Announcing our 2024 FUEL artists
We are delighted to announce the artists taking part in FUEL 2024: Raphaël Adams, Dylan McGloin, Áine Ní Laoghaire and Emily White.
12 December 2023
These four artists will embark on the creation of new theatre pieces during the 9-month FUEL programme, which includes mentorship, workshops, residency periods, a showcase event in The Mick Lally Theatre, networking events, funding and producing advice.
Raphaël Adams is a Galway-based theatre-maker seeking to challenge the conventions of traditional theatre through practices of audience delegation as well as queer performance. In his practice, he currently researches and explores themes of intimacy, connection, and isolation within a neoliberal context.
Raphaël completed a BA in English, Drama, and Film at University College Dublin and continued his studies at the University of Galway where he graduated with an MA in Theatre Practice and Production. He further trained with Arthaus Berlin and has received an Arts Council Agility Award to develop and train his physical theatre skills.
During FUEL, Raphaël will develop an experimental piece which will recontextualise Jonathan Swift’s satirical work Gulliver’s Travels within the world of modern-day dating. Using audience delegation, Raphaël here will continue to investigate to what extent audiences’ labour can be employed to create affective theatrical experiences.
Dylan McGloin is a Leitrim-based artist who works as a set designer and director, focusing on creating design-led pieces of devised theatre which include actors in the process of devising not only the story structure and text but also the design.
Dylan has an honours degree in Performing Arts (Theatre Design) from ATU Sligo. He is the Director and Set Designer of Know Promises Theatre Collective in Sligo, a group of Irish and international mixed-disciplinary artists. In 2023, he won the Abbey Theatre’s Yeats Bursary Award featuring a six-month residency at the theatre. He has also been awarded a Gap Day bursary from Mermaid Arts Centre in 2023.
During FUEL 2024, Dylan will adapt Deaf Republic, a book of poetry by Ilya Kaminsky. He will devise a theatre piece based on Kaminksy’s story of a small Russian town invaded by foreign soldiers and the young deaf boy who is shot by the soldiers while watching a puppet show.
Áine Ní Laoghaire is an actor, writer and director based in Galway.
Writing credits include Etáin (Corcadorca), Polly and Flies (Smock Alley Theatre) along with essays for The Irish Times, The Coven and Women Are Boring. Her writing is supported by the Arts Council of Ireland and Cork City Council. Her directorial debut, The Scratcher by Kelly Shatter, was nominated for a Little Gem Award at Dublin Fringe 2023.
During FUEL, Áine will develop My Boyfriend Plays Pretend, exploring the phenomena of live action role play (LARP), a character-driven gameplay that takes place in committed spaces and combines elements of improvisation, costume and role play. The piece will focus on a LARP event, 1942, in which players immersed themselves in the daily experience of villagers living under German occupation in World War II. Through this lens, she will examine the quest for connection in our increasingly isolated society and the complex and radical intersection of play, politics and belonging.
Emily White is a multi-disciplinary writer and theatre-maker, originally from Dublin and now based in Galway. Her work grapples with the uncanny, the strange and the absurdity of the human experience, often through a blend of genres.
Emily’s most recent project is an immersive theatrical audio installation, Possession, presented as part of Galway Theatre Festival 2022. At present, she is developing her newest play with the support of an Arts Council Agility Award.
In 2021, Emily worked with the Town Hall Theatre as part of their Young Curators initiative, a national programme of arts events handpicked and coordinated by young people. She is currently part of the Synchromesh programme for emerging creatives in the field of audio drama, supported by International Arts Partnership and Creative Europe.
During FUEL, Emily will develop All My Friends Are Bots, a piece combining live performance and voiceover. A sci-fi tragedy told on a domestic scale, the play will explore connection and companionship in an increasingly automated world.
Read more about FUEL here.
FUEL is supported by the Arts Council, Kumi & Bill Martin, Jim & Lori Steinberg and FinanceBoston.