SoloSIRENS

As we head into our second and final night at @galway_theatre_festival , we have one last crew announcement to share - the mind behind our onstage waiting room, Pai Rathaya. -------- Pai Rathaya is a Thai stage designer based in Bangkok who works across Theatre, Exhibition and Event. Her theatre design work is set and costume design. Her theatre work spans theatre, opera, musical, and dance. Rathaya graduated with a MFA stage design at the Lir Academy, Dublin, Ireland in 2018. At the moment, she works across Ireland and Thailand. @pai.rathaya @macdjenny #setdesign #galwaytheatrefestival #artsandhealthireland #care #community

Check out what audiences are saying about The Tightrope Walker by Jenny Macdonald! 😍 You have one more chance to catch this amazing show today at 6pm! Grab your tickets now at galwaytheatrefestival.com

We are thrilled to announce that our Sunday show will be followed by a post-show discussion hosted by the inimitable Johanne Webb 🌟 Book tickets to join us for our Sunday show and post-show via the link in bio! Johanne Webb is a mother, actor, writer, director, Family Constellations facilitator & member of MAM (Mothers Artists Makers). She is the founder of The Grief Café in Galway, and regularly runs theraputic events for people. BA Acting MMU (Capitol Theatre),MA Theatre & Media for Development (University of Winchester). Current/recent credits Connie (Ann Blake/Joanne Ryan), Moloch (Megan Shaughnessey) A Personal Prism (Declan Gorman Arts & Events), Camp Everyone (Rósan), SALT (Vanessa Earl), Where Mountain Kisses Sea (Twisted Lane), Also For Roaring ( Róisín Stack), 9 Stories About Love (A Little Door),A Damsel In Distress (Rob Ashford). Regular Performance Director for Macnas. Johanne is currently working on her own show The Meat Factory. She is a Druid FUEL & Axis Assemble recipient. @galway_theatre_festival @johannewebbnow @saoltaarts @macdjenny #artsandhealthireland #galwaytheatrefestival #care #solosirens #community

Our final crew announcement - introducing our stage manager Ruby Collin and producer Martha Cosgrove! -------- Ruby Collin is a stage manager, props maker and facilitator based in Dublin. Recent productions include: Sing Hello to the Sun (The Civic Theatre, 2026), Alice in Funderland (TU Dublin, 2025), Belfast Girls (Quintessence Theatre, 2025) A Day In May (TU Dublin, 2025), Mother Tongues’ Festival 2025 (Mother Tongues, 2025), The Tightrope Walker (Jenny McDonald, 2025, First Fortnight Festival). Ruby has also worked as a facilitator with children and teens of all ages in projects such as YSI’s Speak Out Tour, Tenderfoot, Growing a Future, Creative Places MacUilliam and Alt Ents Children's Festival. Ruby graduated from TU Dublin's BA in Drama (Performance) in 2022. -------- Martha Cosgrove is a theatre facilitator, maker and manager. She works frequently with SoloSIRENs across producing, facilitating and administrative roles. She has worked on The Tightrope Walker team since 2024, as audience facilitator in its 2024 & 2026 hospital tours, and in First Fortnight Festival 2025. Martha is comh-stiúrthóir of Scaoilte Theatre collective with Cian Ó Náraigh, a bilingual collective dedicated to socially-conscious, politically-aware and ecologically-focussed work. As a facilitator, she works frequently with Tallaght Community Arts and Freshly Ground Theatre. Martha graduated from Drama and Theatre Studies in Trinity College Dublin in 2025. @_rubycollin @_marthacosgrove #galwayevents #galwaytheatrefestival #womenintheatre #community #artsandhealth

✨ The Heart Ward and The Tightrope Walker in Conversation✨ Two stories inspired by health-based experience, two innovative forms, sharing one venue and festival. Jenny Macdonald and Max Hafler sat down to chat about the connections between their pieces, both featuring in @galway_theatre_festival in the O’Donoghue Theatre. Find the full conversation via the link in bio. Don’t miss these two inspiring and innovative pieces in Galway Theatre Festival! The Tightrope Walker is written and performed by Jenny Macdonald and runs on 2nd & 3rd May. The Heart Ward is written by Max Hafler and presented by @chekhovtpi on 8th & 9th May. Full info available via @galway_theatre_festival . #artsandhealthireland #community #storytelling #galwaytheatrefestival @saoltaarts @inawordtheatrecompany @_marthacosgrove @_rubycollin @bronwenbarrett

Meet Ciara Meehan, lighting up each moment of The Tightrope Walker's story! --------- Ciara Meehan is an award winning theatre maker. She graduated from Performing Arts Production in Inchicore College of Further Education with distinction. She was lead festival technician for SoloSIRENs Festival, 2019 and 2023, designing for Jenny Macdonald, Nicole O’Rourke, Veronica Dyas, Tatiana Santos and the SoloSIRENs Collective productions. Ciara was also the Lighting Designer for the sold-out show ‘Cessair’ produced by SoloSIRENs and has been the Lighting Designer for 'Tightrope Walker' by Jenny Macdonald since its induction. Other design projects include ‘Gusto’ by Billy McGrath, ‘In Her Shoes, by Dovile Dovi, ‘Magic Play’ by Liam Wilson Smyth, Lighting Designer for the debut show '3.30 at Cheltenham' by Ken Hudson and is currently the Lighting Designer and Production Manager for ‘Synapsis’ by Liam Wilson Smyth, which is touring later this year. Ciara runs her own production, theatre equipment rental and events company, In A Word Theatre Company and is also the Head Technician for Performing Arts Ireland and Phoenix Flyers Cheerleading and Acrobatics Club. @inawordtheatrecompany #galwaytheatrefestival #womenintheatre #lightingdesign #cancerawareness #community

Introducting the team behind The Tightrope Walker's immersive sound design: sound designer Martha Knight and sound operator & performer Bronwen Barrett! -------- Martha Knight is a theatre maker, composer and sound designer, interested in the overlaps between theatre, music, sound, and participation. She is a core artist with Freshly Ground Theatre and SoloSIRENs. Her work with SoloSIRENs includes "The Tightrope Walker" (sound designer/performer) and "Cessair" (sound designer/songwriter), and SoloSIRENs symposia in 2021 and 2023. She was Druid Theatre’s Marie Mullen Bursary recipient for 2024. Recent work includes ‘Do You Come From Gomorrah?’ (Abbey Theatre), ‘Three Sisters’ (Gaiety Theatre), and ‘Uncle Vanya’ (Smock Alley). She also won the George Fitzmaurice Award for her solo show ‘The King of All Birds’, which recently toured to Toronto as part of the Canada Ireland Foundation’s inaugural Bealtaine Festival. -------- Bronwen Barrett is a theatre artist, facilitator and performer based in Dublin. She creates immersive, sensory rich experiences with a strong focus on early years and community practice. She cares about making spaces where children and young people are not just participants, but artists, shaping the direction and meaning of the work. She has been working in the community of Tallaght since 2017, both independently and as a core artist with Freshly Ground Theatre. Her practice spans devised performance, workshops and long term collaborations with schools, youth groups and early years settings. Bronwen is currently in residence at JADD with her long time collaborator Michelle Henry, supported by the Arts Council of Ireland, developing an arts programme for their crèche and preschool and working closely with educators to build sustainable theatrical practice. Her most recent performance project with Martha Knight, is supported by the Arts Council Theatre Project Award. The work explores themes of nature, gender, resilience and collective imagination through physical theatre, visual storytelling and a touch of absurdity. She believes in the art of silliness and in making theatre that is generous, accessible and meaningful. #galwaytheatrefestival

In the most recent episode of Places Please, Jenny shares how she created a theater game where half of the performance is scripted and the other half depends on four audience members choosing to sit on stage. This means the show is a new experience. Each time. Stories unfold in different orders. Angie shifts and tone varies each night. Change discussion around her concert journey and how it impacted her theater piece really inspired me. I hope you get a chance to listen to the episode which is now live on my YouTube and Spotify. #Theatre #GTF #SupportTheatre

Meet the Tightrope Walker team! Introducing our writer and performer, Jenny Macdonald, and our director, Joe Salvatore --------------- Jenny Macdonald is the writer/performer of ‘The Tightrope Walker’, her second solo play and collaboration with Joe Salvatore. The show has been presented at Smock Alley Theatre as part of First Fortnight Festival, the Samuel Beckett Theatre, TCD and the Civic, Tallaght, as well as several hospitals and care settings. She is the director of SoloSIRENs, an intercultural, female-identifying theatre collective committed to creating more just, caring and sustainable ways of making and presenting theatre. She is also a drama facilitator working with a wide range of communities including trainee doctors at the Royal College of Physicians in collaboration with the Abbey Theatre. --------------- Joe Salvatore creates plays and performances from interview-based data and found media artifacts and often draws inspiration from contemporary and historical events. He is grateful to collaborate with Jenny Macdonald again after working with her on “Enthroned” and honoured to be included as part of the SoloSIRENs festival. Joe is a Clinical Professor of Educational Theatre and director of the Verbatim Performance Lab at New York University's Steinhardt School, where he teaches courses in ethnodrama, verbatim performance, and community-engaged theatre. @macdjenny @profjoesal #community #galwaytheatrefestival #care #solosirens

What do our past audiences say about The Tightrope Walker? Here's how our First Fortnight 2025 audience members described their experience of the show. Only five days until our first show in Galway Theatre Festival! Booking link in bio. 📸 Videography and photography by Conor Keegan @conamonstaphoto @macdjenny @galway_theatre_festival @marthaknight.art @inawordtheatrecompany @bronwenbarrett @_rubycollin @profjoesal @_marthacosgrove @firstfortnight #galwaytheatrefestival #firstfortnight #artsandhealthireland #community #solosirens

“This will not happen in a linear order. This is not a piece about a linear moment. This is a piece about a non-linear moment, about a curveball.” 📸 Some snaps from our rehearsal room in @rua_red yesterday as we prepare for two new tellings of the Tightrope Walker story. ✨Each show is a new story, as different numbers are pulled, different pages lifted, and different moments shared - join us on Saturday 2 & Sunday 3 May to piece this story together with us! 🎟 Ticket link in bio This performance of The Tightrope Walker is funded by Galway Theatre Festival and The Civic, Tallaght. Image description 1: A view of The Tightrope Walker rehearsal room from the onstage sound desk. A laptop sits open showing a QLab sound file and beside it is a script. Beyond the table there are pages with numbers printed on them scattered all over the floor. Black and red chairs of a conference room are in the background. 2: Jenny is picking up one of the many numbered pages from the floor. She is wearing a striped dark red and blue t-shirt and dark trousers. She holds a blue folder to put the pages into. 3: A view from above on some of the Tightrope Walkee props. A blue folder for medical files sits on the left, it is labelled as from Beaumont Hospital. To its right is a metal bowl filled with black, red and blue poker chips. 4: Jenny and Bronwen smiling with their arms around each other’s shoulders the end of our final rehearsal. Bronwen is on the left, she has strawberry blonde wavy hair and wears a pinstriped blue button-up shirt. Jenny is on the right, wearing her stripy red and blue t-shirt. @macdjenny @bronwenbarrett @marthaknight.art @inawordtheatrecompany @_rubycollin @_marthacosgrove @jenniferiwebster #community #galwaytheatrefestival #artsandhealth #tallaghtarts #solosirens

The team behind the Tightrope… Our crew are busy this week rehearsing and preparing to bring the Tightrope Walker to its 10th new venue. The Tightrope Walker brings the backstage perspective directly onto each new stage, as a live operator for Martha Knight’s immersive sound design shares the stage with Jenny. Step inside each moment to join the tightrope walker on her journey on 2 & 3 May in the O’Donoghue Theatre, Galway. Ticket link in bio! Funded by Galway Theatre Festival and the Civic, Tallaght. 📸 Images 1 & 2 by Lee Robinson, Images 3 & 4 by Vlad Gurdis Image Description: Picture 1: A side angle view of the Tightrope Walker Stage, showing Bronwen Barrett sitting at a desk with her back to the camera, writing in a stage manager’s folder. She is wearing a green t-shirt and has blonde hair tied back. In the background is the set of The Tightrope Walker, creating an imagined waiting room, and performer Jenny Macdonald. Picture 2: A side profile of producer Martha Cosgrove, sitting in the foreground, and Jenny Macdonald, standing beside her. Martha wears a green patterned sweatervest and has auburn hair, and smiles looking forward with her hand resting at her chin. Jenny stands beside her looking forward. Picture 3: Sound designer Martha Knight is in focus, sitting behind a table onstage with a sound desk and laptop in front of her. She has dark hair and wears a green t-shirt. She is looking at Jenny whose face is in soft focus, as she performs. The lights are softly colourful. Picture 4: The set of the Tightrope Walker from the perspective of the onstage sound desk. A sound desk and laptop are in the foreground, with a green floor behind them, with white pages scattered across it. At the other side of the set are two rows of black and red chairs. @macdjenny @marthaknight.art @bronwenbarrett @inawordtheatrecompany @_rubycollin @_marthacosgrove @jenniferiwebster @galway_theatre_festival #backstage #galwaytheatrefestival #womenintheatre #community #solosirens