'You, Fin and the Play Between' Participants Announced

The final ten participants for You, Fin and the Play Between have been selected! Following a both difficult and inspiring application process wherein over ninety exceptional submissions were considered, this new playwriting programme, in collaboration with Baboró International Arts Festival for Children, Graffiti Theatre and Theatre for Young Audiences Ireland, will see participants work closely with world-renowned playwright for young audiences Finegan Kruckemeyer to create their own unique, original pieces of theatre for young audiences.

The successful applicants are: Mark Ball, Diane Crotty, Alexandra Gogan, Shiva R Joyce, Bob Kelly, Mary-Lou McCarthy, Niamh Murphy, Miriam Needham, Jody O’Neill and Julie Sharkey.

All ten participants will attend virtual mentoring sessions and creative workshops with Fin over the next six months, developing their pieces and exploring their passion for theatre for young audiences.


Meet the Participants


Mark Ball

Mark Ball

Mark Ball is a queer facilitator and theatre-maker (directing, devising, writing and performing) and is Super Paua’s Engagement Director (www.superpaua.org).

Recent credits: Scéalta Super Paua, Sraith 2, i gcomhoibriú le axis: Ballymun, 2020 (director, producer & dramaturg with Ursula McGinn); Super Paua Stories, Series 1, 2020 (director/producer/dramaturg); The Lonsdale Project, Riverbank Arts Centre, 2020 (delivered workshops on science, art, creativity and politics for 400+ children for Science Week, created engagement website, directed short film, co-curated interactive exhibition); Evil is… devised with NPAS, The Lir, 2020 (writer, director, deviser); Best Before, devised with Dublin Youth Theatre, Teachers’ Club, 2020 (writer, director, deviser); home/sick, Samuel Beckett Theatre, 2019 (director/deviser/writer); 24 Hour Plays, 2016 & 2019 (Assistant Director); RISING, Abbey Theatre, 2016 (Assistant Director).

Mark has facilitated workshops and co-created theatre with places like Science Gallery Dublin, Cabinteely Youth Theatre, Abbey Theatre, and the Ark. Awards and Bursaries include: Riverbank Arts Centre’s MOMENTUM 2020 award to develop a theatre/hula-hoop show for teenagers exploring the history of women’s bodies and sexuality; Baboró’s GROW Mentorship in 2019; Young People, Children & Education bursary from Arts Council in 2019 to deepen the complementary practices of facilitation and theatre-making through practical and writing mentorship with Veronica Coburn.

Diane Crotty

Diane Crotty

Diane Crotty is a Dublin-based playwright, dramaturg, director and performer. Her writing credits include Gig Nua (Superpaua Scealai, 2020), SALTBORN (Mercury Theatre Monologue winner, 2020), Folsom (Tiny Play For Ireland winner, 2020), RISK (2016 Dublin Fringe), Absolute Beginners (New Theatre, 2017), Spandex Blues (Smock Alley, 2016), Dragonscales (Smock Alley Collaborations, 2015) and A Very Zombie Fairytale (The Exchange 2012, revived 2013). Her directing credits include BASH (Out of Time Theatre, 2018), RISK, A Very Zombie Fairytale, Shadowskin (Siteation, 2012) and Measure for Measure (La Cathedral Studios, 2011).

She was the recipient of the 2018 Axis Bursary to develop her neurodiverse children’s show, The Silent-Hearted Princess.

As a dramaturg she has worked with companies as diverse as Superpaua and Game Theory. She is a graduate of both TCD and UCD, and a member of TYA Ireland. She has trained with Theatre Lovett (Teddy Talks 2020, Actor Training 2018), Fishamble Theatre (Playwriting Fellowship co-produced through Belltable Limerick, 2016), Dante or Die (masterclass co-produced through Belltable Limerick, 2017) and Cardboard Citizens (London, 2012).

Alexandra Gogan

Alexandra Gogan

The first story Alexandra Gogan was ever told was about the fall of communism. Specifically, how they were changing her diaper on the dining-room table as the crowds celebrated Ceausescu's execution.

So, she started life with a bang.

She’s half gypsy, half Romanian. She says she got her fair skin from her mother, the nose, ears and love of stories from her father.

She left her loud, musical and chaotic house at 18 to study Theater.

She’s been a face-painter, a nanny, a kids entertainer, a club promoter by night, a children’s theatre actor by day. She asked for donations on the streets of Harlem New York - or as she likes to call it: “professional begging in exchange for lunch money and life lessons”.

After University, she and her friend started their own little theatre company.

They adapted stories, painted props, sewed dolls, acted, directed, scheduled shows and carried sets in heavy suitcases to all venues that would have them. The only thing they didn’t do was the math.

Currently: part-time cheesemonger, writer and aspiring comedian.

Some of her favorite things: Gus Gordon's “Herman and Rosie”, the sky seen from underneath big trees, “Mary and Max”, funny, vulnerable people, all things cheese.

Shiva R Joyce

Shiva R Joyce

Shiva R Joyce is an Irish Writer and Printmaker who hails from the Antipodes. She is Features Editor for GoodDayCork, the only publication in Cork focused on amplifying the voices of writers from minority backgrounds and stories from the community that are not represented in mainstream media – including young people of all backgrounds. It is also the only publication space in Ireland, founded and run by BrownSkinGals, with multilingual features embedded as standard.

She is on the Board of Directors of NASC Immigrant Support Services working to see an end to the segregated detention of Asylum seekers in Irish Direct Provision; studying Creative Writing at Oxford University and developing her Lino Printmaking skills with Cork Printmakers. Her core project currently is ‘Talanoa,’ a poetry and print anthology about intersectional and ethno-ecological realities and displacement, from an Islander perspective.

All this cannot occupy a mind like hers fully, so she reads copiously or scripts and develops mini- stop-motion animations for her nieces and nephews abroad involving things like: origami rabbits conquering paper clouds; merwinged creatures on amphibious adventures or compostable puppets known as ‘Little things’ that hide in your garden in the hope you won’t step on them…which she sometimes shares with the wider world.

Bob Kelly

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