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Fishamble: The New Play Company is joining forces with poet, performer and playwright Felicia Olusanya (Felispeaks) to offer a Writing for Performance workshop. This playwriting workshop will consist of three sessions. The aim of the workshops is to support underrepresented voices in Irish theatre, by providing the training and tools to write for the stage.

This workshop will be jointly run by Felispeaks and Fishamble Literary Manager, Gavin Kostick. It is aimed at people who want to write for public performance.

Fishamble acknowledges that mainstream Irish theatre lacks representation from the many artistic voices present here in Ireland. As a theatre company dedicated to telling the story of Ireland through new plays, we hope that this pilot workshop provides the tools, expertise, and support that encourages those stories to be told by a wider range of voices. 

APPLICATIONS ARE NOW CLOSED. 

Eligibility
In order to participate you must fulfill all of the following requirements:

• You must be currently resident on the island of Ireland. 
• You must identify as one or more of the following:
  • Black
  • A person of colour
  • From an ethnic minority background
  • From a migrant background
• You must have some experience in writing, for any medium. You do not have to have had experience in writing for the stage.
• You must be available to attend the sessions, outlined below. 

We welcome applications from writers for whom English is a second language.

How will we support you?

• You will be paid €350. Fishamble pays all artists who take part in all of its development initiatives. We value the time you spend developing your creative skills on this programme. 
• By exploring poetry for text and movement, monologues, performance, and developing your personal voice for drama. 
• We will help guide you towards further avenues for the development of your work.

Dates
The workshop will be delivered online, via Zoom, on:
Sunday 21th March: 10am – 1pm
Saturday 27th 10am – 3pm
 Sunday 28th March 10am – 3pm

We require participants to attend all three sessions.

Workshop Facilitators

Felicia Olusanya/ Felispeaks
Felispeaks is a Nigerian-Irish Poet, Performer, Playwright from Co. Longford; currently living in Maynooth town, Co. Kildare. Felispeaks has been nominated ‘Best Performer’ by Dublin Fringe Festival Sep. 2018 Judged for her performance in ‘BOYCHILD’, a co-written play by Dagogo Hart and herself. As well as being a Member of Poetry Ireland's Board, Felicia is a member of the Poetry Collective, WeAreGriot. Felispeaks’ poem: ‘For Our Mothers’ is in the Ordinary Level English Leaving Cert Curriculum 2021 - 2024.  ​

Gavin Kostick
As Literary Manager at Fishamble, Gavin works with new writers for theatre through a variety of courses, script development workshops and award-winning schemes. Gavin is also an award-winning playwright. His works have been produced in Dublin, on tour around Ireland, the UK, Philadelphia and New York. Favourite works for Fishamble include The Ash Fire, The Flesh Addicts and The End of The Road. Works for other companies include This is What We Sang for Kabosh, Fight Night, The Games People Play and At the Ford for RISE Productions. He wrote the libretto for the opera The Alma Fetish composed by Raymond Deane. He also worked on on Gym Swim Party with Danielle Galligan for Dublin Fringe 2019, a co-production with The O'Reilly Theatre. He is currently working on a new play for Fishamble. 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. He has also completed a new version of The Odyssey which has been podcast by RISE Productions