A three-day celebration of new ideas, readings and works in progress from SEEDS Companies Gift Horse Theatre and Arínọlá Theatre, as well as Rough Ideas: Open Call Writers CN Smith and Ruth McCloskey.
Rough Weekend
Rough Magic SEEDS
18 - 20 December 2025
Thursday 18 December SEEDS: Gift Horse Night
Gift Horse presents a selection of current and upcoming works-in-progress alongside their ecological manifesto. Leonora is a new play inspired by the life and works of Surrealist artist Leonora Carrington. Leonora takes not just Carrington but the research process as its subject: why do we turn to figures from the past to shape our present? Could Carrington’s radical ecofeminist vision lead us to new futures? Romeo and Juliet is a preview of a new version of Shakespeare’s play, exploring love and youth in a time of changing romantic and sexual norms. What constitutes love, and who gets to define it? Gift Horse’s ecological manifesto sets out their evolving relationship with the term “environmentally conscious theatre,” and offers new ways to approach making theatre in a time of climate crisis.
Friday 19 December SEEDS: Arínọlá Night
Arínọlá Theatre presents an experimental script. We Dance: As The Village Burns Down. Newly devised and created based on their inaugural creation WE DANCE. They are experimenting with creating a new script framework which will allow a new show to be devised with new performers bringing new perspectives to the work, independent of the original creators. We Dance is a theatrical exploration of black womanhood and femininity in a modern Irish context. What does that even mean? Who does femininity exclude and in doing so leave unseen, unheard. What would you say if you went through your whole life saying nothing? What do you do when no one will even acknowledge your existence? Do we scream or cry? It is easy to cry but sometimes it is better to laugh. Sometimes it’s better to Dance.
Followed by a post-show interview, whereby Arínolá Theatre will have an open interview exploring the process carried out to bring you We Dance: As The Village Burns Down.
Saturday 20 December: Selection Box
SEEDS and Rough Ideas dive into a selection box of new ideas with reprise presentations from both SEEDS Companies of some of the best bits of the previous nights and new excerpt readings from our Rough Ideas: Open Call writers CN Smith and Ruth McCloskey.
About Rough Magic
Rough Magic is a national, independent theatre company, delivering a comprehensive programme of new Irish writing, reimagined classics, and contemporary international plays, to audiences across Ireland and beyond. Rough Magic provides an unexpected angle to the mainstream and an anchor to the emerging generation.
Over four decades, Rough Magic has established itself as a creative entity and a valued institution; operating as an ensemble across the spectrum of scale and style, offering fresh perspectives and engaging audiences with the qualities that define us – wit, subversion, intellectual rigour, and free artistic expression. Since its foundation in 1984, Rough Magic has produced 148 shows, including 45 World premieres and 26 Irish premieres.
The company is an industry pioneer in artist development, notably through our SEEDS programme for emerging artists, through which many leading theatre makers were introduced to the industry. We believe in showcasing and platforming theatre practitioners at all stages, supporting them to take artistic risks.
About the SEEDS Companies
Gift Horse Theatre
Gift Horse Theatre is an environmentally conscious company made up of core artistic team Signe Lury, Doris de Vries, and Elishka Lane, and associate artists Ciara Berkeley, Mae Leahy, and Jilly McGrath. Gift Horse creates playful, provocative work exploring how we relate to the repertoire today. Previous work includes don’t copy me (copy) (Dublin Fringe Festival, 2025 – winner of the George Fitzmaurice Award), DON’T COPY ME (Samuel Beckett Theatre, 2024), harvest (The Greenhouse Theatre, 2023), War and Peace (open-air tour, 2022), Twelfth Night (open-air tour, 2021), and Tess (TCD Rose Garden/open-air tour, 2019/20).
Arínọlá Theatre
Arínọlá Theatre is a black led theatre company facilitating and cultivating an artistic community in Dublin. Much of the work we create and work on features black and POC characters. Our main goal is to create a community of creatives with a specific focus on platforming the voices of those who are often unheard or misheard in the theatre community
About the Rough Ideas Writers
CN Smith
CN Smith is a playwright and theatre maker from County Louth. His play Spear was a Dublin Fringe Festival Commission in 2022 and received its North American premiere in February 2024. His play Corktown was commissioned as part of the Trans-Atlantic Commissions by Fishamble: The New Play Company and The Irish Repertory Theatre. He holds an MFA in Playwriting from the Lir Academy, where he was a recipient of the Patricia Leggett Scholarship.
Ruth McCloskey
Ruth is an enthusiastic 18 year old from Clondalkin with a passion for all things music, literature, film and theatre. She found her love for theatre in the Tenderfoot program at the Civic and developed this relationship further by partaking in the TenderWRITE program. She recently completed her leaving certificate and is in her first year at college.
Gift Horse Production Credits
Producer: Sinéad Gallagher
Stage Manager: Jack Leitch
Costume: Mae Leahy
Set: Laura Fajardo Castro
Leonora Writer & Director: Signe Lury Leonora
Deviser/Performers: Ciara Berkeley, Sam Coyle, Carina Gabilondo, Elishka Lane, Cian Malin, Doris de Vries
Leonora Composers: Cian Malin & Daniel Montague O’Brien
Leonora Sound Design: Daniel Montague O’Brien
Romeo and Juliet Director: Doris de Vries
Romeo and Juliet Performers: Ciara Berkeley & Elishka Lane
Arínọlá Production Credits
WE DANCE
Created by Praise Titus
Devised by Praise Titus and the cast
Director: Praise Titus
Producer: Rema Hamid
Dates & Times
18 - 20 December
7pm
Tickets
€10/8
Space
Cube
Duration
18 & 19 December: 90 minutes
20 December: 2hrs + interval
Note
Please note that all three evenings are separately ticketed. You must buy a ticket for each event you would like to attend.
Genres
TheatreWork in Progress
https://vimeo.com/
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