Christian O'Reilly is a playwright from Galway whose first full-length play, The Good Father (published in The Tiger In Winter, Methuen Drama 2006), was produced by Druid Theatre Company for the 25th Galway Arts Festival in 2002 and toured throughout Ireland in 2003. It was joint winner of the 2002 Stewart Parker New Playwright Bursary. His screen credits include Inside I'm Dancing, a feature film that won the Audience Award for Best Film at the Edinburgh Film Festival in 2004, two Irish Film and Television Awards, and the AIB People's Choice Award for Best Irish Film.
Eugene O'Brien was an actor for ten years before writing his play Eden. The play has been translated into many langauges and performed in London's West End, around Europe and Canada, and in the USA. The play received the Irish Times Best New Play of the Year Award in 2001, the 2001 Stewart Parker New Playwright Bursary and the 2003 Rooney Prize for Literature. Other plays include Savoy, and plays for radio and television.
Gerald Murphy is a high school English teacher, playwright, composer, songwriter, singer and instrumentalist. He has written more than thirty plays and musicals, many of which have been performed in over twenty countries. After being selected for Druid theatre company's Debut programme in 2000, his play Take me Away was developed as part of Rough Magic's SEEDS project.Murphy's first radio play Stranger in the Night was broadcast by RTE in 2001, and received a PJ O'Connor Award. He is a past winner of a Scotsman Fringe First award and a Stewart Parker Award (both 2005).
Malachy McKenna trained at Focus Stanislavski Studio. He has worked extensively as an actor, and has written for film and theatre.
Mark Doherty has worked extensively as an actor and as a stand-up comedian, besides writing for radio and television. His radio credits include A Hundred and Something, Stand-up Sketches and The Bees of Manulla for RTE, and The O' Show for BBC Radio 4. For television he has written The Stand Up Show, Back to the Future and Time Trumpet for BBC TV, and the six-part comedy series Couched for RTE. Trad, his first play, premiered at the Galway Arts Festival in 2004 and went on to Dublin, Adelaide, London and the Edinburgh Festival where it won a Fringe First Award. It also received the 2004 BBC Radio Drama Award from the Stewart Parker Trust. In 2006, Mark received the Tiernan MacBride International Screenwriting Award for his first screenplay, A Film with Me in It, in which he acted alongside David O'Doherty, Dylan Moran and Amy Huberman.
Richard Dormer trained as an actor at RADA in London, and has since played many leading roles onstage throughout the UK and in Ireland. He won the 2004 Irish Times Best Actor Award for his performance in Frank McGuinness's Observe the Sons of Ulster Marching Towards the Somme at the Lyric Theatre, Belfast. He has also appeared extensively on television and on film. His first play, Hurricane, based on the life of Alex Higgins, the Belfast snooker star, premiered at the Old Museum Arts Centre in Belfast in 2002; the subsequent tour included the London premiere at the Soho Theatre in 2004 and a transfer to the West End. The play won the 2002 BBC Radio Drama Award from the Stewart Parker Trust, and his performance gained him The Stage's Best Actor Award at the 2003 Edinburgh Festival. The Half, his second play, premiered at the Belfast Festival at Queen's in 2005. During 2005 and 2006 he appeared with the Peter Hall Company in productions of Miss Julie, Measure for Measure and Waiting for Godot.
