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Pavilion Pulse Awards 2025 - Announced

18 September 2025
Pavilion Pulse Awards 2025 - Announced

First launched by Pavilion Theatre in July 2025, Pavilion Pulse Award supports daring ideas and champions work that has its finger on the pulse of today. With the kind support of the Arts Council, €70,000 in funding has been made available to support development in a variety of ways to bring exciting projects closer to completion.

Today, we are delighted to announce the inaugural Pavilion Pulse Award recipients. These 30 awardees working in theatre, music, dance, live podcasting, family and multidisciplinary work, and based across all four provinces, will be supported with funding to develop ambitious new projects.

Chosen from a very competitive callout of 275 applications, this award champions artists taking risks, asking urgent questions and responding fearlessly to the world around us. We look forward to supporting them as they further develop their work.

Awardees in Alphabetical Order:

  • Aisling Smith
  • Alan Mahon
  • Alison Teahan
  • Anna Sheils-McNamee
  • Ciara Elizabeth Smyth
  • Conall Morrison
  • Fishamble: The New Play Company for The Navigator Project (see details below)
  • Grace Sun Park
  • Harry Hall
  • James Phelan
  • Janet Moran
  • Jenni Nikinmaa
  • Jimmy Murphy
  • Kate Brosnan
  • Laura Brady
  • Lisa Tierney-Keogh
  • Liv O'Donoghue
  • Livin' Dred Theatre Co.
  • Luke Casserly
  • Michelle Read
  • Niamh McCann
  • Niamh Regan
  • Paul Curley
  • Rachael Lavelle
  • Rima Baransi
  • Shane O'Reilly
  • Stefano Callovi
  • Stephen Jones
  • Séamus Ó Flatharta
  • Ultan Pringle
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Awardee Biographies:
 
Aisling Smith
Aisling is a playwright and director dedicated to creating socially engaged theatre. In recent years, she has expanded into making theatre for young audiences.This April she produced Teddy Bears' Picnic; a sensory play for 0-3 year olds in dlr Lexicon Studio.
 
Alan Mahon
Alan Mahon is a writer who strives to create entertaining theatre that makes audiences laugh, cry and think. His play A Young Man Comes was shortlisted for the Verity Bargate Award. He participated in BBC Writers' Voices programme in 2024.
 
Alison Teahan
Alison Teahan is a Cork-based actor, playwright and producer who studied in NYC. Her first play, Warm Regards, won the Catalyst Award and is due for production in September 2025. Her second play, The Girls Room, was awarded a BEGIN residency with CTC. 
 
Anna Sheils-McNamee
Anna is an award winning writer, director and actor living in Dublin. She is the writer of My Dad’s Blind; winner of Best Production Dublin Fringe. You can see her in The Walsh Sisters this month.
 
Ciara Elizabeth Smyth
Ciara Elizabeth Smyth is an award-winning Dublin playwright acclaimed for dark humour and inventive form. Her work has appeared at leading theatres internationally and has been translated globally, with recent and upcoming productions spanning Dublin, Edinburgh, New York, Washington D.C.
 
Conall Morrison
Conall Morrison is a director and playwright. As well as directing thirty shows for the Abbey, he has directed for: RSC, Globe Theatre, Landmark, Fishamble, Once Off, Lyric, INO and Cameron Mackintosh. His production of Colin Murphy's The United States vs Ulysses recently played the Irish Arts Centre, NYC.
 
Fishamble: The New Play Company
Fishamble is an Olivier Award-winning theatre company that discovers, develops and produces new plays. It has toured extensively in Ireland and to 21 countries worldwide. Fishamble typically works with over 300 artists each year. Fishamble’s award is for The Navigator Project, a public call-out for short plays about health inequalities, with details to be announced soon.
 
Grace Sun Park
Grace Sun Park is a classical pianist and multimedia artist. Drawing from her experience of living in multiple countries, her work explores the intersection of East and West, conveying her multicultural identity through contemporary music and interdisciplinary performance.
 
Harry Hall
Harry Hall is a writer and director from Dublin. He has been fortunate enough to have worked with directors Jeda de Brí and Andy Crook. Harry studied the art of playwriting under renowned playwrights Marina Carr and Gavin Kostick.
 
James Phelan
James Phelan is a screenwriter and occasional playwright. He won an IFTA for Wrecking the Rising. He created legal drama Striking Out for RTÉ and Rásaí na Gaillimhe for TG4. In animation, he has written for BBC, Disney and Nickelodeon.
 
Janet Moran
Janet Moran is an actor and playwright based in Dublin. Her play Quake (Dublin Theatre Festival, 2023) was awarded Best Theatre Script at the Writers Guild Awards. Afterwards (Dublin Fringe Festival, 2024) is published by Methuen. Other plays includes Swing, A Holy Show and Looking for América.
 
Jenni Nikinmaa
Jenni Nikinmaa is a playwright originally from Finland, from where she was banished to the Western outskirts of Europe as she doesn’t like sauna. Now she lives on an island and writes weird, off-beat comedic plays about grim autobiographical stuff.
 
Jimmy Murphy
Jimmy’s plays include The Kings of the Kilburn High Road, The Hen Night Epiphany, and most recently The Chief for Decadent Theatre. A member of Aosdána, he also serves on its governing body, An Toscaireacht.
 
Kate Brosnan
Kate is an actor, writer, and designer from Kilkenny working across both stage and screen. With the help of this bursary, she will continue developing her one-woman show, which is a character-driven dark comedy exploring control, identity, and class.
 
Lisa Tierney-Keogh
Lisa’s plays have been produced in Ireland and internationally. She won Best New Play at the 2020 Irish Theatre Awards for THIS BEAUTIFUL VILLAGE (Abbey Theatre). Lisa is a contributing writer with the Irish Times.

Laura Brady
Laura is an actor, theatre-maker and Axis Assemble Artist 2025. She graduated from LAMDA, 2023. Theatre work; Dogshit, Wolfie, Girlplay, Roaring Banshees. Film work; Grilled Cheese, Chestnuts and Proclaim! Self-created work; Dead&Kicking, TINS. Laura self-produced her short, Soft Places.
 
Liv O’Donoghue
Liv O’Donoghue is an Irish-Norwegian actor and writer living in Dublin, working across both theatre and film.
 
Livin’ Dred Theatre Co.
Livin’ Dred is a renowned theatre co based in Cavan since 2004. Aaron Monaghan is an award-winning actor/director known for his work with Druid and The Abbey. Bryan Burroughs is an award-winning actor/director with a particular interest in physical theatre.
 
Luke Casserly
Luke Casserly is a multidisciplinary performance maker originally from Longford, Ireland. His work weaves together ecological research, autobiography, sound art, and site as a way of carving out space for new possibilities to emerge between live performance and physical landscape.
 
Michelle Read
Michelle is an award-winning playwright. Her work spans comedy, drama, and community collaboration. Recent productions include The Somewhat Imagined… Teresa Deevy (Mill Theatre, 2025), On A House Like A Fire (national touring, 2021–24), Bang! (Dublin Theatre Festival, 2021).
 
Niamh McCann
Niamh McCann trained as an Actor at The Guildhall School of Music and Drama, London. She has worked consistently with some of the leading theatre companies in the U.K and Ireland for the last twenty years. Niamh also works in TV and film. She has written several of her own works - Welcome to the Forty Foot at Dublin Fringe Festival 2011 and The Factory Line at Live Collision International Festival 2019.
 
Niamh Regan
Niamh Regan is a singer songwriter from Galway, Ireland. She released her debut album Hemet in 2020.The release started to make waves and led to nominations for both the RTE Folk Awards and the Choice Music Prize ‘Album of the Year’. The release of Hemet brought her from open mics to headline tours around Ireland, UK, Australia, and more. Her second album Come As You Are was released May 2024 via Faction Records.
 
Paul Curley
Paul Curley is a performer and theatre-maker with particular expertise in making theatre for young audiences. Work includes: THE DIG, BAKE! and GREY MATTER (with Ger Clancy); GOLD IN THE WATER (with Shane O’Reilly & Denis Clohessy); POLAR BEAR & PENGUIN (with John Currivan).
 
Séamus Ó Flatharta
Séamus is a musician, singer, and dancer, born and raised in the heart of Connemara, an area renowned for the richness of its native arts which are deeply rooted in the local community. His upbringing was rooted in the sean-nós singing style, which inspires him to engage in various projects to promote his language and heritage. He takes great pride in having the opportunity to preserve his language and culture, and promote it on international stages.
 
Shane O’Reilly
Shane O’Reilly is an actor and a writer. Shane’s theatre writing work includes: Her Father’s Voice (LOVANO, DTF), Gold in the Water (LOVANO, Project/National Tour); Swansong (Barnstorm Theatre Company); windowpane (The Abbey Theatre; Dear Ireland); The Water Boys (Equinox Theatre); FOLLOW, FARM, CARE (co-created with WillFredd Theatre).
 
Stefano Callovi
Stefano is a Dublin based Italian actor, theatre maker and drama facilitator. A graduate of the Gaiety School of Acting, he is one of the creators and performers of Show Me Your Macarena, which debuted at Milan Fringe 2025.
 
Stephen Jones
Stephen Jones is an award-winning actor and writer from Tallaght. He has been a regular on stage in Ireland and the UK for over a decade. He is the lead actor and writer of the critically acclaimed series Northern Lights.

Rachael Lavelle
Rachael Lavelle is a Dublin musician whose debut album Big Dreams was nominated for the Choice Music Prize. Her live performances merge electronic soundscapes with acrobatic vocals, with recent performances including Pitchfork London and tours opening for Lankum and CMAT. 
 
Rima Baransi
Rima Baransi is a Palestinian artist with an MA from the University of Limerick and Berlin Dance Institute. She has performed internationally at Tate London, Théâtre de la Ville, MoMA, Oslo World, and Dublin Dance Festival. She is a member of Stereo48 Dance Company, and has assisted Mufutau Yusuf on Impasse.
 
Ultan Pringle
Ultan is an actor and writer from County Donegal. He’s Writer In Residence at An Grianán Theatre and the 2025 recipient of The Strollers Network PROPEL Award. He’s a founding member of LemonSoap Productions & his five star play Boyfriends will tour Ireland this Winter.