MFA Playwriting Graduates: Where Are They Now?
Check-in on our graduates from the MFA in Playwriting degree at The Lir Academy.
Our MFA in Playwriting programme has seen a brilliantly diverse range of creative talent emerge from The Lir Academy and go on to other things.Here are just a few of the incredible graduates and what they are currently up to.
You can see more on the course at this link, deadline for applications is March 31st. https://www.thelir.ie/courses/.
Aoife Cronin - 2025
Aoife Cronin is a playwright and director from Meath. Recently, Aoife has written Go West! (2025) that premiered at Edinburgh Fringe Festival. Its creative team included other alumni, Lisa Della Chiesa (MFA Stage Design - Costume, 2025), Em Kelleher (Stage Management and Technical Theatre 2025) and Aimee Crilly (Stage Management and Technical Theatre 2025).
Clodagh Healy - 2024
Clodagh Healy is a playwright and graduate of Creative Writing from University College Dublin. After earning her Masters, she’s written a play named Fermenting that is set to premiere in The New Theatre on 6th February 2026.
Conor Kelly - 2022
Conor Kelly is a playwright, stage designer, and technician from Dublin. Conor has a Bachelor’s Degree in Drama and Theatre Studies from Trinity College Dublin. Since earning his masters at The Lir Academy, his most recent work includes: Just Being Open With You (2025) and I had a dream I shot you in the head… but the calibre wasn’t very big, which premiered in Smock Alley Theatre in Dublin.
Megan O'Malley - 2022
Megan O’Malley is a playwright and actor from Co. Wexford. She studied as an actor at Gaiety School of Acting, then went to earn her masters in Theatre Practice at University of College Dublin. Megan has recently written a play that premiered at The New Theatre called Montague (2025). Its creative team included Katie O’Halloran (MFA Theatre Directing), Murienn Lyons (MFA Theatre Producing), Sean Landau (Bachelor in Acting), Mara Parés Baraldés (MFA Stage Design - Set Design) and Kevin Murphy (MFA Stage Design - lighting designer.
Erica Murray - 2016
Erica Murray is an MFA Playwriting grad from 2016. Her play The Loved Ones, a co-production by Rough Magic and The Gate Theatre, ran as part of Dublin Theatre Festival 2023. Last year she was selected to be part of the inaugural New Playwright’s Programme at the Lyric Theatre, Belfast where she developed her play All Mod Cons and it was given a staged reading at the Lyric in October directed by Des Kennedy. It has had a subsequent reading in New York as part of the Origin Irish Theatre Festival.
She has also been a member of the Young Writer’s Lab at Soho Theatre where she wrote her play The Cat’s Mother which was then long-listed for the Verity Bargate Award 2017. It premiered at The Vaults Festival in London in February where it was one of The Stage’s top five picks of the festival. It toured to the Edinburgh Fringe at Underbelly in August 2018, and then the Dublin Fringe, where Erica won the Fishamble best new writing award. She was awarded the Peggy Ramsey Playwright fund, and was a past winner of the Channel 4 Playwright scheme.
Gillian Greer - 2013
Gillian is an Irish writer and Dramaturg based in London. She is currently Literary Manager at Soho Theatre. Gillian most recently adapted BOY PARTS, the critically acclaimed debut novel by Eliza Clark for the stage. It was performed on Soho Theatre Main Stage in Autumn 2023. Other recent credits also include dramaturgy for KATHY & STELLA SOLVE A MURDER! A New Musical, premiering at the Edinburgh Fringe in 2022 and then touring the UK in Summer 2023.
Her début play PETALS was nominated for the Irish Times Theatre Award for Best New Play in 2015 and later adapted for radio winning the Celtic Media Festival Award for Best Radio Drama 2020 with Near FM. Her second play MEAT was shortlisted for the Theatre503 International Playwriting Award and ran at Theatre503 in early 2020 to great critical acclaim. She is currently developing new work with Abbey Theatre, Ireland and 45 North Productions, London.
Meadhbh McHugh - 2015
Meadhbh McHugh is an Irish playwright and screenwriter. Most recently, Meadhbh wrote five episodes of Conversations with Friends , the Element Pictures screen adaptation of Sally Rooney’s novel for BBC and Hulu. Meadhbh also wrote the critically acclaimed stage adaptation of Louise O’Neill’s Asking for It (2018), in collaboration with Annabelle Comyn, co-produced by Landmark Productions and The Everyman in association with the Abbey Theatre. Asking for It played to full houses at the Everyman Theatre in Cork, the Abbey Theatre in Dublin and the Gaiety Theatre in Dublin. The adaptation won the Audience Choice Award at the Irish Times Theatre Awards. Meadhbh’s debut play, Helen and I (2016) was produced by Druid Theatre Company and transferred to the Dublin Theatre Festival. Helen and I was shortlisted for the Stewart Parker Trust Award for best Irish debut play. Her debut radio play, April Showers, won a P.J. O’Connor Award for new writing in 2014. Meadhbh holds a PhD in Theatre from Columbia University (2021), New York, where she taught writing and literature classes for many years.
Aoife Leonard - 2016
Aoife Leonard began working in theatre at age 17, performing with the improvisational theatre troupe Playback As Soon As You Hear and interning as an assistant producer with THEATREclub and Spilt Gin. She was subsequently offered an unconditional place on the Drama and Theatre Studies course at Trinity College Dublin. She has applied her experience in improvisation and playwriting to a number of devising contexts, developing shows for the Dublin Fringe with Filibusters and Just The Lads. She has a close collaborative relationship with Collapsing Horse Theatre Company and has worked with them on The Aeneid. She graduated with First Class Honours from Trinity College.
Since graduating, Aoife has shifted her focus from screenwriting to being a creative producer. She is involved in Ireland’s music scene, creating music videos for artists like CMAT, Rob de Boer, Morgana, and Frank Zing. Other notable projects are commercial and ad works with Remus Uomo, Jameson, Other Voices, and Failte Ireland. Aoife also does photography on the side. Her most recent work has been as a production manager for Trasna na Líne (dir Niamh Bryson), a mockumentary comedy following student teacher Emma during her first day of term at Dublin Gaelscoli without a word of Irish.
Clare McMahon - 2017
Clare trained as an actor at the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama. She has worked predominantly as an actor across the UK and Ireland. Her first short play ‘Slow’ was held at the Bush Theatre London as a rehearsed reading. In 2017 Clare’s debut sell-out play, ‘Shakespeare’s Women’ was produced by Commedia of Errors Theatre Company, at The Lyric Theatre Belfast before touring NI. Clare was recently awarded an Individual Artist Award from Arts Council NI. Clare’s new play, ‘Women Troubles’, a female comedy focusing on growing up sold out its run at The Barracks Belfast.
Clare is currently under commission with Commedia of Errors. Here she has had the opportunity to work on LILY, a 360 virtual reality film, forming half of the project. Clare’s Lyric Theatre mainstage debut was The Gap Year. Previous works include Shakespeare’s Women, I am Muara, and Women Troubles (co-writer). As an actor, Clare has been in works such as The Cripple of Inshmaan, A Midsummer Nights Dream at The Almeida, and Twist of Gold by Philip Pullman. She was seen on Television playing Fanny in The Woman in White (BBC1) and Carlo in Agatha - The Truth of Murder (Netflix).
Breman Rajkumar - 2017
Breman is a British Tamil playwright, who started writing plays while reading PPE at Warwick University. He was awarded the Directors Guild Award and Sunday Times Playwriting Award in 2013 with a show that toured Scarborough, the Edinburgh Fringe, and Hampshire that summer. He assistant-directed RIFCO’s mid-scale tour of “The Deranged Marriage” at Watford Palace Theatre and West Yorkshire Playhouse. He was recently shortlisted for Papatango’s Resident Playwright competition and longlisted for the Lyric Theatre, Belfast’s New Playwright Programme. He has led workshops in prisons with Synergy Theatre and for young people with NT Learning.
Since graduating, Breman has worked on productions such as The Half God Rainfall at Birmingham REP, The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel at Leeds Playhouse, and Wife and White Teeth at the Kiln Theatre. Breman has created a playwriting program, Diverse Voices: Writing the Future, to give a platform to the diverse voices of students at the Central Foundation Girls’ School. This program is aimed at developing creative skills through a series of workshops where students are able to express their creativity through writing a play.
CN Smith - 2021
CN Smith is a graduate of Drama & Theatre Studies at Trinity College Dublin, where he directed Van Gogh’s Sunflowers (Samuel Beckett Theatre, 2019), and Eden (ISDA ‘Best Production’ Nominee, 2019). As a playwright, his work includes co-writing Where Are You From? (Scene + Heard, 2019), the radio play Ode to a Postcode (Dublin Fringe, 2019), Floozie (Scene + Heard, 2020), abagofspiders! (Samuel Beckett Theatre, 2020), and At the Very Beginning (Civic Theatre, 2020/21). He was an inaugural member of the Abbey Theatre’s Young Curators program in 2018/2019 and was a recipient of the Patricia Leggett Playwriting Scholarship for 2020.
Colin worked on redrafting his play Before You Head Off while at Six in the Attic. His play SPEAR is a Dublin Fringe Festival Commission for 2022. Colin is also a part of Fishamble and The Irish Rep’s inaugural Trans-Atlantic Commissions, where he spent a year working under the mentorship of Dael Orlandersmith, the Obie Award-winning playwright and Pulitzer Prize finalist. Last year, out of 350 applicants, Colin was announced as a Rough Ideas winner, receiving an award of €2,500. He was able to spend the following year working on his piece with the RM Literary Manager and Artistic Director. More recently, Colin has been working on a show that explores the Big House burnings that occurred in Ireland from 1919 to 1923 at Draíocht’s Workshop Room.
