John Comiskey
John’s work at the Abbey Theatre to date has been set, lighting and video for Hamlet, set and lighting for Shape of Metal (co-designed with Alan Farquharson) and lighting for Kicking a Dead Horse, The Drawer Boy and The Doctor’s Dilemna. Other work includes The Sanctuary Lamp (b*spoke), set and lighting designs for Only the Lonely (Birmingham Rep), Mermaids, Hanging on by a Thread (CoisCéim), Sodome, My Love, Shiver and Copenhagen (Rough Magic), for which he won an Irish Times /ESB Theatre Award for Best Design. Both Copenhagen and Hamlet were also nominated for Best Lighting Design. He has designed lighting for numerous Irish Theatre companies including Prime Cut, TheArk, Druid, Siamsa Tíre, Fibin, Barabbas, An Taibhdhearc, Galloglass, Operating Theatre (of which he was also an Artistic Director) and installations by James Coleman. Work as director includes The Frost is All Over (ten42) for the Junction festival, The Well (Abhann Productions), Gavin Friday’s Ich Liebe Dich, both for the Dublin Theatre Festival and two years as production director worldwide of Riverdance – The Show (Abhann Productions). He was curator and designer of the Irish participation at PQ07, the Prague Quadrennial Exhibition of world theatre design 2007. Film work includes directing the award-winning Hit and Run with CoisCéim and documentaries on the Dingle Wren’s Day and The Berlin Years of Agnes Bernelle. Filmed concerts include Liam Lawton Live in Dublin, Celtic Woman, Brian Kennedy Live in Belfast and Ronan Tynan: The Impossible Dream for PBS. He was a television director for RTÉ for twelve years where credits included The Eurovision Song Contest 1995, Nighthawks, Today Tonight, popscene, The Blackbird and the Bell, Fair City and various Telethons and special events. He was Creative Director for Dustin the Turkey at the Eurovision Song Contest in 2008.