Patron Donation Award 2025 - Announced
First launched in 2015, Pavilion Patron Donation Award is a performance-based award to co-commission and co-produce ambitious main stage works. Made possible by the generous contributions of Pavilion Theatre’s loyal patrons, €140,000 in total has been allocated to support these projects.
We are delighted to announce the 10 Pavilion Patron Donation Awardees for 2025. The awardees working across theatre, music and dance in all four provinces will receive funding to advance their creative projects. Selected from a highly competitive pool of nearly 60 applications, these artists represent unique voices, exciting collaborations and, above all, outstanding art that engages widely with audiences. We look forward to supporting them as they bring their work to life.
Pavilion Patron Donation Awardees 2025
- 15th Oak
- CoisCéim
- Cormac Begley
- Dead Centre
- Decadent Theatre Company
- Deirdre Kinahan
- Fishamble: The New Play Company
- Foggy Notions
- Front and Centre, SkelpieLimmer Productions & An Grianán Theatre
- Rosa Productions
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About the Awardees
15th Oak
15th Oak is the theatre partnership of writer Ross Dungan (pictured) and producer Matthew Smyth. Credits include Content (Dublin Theatre Festival, 2024), Some Names Were Changed (Dublin Fringe Festival, 2019), Before Monsters Were Made (2015) and The Life and Sort of Death of Eric Argyle (2012).
Project: Quick
Thomas Quick was Sweden's most prolific serial killer. Until, after years of incarceration, he uttered a startling revelation. He'd fabricated every single confession. Quick is a study of the long term effect of a false confession on a single family over decades.
CoisCéim
Led by David Bolger, CoisCéim ("kush-came") produces exceptional, inclusive, and sustainable dance theatre, in line with its values of integrity, vibrancy, connection, and joy. Winner of multiple Irish Times Theatre Awards, its distinctive work inspires genuine curiosity in dance and its relevance to everyday life. More at coisceim.com
Project: FIREBIRD
CoisCéim's FIREBIRD by David Bolger will take Stravinsky's masterpiece for the Ballet Russes and reimagine it for today's Ireland – recounting this powerful story of hope through the body of a single dancer – in a large scale, flamboyant presentation that will push the boundaries of stage magic.
Cormac Begley
Cormac Begley is an award-winning concertina player from West Kerry, rooted in a rich family tradition of Irish music. Renowned for his daring and soul-stirring approach, he plays thirteen concertinas spanning bass to piccolo registers.
Project: Further details to be announced.
Dead Centre
Dead Centre is one of Ireland’s foremost contemporary theatre companies, based in Dublin and led by Artistic Directors Bush Moukarzel and Ben Kidd, and Producer Tilly Taylor. Since 2012, they have created new productions at home in Dublin, and toured that work internationally.
Project: The Mess
The Mess is a new production, created by Dead Centre with Mark O’Halloran, about how we might best understand and protest the burning of the planet. A monologue for many people, inspired by the death of activist David Buckel, the piece is designed to exist simultaneously throughout the world - a collective response to a crisis that none of us can individually grasp. How might we all apologise for the mess?
Mark O’Halloran is a writer from the west of Ireland, he has written extensively for theatre, television and film, including for the television adaptation of Sally Rooney’s CONVERSATIONS WITH FRIENDS. Writing for stage includes TRADE, CONVERSATIONS AFTER SEX (winner of Best New Play at the Irish Theatre Awards 2022), contributions to text for LIPPY and BECKETT’S ROOM for Dead Centre, and THE SILENCE at Göteborg Stadsteater with Dead Centre.
Decadent Theatre Company
Decadent Theatre Company is an ambitious large-scale producer of new and neglected scripts. Run by Director Andrew Flynn and Producer Dani Gill, their World Premieres include: The Map of Argentina, From A Low & Quiet Sea, Finding Sophie, The Chief, There Are Little Kingdoms.
Project: Nuala
Nuala is an adaptation of Hugo Hamilton’s novel Every Single Minute, which tells the story of 'Una' (Nuala O'Faolain) and her dying wish to see Berlin. The play challenges ageism and ideas of conformity with insight into the life of one of Ireland’s brightest feminists.
Deirdre Kinahan
Deirdre Kinahan is an award-winning playwright and member of Aosdána. She collaborates with artists and theatres all over the world, is literary associate to Meath County Council, published by Nick Hern Books with a large canon of regularly produced plays to her credit. In 2026 Deirdre looks forward to four world premieres in Ireland and Germany and a series of international productions of previous plays.
Project: The Homecoming of Joseph Grace
Not just a play of what was, or what is, The Homecoming of Joseph Grace by Deirdre Kinahan is a tender, disarming and unexpected new work. Wrapped in longing and separation, this is a meticulous and devastatingly vivid portrayal of a life lived in extraordinary circumstance. As we sit with Joseph in an Irish ferry terminal, we sit with every refugee and every citizen of the world who is forced to flee in search of peace, happiness, love, home. Produced by Once Off Productions/Cork Midsummer Festival and Pavilion Theatre. Directed by Louise Lowe.
Fishamble: The New Play Company
Fishamble is an Irish theatre company that discovers, develops and produces new plays of national importance with a global reach. It champions the role of the playwright, typically supporting over 50% of the writers of all new plays produced on the island of Ireland each year. Fishamble has received many awards in Ireland and internationally, including an Olivier Award.
Project: LIMBO
Linda and Michael are about to meet for the first time in thirty years. She is divorced and he, now a crusading priest, is home from a parish in LA. There are many unanswered questions that could affect the rest of their lives.
Eugene O'Brien wrote the award-winning Eden (Abbey Theatre) and Heaven (Fishamble). Other work includes SAVOY, FALLING TO EARTH and he has also worked with Pan Pan theatre company. Film and TV work includes PURE MULE and the forthcoming film ONE SWEET HOUR.
Foggy Notions
Foggy Notions is an independent live arts company focusing on artistically ambitious events, such as MusicTown and Haunted Dancehall as well as some 500 plus standalone live concerts over the past four years taking place everywhere from small venues to the 3Arena.
Project: To be announced soon, keep an eye on Pavilion Theatre’s social media.
Front & Centre, SkelpieLimmer Productions & An Grianán Theatre
Front & Centre is a collective dedicated to advancing women and non-binary playwrights from the North of Ireland. SkelpieLimmer Productions are dedicated to discussing taboo subjects through the lens of comedy. An Grianán Theatre, in the heart of Letterkenny, is distinctive amongst regional venues for its success as a theatre producer. They are partnering to bring Hello Charlie to stages.
Project: Hello Charlie by Caoimhe Farren
Sisters Maeve and Kate have fled Derry for London. Maeve binge-drinks, dodging culpability for her drunken antics by blaming her alter-ego: Charlie. Kate worries. A black comedy about trauma, sisterhood and breaking the cycle of familial addiction.
Caoimhe Farren is an actress from Derry. Hello Charlie was developed as part of The Lyric’s New Playwrights Programme. It was shortlisted for The Women’s Prize for Playwriting and was a finalist for the inaugural Victoria Wood Playwriting Prize for Comedy.
Rosa Productions
Rosa Productions is an independent arts production company, record label and theatre production company founded by Irish singer-songwriter Mick Flannery in 2019.
Project: The House Must Win
The House Must Win is a gritty new musical drama by Mick Flannery that sweeps audiences into the emotional undertow of its story and song. Legendary Irish comedian, actor and broadcaster Tommy Tiernan will make his musical theatre debut in the role of Ray, with Tabitha Smyth, Ferdia Walsh-Peelo, Niall McNamee, John McCarthy, Orlagh De Bhaldraithe and Damian Kearney completing the stellar cast. Premiering at Pavilion Theatre in April. For booking information click here.
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Congratulations again to our awardees. Due to the high standard of applications, the selection process was highly competitive, and we wish to thank all who applied for the time taken and effort made. Please keep an eye on our website and social media for information about our 2026 artist development funding calls in due course.