Expanding the idea of what plays can be and who gets to write them, Box of Tricks is a paid professional development opportunity, lead by the Abbey Theatre’s Literary and New Work Team. It gives artists with an established practice in making or giving live performances for an audience in any artistic discipline a chance to get to grips with some of the tools of writing for theatre so that they can build whatever kind of play they want. Box of Tricks is kindly supported by the O’Neill Family, the Abbey Theatre’s Playwright Development Patron.
Row 1, left to right: Amber Deasy, Aoife Sweeney-O’Connor, Colm McCready and David Ferreira-Alves. Row 2, left to right: Emily Bradley, Holly Hughes, Joshua MacNuadhat and Kane O’Connell O’Flynn . Row 3, left to right: Leah Rogers, Liadán Roche, Niamh O’Farrell-Tyler and Tori Kay.
This year’s participants are:
Amber Deasy
Amber Deasy is an actor, writer and director from West Cork. She studied Theatre & Drama Studies at the Cork School of Music and completed an MA in Acting at ArtsEd. Most recently, she performed in The Father Myth at Cork Arts Theatre, directed by Hanan Sheedy. Her screen credits include Bridget in the IFTA-nominated short film A White Horse, directed by Shaun O’Connor. Amber was a recipient of the CATALYST Award, with the Cork Arts Theatre in 2024. For this she presented a staged reading of her play The Dream Can’t Sleep, a comedy about the London-Irish immigrant experience.
Aoife Sweeney-O’Connor
Aoife Sweeney O’Connor is a performer, writer and maker from Donegal. Their debut show, An Evening with Wee Daniel had a sold-out Dublin Fringe run, winning the Theatre Lovett Award and Bewley’s Little Gem nomination. It toured Ireland and the UK. Aoife hosts and produces EGG, the award-winning DIY queer cabaret with sold-out shows from BelloBar to the National Stadium. A trained actor, they have appeared in acclaimed film and theatre work. They were selected for the Irish Theatre Institute’s Six in the Attic Residency and Dublin Theatre Festival’s Next Stage. They are a Dublin Fringe Artist in Residence and have received support from Babaró, the Arts Council, An Grianan Theatre, Outburst Queer Arts Festival and Daniel O’Donnell himself.
Colm McCready
Colm is a theatre-maker based in Belfast and is the associate artist of SkelpieLimmer Productions. Together they produced his first play ‘Scaredy Fat’, which won the Les Enfants Terribles LET Award and the Pleasance National Partnership in association with Lyric Theatre Belfast. The show was nominated for Best Performer, Radical Spirit, and Spirit of Wit at the Dublin Fringe Awards 2023. He co-created the award-winning ‘SHAME SHOW’ with Fergus Wachala-Kelly, which won the GEST Best in Fest Award at Gothenburg Fringe Festival and The First Fortnight Award at Dublin Fringe Festival 2024.
David Ferreira-Alves
David Ferreira-Alves is an Afro-Brazilian theatre-maker and performer based in Dundalk, Louth. Their practice works at the intersection of theatre, embodiment, and ecology, drawing on Afro-Indigenous cosmologies and queer methodologies. They create performance through ritual action, physical dramaturgy, and site-responsive exploration rather than conventional narrative form. David holds an MPhil in Theatre and Performance from Trinity College Dublin and has developed work through programmes including Irish Theatre Institute’s Six in the Attic. Their work is concerned with memory, land, transformation, and the unstable body on stage. They are currently developing new theatre projects exploring ritual, language, and reinvention.
Emily Bradley
Emily Bradley is a theatre maker whose work blends bold storytelling with comedy and satire. They wrote and produced Cult of Aerobics, which premiered at Dublin Fringe Festival and was nominated for the Theatre Lovett Award. In 2024, they received a Best Performer nomination at Dublin Fringe for Who Robbed Annie Queers. Emily’s practice is rooted in collaboration, from devising Tales to the Mall for the National Theatre of Scotland to site specfic work, A good room. Alongside their theatre practice, they co-hosts and produce the weekly radio show Queerosity, celebrating queer voices and culture.
Holly Hughes
Holly Hughes is a writer, poet, and performer. Her debut solo show, I Want to Speak to Your Manager, performed to sold-out audiences at Dublin Fringe Festival in 2025. The Irish Independent named her a rising star to watch in 2026. She represented Ireland at the 2025 Poetry Slam World Cup, winning third place. She was a runner-up in the 2024 All-Ireland Poetry Slam, a State Finalist in the 2023 Australian Poetry Slam and has been published in Westerly, Washing Windows V, and The Stony Thursday Book. She is completing a Master’s in Creative Writing at the University of Limerick.
Joshua MacNuadhat
Joshua MacNuadhat is a multidisciplinary artist from Donegal. After receiving a scholarship in 2020, he trained under the Ad Astra Performing Arts Program at UCD. His first full-length show, THE DEADLINE PROJECT, was co-written in collaboration with Arinola Theatre. It debuted to a sold-out run at Dublin Fringe 2025. Since then, he has co-founded Aon Scéal Productions, written and directed Potato Republic (their inaugural show) and has had another short play of his, Whatever Happened to Little Green Men? commissioned as part of Hysteria Theatre’s One Act Showcase for 2026.
Kane O’Connell O’Flynn
Kane O’Connell O’Flynn is a working class, Cork born artist whose passion for storytelling was reignited in 2019 when he was cast in the short film “Christy”. A 2025 graduate of Bow Street Academy, his credits include reprising his role of RADAR in the 2025 IFTA winning Christy, theatre work as MARTIN in The Second Woman opposite Eileen Walsh, upcoming TV projects and various short films. His debut short film “No Mayo” is in pre-production, and he is developing his first one man show. Kane creates character driven work that explores contemporary Irish life through voices and perspectives too often overlooked.
Leah Rogers
Leah is an actor, writer and storyteller. Born in Derby to an Irish Mum, she relocated to Wicklow two years ago to be closer to family and to immerse herself in the place she kept writing about. Dedicated to telling tales packed with queer joy and laughter, Leah has performed at venues such as The Sugar Club and Beyond the Pale. Alongside Theatre, her work in the production department of major studio projects and her participation in NTA’s GALPAL Writer’s Club, empowered Leah to produce her own short film, a romcom about compulsory heterosexuality set to premiere this year.
Liadán Roche
Liadán Roche is a trans filmmaker and playwright from Cork, best known for her short film debut Terratoma (2024), about a trans woman’s search for absolution through her art. She received the SDCC Individual Artist Bursary 2025 and participated in Fishamble’s 2025 Cruising the Boards queer workshop series to develop her first full-length play, Broodmare. Liadán is currently in post-production on her short film Hostile Architecture (2026), a trans romance horror about doomed love in the housing crisis. As a disturbed woman, she is drawn to creating works about disturbed women
Niamh O’Farrell-Tyler
Niamh O’Farrell-Tyler is an actor, writer, and theatre-maker based in Dublin. They are the founder of theatre and events collective DYKEish making work “for queers, by queers”, where they wrote and performed the collective’s debut production, ROADKILL, at the 2025 Edinburgh Fringe. After graduating in 2023 from Drama and Theatre Studies at TCD, Niamh has performed across stage and screen with a variety of companies including RTÉ, Commoners Theatre, Cult Collective, No Head Theatre, Talisman Theatre, and Battlehour Productions. They are currently represented by Take2 Talent Management. Niamh also works in stage management, most recently ASMing the Abbey’s Dublin Gothic.
Tori Kay
Tori Kay is an aspiring writer and performer. As a recent Advanced Actor graduate from Liberties College, Tori has six productions under her belt. She developed an interest in directing during her time as a Bull Alley student but later realised she was more drawn to creating her own work. This led her to focus on writing. Her writing career began early; at the age of 11, her work was published in the 2008 anthology Pickles and Pancakes following a writing competition.
