Fishamble: The New Play Company
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    • Tiny Plays for a Brighter Future Challenge
    • Tiny Plays 24/7
    • #TinyPlayChallenge
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    • Tiny Plays for Ireland 2
    • Tiny Plays for Ireland
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  • Home
  • About
    • Board & Governance
    • Community Engagement
    • Meet the Team
    • Research
    • Encore
    • News
  • Productions
    • HEAVEN
    • In Two Minds
    • FIGHT NIGHT
    • The Black Wolfe Tone
    • Pat Kinevane Plays
      • KING
      • Before
      • Silent
      • Forgotten
      • Underneath
    • OUTRAGE
    • BREAKING
    • TAIGH/TŶ/TEACH
      • TAIGH/TŶ/TEACH Programme
    • Mustard
    • "Certain Individual Women"
    • 35 years of Fishamble
  • Artist Supports
    • Cruising the Boards Workshop
    • Transatlantic Commissions Residency
    • Big Ambitions
    • Playwriting Courses
    • New Play Clinic
    • Send Us Your Writing
    • Fishamble New Writing Award
    • Mentoring & Workshops
  • Tiny Plays
    • Tiny Plays for a Brighter Future
    • Tiny Plays for a Brighter Future Challenge
    • Tiny Plays 24/7
    • #TinyPlayChallenge
    • Tiny Plays for Ireland and America
    • Tiny Plays for Ireland 2
    • Tiny Plays for Ireland
  • Support Fishamble
    • Become a Friend
    • Donate
    • Corporate Membership
    • Sponsorship
    • Thank you
  • Calendar
  • Education
  • Contact
  • Shop
3 Great Denmark Street
Dublin 1, Ireland
D01 NV63

[email protected]
+353 1 670 4018
@fishamble



Registered Charity
No. CHY 20103958.
​
​

Fishamble's
Tiny Plays

What are Tiny Plays and how did they start?

In 2011, Fishamble: The New Play Company invited the citizens of Ireland to submit tiny plays capturing the challenges and joys of contemporary life. Over 1,700 plays were submitted to the company, and Fishamble produced 50 of them in 2012 and 2013 to great audience and critical acclaim, with Michael D. Higgins, President of Ireland, hailing it as ‘a brilliant project…really wonderful’. These plays were also published by New Island Press, and are regularly used for teaching playwriting courses at universities including TCD, NUIG, the Lir Academy, University of Minnesota, University of Maryland, NYU, and UCD.

In 2016 Fishamble brought a specially chosen selection of 20 of these plays to the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. and the Irish Arts Center in New York, as part of Ireland 100, celebrating the centenary of Ireland’s Easter Rising.
brilliant project… really wonderful"
​- 
Michael D. Higgins, President of Ireland

As the Covid-19 crisis hit, Fishamble decided it was time to bring Tiny Plays back.

Fishamble knew that its community and audience needed to keep its creativity flowing, so it started the #TinyPlayChallenge, a weekly prompt announced online that led to hundreds of tiny plays being written, from Ireland and around the world. Between March and May 2020, over 470 plays were written and submitted, with 35 published on the Fishamble website. Fishamble then selected 10 of these plays and created a brand new production called TINY PLAYS 24/7, which was filmed on stage and in actors' homes, and broadcasted online for a week from 24 July 2020 to over 3,000 audience members. It has since received an overwhelmingly positive response from Ireland, and around the world. Fishamble also collaborated with Solas Nua Theatre Company in Washington, D.C. to film some of the Tiny Plays from 2016, with actors in isolation, as part of an online festival of Irish theatre.

In 2021, Fishamble has now partnered with ESB on Tiny Plays for a Brighter Future, to set a challenge for the Irish public, and anyone who feels they have a 600-word play in them, to capture what a Brighter Future means for people living in communities across Ireland.

This callout was part of Fishamble's Tiny Plays for Companies programme, where companies and organisations can work with Fishamble on creating a callout for Tiny Plays internally as a staff engagement initiative, or externally as a public engagement initiative. If you are interested in working with us on this, please contact our Fundraising and Development Executive Freya at [email protected].

Tiny Plays for a Brighter Future, 2021

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ESB has joined forces with Fishamble: The New Play Company to set a challenge for the Irish public, and anyone who feels they have a 600-word play in them, to capture what a Brighter Future means for people living in communities across Ireland.
Read More

Tiny Plays 24/7,
​2020

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Fishamble selected 10 plays from the #TinyPlayChallenge and created a brand new production during lockdown with actors who shared the same household. The plays were filmed on stage and in actors' homes, and broadcast online for a week from 24 July 2020 to over 3,000 people around Ireland and the world.

‘Hilarious…beautiful…charming…delectable…enlightening…a triumph [by the] extraordinarily valiant (and superbly talented) group at Fishamble’
Sunday Independent
Read More

#TinyPlayChallenge, 2020

Picture
Fishamble knew that its community and audience needed to keep its creativity flowing, so it started the #TinyPlayChallenge, a weekly prompt announced online that led to hundreds of tiny plays being written, from Ireland and around the world. Between March and May 2020, over 470 plays were written and submitted, with 35 published on the Fishamble website. ​
Read the Plays

Tiny Plays for Ireland and America, 2016

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Produced in association with the Kennedy Center and the Irish Arts Center,  Tiny Plays for Ireland and America included works by 20 playwrights from Ireland and 6 playwrights from America, as part of IRELAND 100: Celebrating a Century of Irish Arts & Culture.
Read More

Tiny Plays for Ireland 2, 2013

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In March 2012, Fishamble’s Tiny Plays for Ireland 1 sold out Project Arts Centre’s Space Upstairs with the first 25 of 50 plays selected from over 1,700 submitted to Fishamble. In 2013 Fishamble returned with the culminating 25 plays.
​

‘excellent cast… director Jim Culleton imaginatively uses Sabine Dargent’s gangway set… sublime versatility… marvellous… impressive… such economy lets us see the world in a grain of sand’

Irish Times
Read More

Tiny Plays for Ireland, 2012

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Fishamble, in partnership with the Irish Times, asked the Irish public what can be achieved with three minutes of stage time, what are the issues that need to be addressed, and who are the people that should be brought to life in the theatre.

'Extraordinary achievement…very funny…it’s what theatre should be about…the cast are superb under Culleton’s direction’ 
​
Sunday Independent
Read More
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Fishamble: The New Play Company is supported by

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©2025 Fishamble Theatre Company All Rights Reserved.
Registered Company No. 168484. Registered Charity No. CHY 20103958.
Fishamble Theatre Company is a not for profit organisation and a registered charity with a valid charitable taxation exemption from the Revenue Commissioners.

Privacy Policy ​
  • Home
  • About
    • Board & Governance
    • Community Engagement
    • Meet the Team
    • Research
    • Encore
    • News
  • Productions
    • HEAVEN
    • In Two Minds
    • FIGHT NIGHT
    • The Black Wolfe Tone
    • Pat Kinevane Plays
      • KING
      • Before
      • Silent
      • Forgotten
      • Underneath
    • OUTRAGE
    • BREAKING
    • TAIGH/TŶ/TEACH
      • TAIGH/TŶ/TEACH Programme
    • Mustard
    • "Certain Individual Women"
    • 35 years of Fishamble
  • Artist Supports
    • Cruising the Boards Workshop
    • Transatlantic Commissions Residency
    • Big Ambitions
    • Playwriting Courses
    • New Play Clinic
    • Send Us Your Writing
    • Fishamble New Writing Award
    • Mentoring & Workshops
  • Tiny Plays
    • Tiny Plays for a Brighter Future
    • Tiny Plays for a Brighter Future Challenge
    • Tiny Plays 24/7
    • #TinyPlayChallenge
    • Tiny Plays for Ireland and America
    • Tiny Plays for Ireland 2
    • Tiny Plays for Ireland
  • Support Fishamble
    • Become a Friend
    • Donate
    • Corporate Membership
    • Sponsorship
    • Thank you
  • Calendar
  • Education
  • Contact
  • Shop