Digital Programme: Brú Theatre: Not a Word

Performer  
Raymond Keane is a founding member of multi-award-winning Barabbas Theatre Company. As clown, actor, writer and theatre-maker he has appeared in almost every Irish theatre and on international stages, from the back of a truck to the Brooklyn Academy of Music, touring London, Edinburgh, Wales, France, Denmark, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Japan, New Zealand and the US (New York, Washington, Kansas, Chicago, New Hampshire, Colorado and Connecticut). He has collaborated with Sarah Jane Scaife (Company SJ) on the Beckett in the City project that continues to tour nationally and internationally. So far, this work has been presented at Dublin Theatre Festival, Dublin Fringe Festival, Cork Midsummer Festival, Enniskillen and Paris Beckett Festivals, Barbican Beckett Festival (London), River to River Festival New York and Tokyo.

www.barabbas.ie
 

Musician    
Ultan O’Brien is a fiddle and viola player, composer and filmmaker. He has a background in traditional Irish music and improvised music. He performs as a soloist and in duos and bands with Eoghan Ó Ceannabháin, Martin Green (Lau), Nic Gareiss, Slow Moving Clouds. Skipper’s Alley, Neil Ó Lochlainn’s Cuar, and John Francis Flynn. In 2022, he was commissioned by Centre Culturel Irlandais (CCI) in Paris and Contemporary Music Centre (CMC), Dublin, to create a film and score as part of Ulysses Journey 2022. The film, cling(ing) like fire, was screened at the Irish Film Institute, Dublin; CCI, Paris; Sonic Arts Research Centre (SARC), Belfast, in Budapest, Hungary and at the 2022 Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival.

Director  
James Riordan is Artistic Director of Brú, writer and theatre maker from Galway. He trained at the London International School of Performing Arts (LISPA) and the Atelier für Physisches Theater (APT) in Berlin and spent many years working in Berlin and London for companies including the ENO and Absurda Comica. He was a core member of The LipSinkers (UK) for four years. After returning to Ireland, he set up Brú in 2018 with Jill Murray. He is a recent Abbey Theatre Resident Director and directed the 2023 flagship Macnas Parade, Cnámha La Loba. He recently directed the VR piece No Tempo Por Agua for Teatro Do Silêncio (Lisbon) and is an Irish Times Theatre Awards Best Actor nominee 2020 for his role in Brú’s Selvage.

Producer  
Jill Murray is Brú’s Producer and co-founder, producing all of Brú’s work, including new productions, revivals and touring. She is also Executive Producer with Emma Martin’s dance production company United Fall, producing current, future and touring productions for the company since September 2023. She managed Galway Dance from 2017 to 2023, steering the organisation through a period of growth and development, producing their Galway 2020 European Capital of Culture projects and securing their studio space. From 2020 to 2023, she worked with visual artist Alannah Robins at Interface Inagh, a visual arts studio in the Inagh valley, Connemara, helping to develop Interface over a three-year period, securing Arts Council and department funding and producing exhibitions and events at Interface. Other recent production credit include: Galway Arts Centre’s presentation of the Turner-winning Array Collective’s The Druith’s Ball; Maisie Lee’s Shape of Quiet Feelings as part of Baboró International Arts Festival for Children; and Stephanie Dufresne’s After Love as part of Galway International Arts Festival.

Lighting Designer   
As a designer, SJ Sheils’ work is primarily concerned with space; what space she is working in, what space she wants to create, how it influences the work going into it and the audience experience. She began designing lighting at Dublin Youth Theatre, completing an MSc in Interactive Digital Media, a BA in Drama and Theatre Studies at Trinity, and the Rough Magic Seeds3 programme. From 2010 to 2017, she was co-artistic director of WillFredd Theatre. Previous work with Brú Theatre includes: Selvage. Other lighting designs include Humans: A Robot Musical for Graffiti Theatre; Polar Bear and Penguin with Paul Curley; Party Scene for THISISPOPBABY; The Tin Soldier for Theatre Lovett; All the Angels for Rough Magic Theatre Company; Book of Names for ANU Productions; The Veiled Ones for Junk Ensemble; Afterlove for Stephanie Dufresne / Galway Dance Project; Luck Just Kissed You Hello and One Good Turn at the Abbey Theatre; and Hansel and Gretel for Irish National Opera, Theatre Lovett and the Abbey Theatre. 

www.sarahjaneshiels.com

Sound Designer   
Jenny O’Malley is a Dublin-based composer and sound designer for stage, screen, VR and live performance. She is a classically trained cellist, pianist, flautist and vocalist, and is currently a resident artist at Project Arts Centre (2024-2027), as part of the theatre collective, Murmuration. She has produced music and sound for leading Irish theatre companies on productions including: Absent the Wrong for Once Off Productions; Ar Ais Arís, Gol, Not a Word and The Libravian for Brú; Before You Say Anything and Where Sat the Lovers for Malaprop; Emma at the Abbey Theatre; Good Sex for Dead Centre; Haunted, If These Wigs Could Talk and SHIT for THISISPOPBABY; Masterclass for Brokentalkers; Real Life for Run of the Mill; Sauce with Ciara Elizabeth Smyth; Summertime, Will I See You There and You’re Still Here for Murmuration; and The Lieutenant of Inishmore at the Liverpool Everyman. 

www.jenny.ie

Set Designer   
Andrew Clancy is a sculptor and set designer. His work is in both public and private collections. As a set designer, he initially designed for Pan Pan, starting with Deflowerfucked, through to Oedipus Loves You, Macbeth 7, One healing with theatre, The Idiots and Embers (2014). He was also engaged to design children’s shows, along with designing Patient Gloria for Gina Moxley; A Very Old Man With Enormous Wings and Lost Lear for Dan Colley; and Proust, Lippy, Chekhov, Hamnet, Beckett’s Room and To Be A Machine for Dead Centre.