Enaney, Selina Cartmell, and a lot of others in Ireland and abroad.  Some productions she has designed have been very successful and toured  for a long time, such as Swan Lake, The Walworth Farce, Rian, The Pride of Parnell Street…  S

he loves theatre, dance, and physical theatre, but has also designed for exhibitions, films, and has designed big events, such as the GAA 2016 celebration in Croke Park, and street theatre, such as the St Patrick’s Dublin Parade sections City Fusion and Brighter, taking care of the visuals for costumes, floats, props, and make up, for about 200 participants.

Kevin trained at The Samuel Beckett Centre, Trinity College Dublin. He is based in Dublin and has worked in Ireland and internationally designing for theatre, dance and opera. His previous work with Fishamble includes Outrage, Spinning and Rathmines Road.

Other theatre design credits include Blackwater Lightship (Verdant), Bang (Michelle Read), Class (Abbey Theatre & Inis Theatre), The Odd Couple (Everyman Theatre), Driving Miss Daisy, Moll, The Snow Queen, Aladdin, The Little Mermaid, Jungle Book (Gaiety) His opera design credits include Flight (Opera Collective), Die Fledermaus, Kiss Me Kate with NI Opera, King Arthur, Vampirella, Saints & Sinners and Clori Tirsi é Fileno (RIAM) and Flatpack with Ulysses Opera.

Kevin’s dance design credits include Caged (Femme Bizarre), 12 Minute Dances (Liz Roche Co.), Coppelia (Ballet Ireland), Manefesto (Maiden Voyage).

Denis has previously worked with The Abbey Theatre, The Gate Theatre, Fishamble, Rough Magic, CoisCéim, Junk Ensemble, Corn Exchange, Northlight Theatre, Chicago and Beijing Children’s Art Theatre. He won the Irish Times theatre award for Best Soundscape in 2011 and 2019. He was also a nominee in 2015 for Junk Ensemble and Brokentalker’s ‘It Folds’. Denis was an associate artist with the Abbey in 2008 and was a participant on Rough Magic’s ADVANCE programme in 2012.

​Composition for Film and Television includes the feature films One Night In Millstreet (Fastnet Films) Older than Ireland (Snack box Films), His and Hers (Venom Film), The Irish Pub (Atom Films) and the animation series Will Sliney’s Storytellers (Fastnet Films).

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.