The King Of All Birds

Supported by the Arts Council, Dublin Fringe, Project Arts Centre, field:arts, Smock Alley, and the Pan Pan platform.

Written/Performed: Martha Knight

Director: Joy Nesbitt

Producer: Ois O’Donoghue

Lighting Designer: Jess Fitzsimons Kane

Costume and Set Designer: Jack Rogers

Drone Operator: Phillip Jebb

Martha Knight is an award-winning theatre maker and sound designer from Dublin. She is interested in the overlaps and in-between spaces within the mediums of theatre, sound and sound technologies, music, and participation. Much of her current work is concerned with legacy and heritage, as well as human interaction with technology. She works with silliness, irreverence, the strange, and the surprising. She is a core artist with Tallaght-based collectives SoloSIRENs and Freshly Ground Theatre. She was a 2024 Axis Assemble artist and the 2024 Druid Theatre Marie Mullen bursary recipient. She also took part in the 8th Pan Pan International mentorship. Her recent work as a theatre maker includes ‘The King of All Birds’ (Dublin Fringe 2023, winner of George Fitzmaurice Award), co-directing ‘Sióg’ (Freshly Ground Theatre at Tymon Park, 2023), ‘The Big Blank’ (Dublin Youth Theatre 2023), ‘Spear’ (Dublin Fringe 2022), ‘Supermoon’ (work-in-progress showing, Centre Culturel Irlandais 2022), and ‘As If By Chance’ (Tallaght Community Arts, 2022). Her recent work as a sound designer includes ‘The Playboy of the Western World’ (Livin’ Dred); ‘Made From Paper’ (Foldable Theatre/Mermaid Arts Centre); ‘0800 CUPID’ (THISISPOPBABY); ‘Tempesta’ (Cork Midsummer Festival/Sugarglass Theatre); ‘Sea Legs’, ‘Sióg’, ‘This is a Blank Page’ (Freshly Ground Theatre); ‘3 Winters’ (TU Dublin); ‘The Tightrope Walker’; (SoloSIRENs); ‘Tarry Flynn’ (Livin’ Dred); ‘The Citizen’s Wife’ Ulysses 2.2 (Landmark Productions/ANU Productions/MoLI). She was the associate sound designer for ‘Bedbound’ (Landmark Productions/Galway International Arts Festival); and ‘Minseach’ (Sibéal Davitt).

Joy Nesbitt is a director, writer, and musician originally from Dallas, Texas. Currently based in London, Joy is inspired by stories of Black Femininity and postcolonial imagination. She has been named on The Irish Times and Sunday Times’ lists of “Ones to Watch in 2024.” In 2022, Joy attended the Theatre Directing MFA at The Lir National Academy of Dramatic Arts. She is a 2021 recipient of the Louis Sudler Prize in the Arts for the sum of her artistic activities at Harvard University. She has been nominated for the Verity Bargate Award, Theatre503 International Playwriting Award, Fishamble New Writing Award, Solas Nua New Voices Award, and the Radical Spirit Award. Joy has been a Director SEED for Rough Magic Theatre Company, a Writer under the mentorship of Enda Walsh for Theatre For One with Landmark Productions, and a member of the 2023 cohort of the Rachel Baptiste Programme at Smock Alley Theatre. Joy is also a recipient of the Virgin Media Discovers commission for her short film, The Knife, and she has showcased her short film, Letter, at the Galway Film Fleadh 2024.

Ois O’Donoghue is an interdisciplinary theatremaker, writer, actor and producer from Dublin. Her practice focuses on the exploration of the bounds of medium and genre, delving into the things that seperate us and bring us together in an increasingly divided world. Her work focuses on themes of isolation, queerness and societal progression and regression, all from an Explicitly Trans perspective. Her play HYPER debuted at the 2023 Dublin Fringe Festival and was nominated for both the Fishamble New Writing Award and The George Fitzmaurice Award, before touring to the 2024 Edinburgh Fringe Festival where it received a nomination for the Popcorn X BBC Writers New Writing Award. In 2024 Ois was named Director of the Year by The Arts Review for her work on HATE F%#K by Jodie Doyle. Along with this, original piece FREEZE was featured as part of Landmark Production’s Theatre For One: This Ireland at Cork Midsummer 2024 where it received 5 star reviews from The Irish Times and The Irish Examiner. Most recently, Ois directed The Dolldrums by Liath Hannon, receiving 4 star reviews from The Irish Times and The Arts Review. In 2024, Ois was also selected for Bewley’s Cafe Theatre’s prestigious playwright development scheme Percolate 2024 -2026, a programme through which she is beginnning the development of her next play SUPLEX. In 2020, Ois co-founded Jaxbanded Theatre with collaborator Ruairi Nicholl, where she would go on to create works in a variety of mediums, including the short film Camping At The End Of The World, the concept album and gig theatre piece Sentimental: A New Gig Musical, as well as the virtual interactive theatre piece Aion which would go on to be accepted into the 2023 Game Developers World Championship. In a Producing capacity, Ois has worked alongside United Fall, Jean Butler, Lords of Strut and 15th Oak on productions such as Night Dances, What We Hold, King Shrine, Gold In The Water, CONTENT and Dream Factory. Ois holds an MA in Theatre Practice from University College Dublin and is currently the acting General Manager of THISISPOPBABY.