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Writer in Residence

We were delighted to welcome theatre-maker Jenny Macdonald as our 2022 – 2023 Writer in Residence. Jenny used the time to write a script for a new play, ‘The Tightrope Walker’, which explores the tension between the inherent loneliness of illness and the deep connections grief makes possible with others.

Directed by Joe Salvatore of New York University’s Verbatim Performance Lab, ‘The Tightrope Walker’ was performed during Summer and Autumn 2023 at Dublin’s Civic Theatre Tallaght and Rua Red Arts Centre, among others. More recently, it was staged during Creative Brain Week 2024 at the Samuel Beckett Theatre, Trinity College Dublin. Writer Sylvia Thompson reviewed this performance for The Irish Times, saying: “The metaphor of illness as a journey is not new, but the writer and performer brings levels of personal insight, observation and generosity to the show that is rare to witness.”

See solosirens.info for details of future performances.

‘The Tightrope Walker’ also received an Irish Hospice Foundation Seed Grant in 2023, which is generously supported by the Creative Ireland Programme.

About Jenny Macdonald
Jenny is a theatre-maker whose practice encompasses writing / performing and directing / facilitating.  Her solo show ‘Enthroned’ premiered at First Fortnight Festival in 2016 and has since been presented by the New York International Fringe Festival, Town Hall Theatre, Galway, glór, the Civic, and First Fortnight online in 2020. In 2019, Jenny created SoloSIRENs, a theatre-making collective based at the Civic in Tallaght, Dublin. SoloSIRENs amplifies women’s voices onstage and beyond, and works to create a more just, sustainable, and caring way of making and presenting theatre. Jenny and SoloSIRENs were also part of Irish Hospice Foundation’s Compassionate Culture Network 2021 – 2022.

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