Dan Colley
Dan Colley
Independent Artist
Dan (he/him) is a theatre maker with a particular focus on devised ensemble work, theatre-for-young-audiences and large-scale spectacle.
As Artistic Director of Collapsing Horse (2013-19) he directed nine original productions, created a series of ten radio plays, an exhibition in the National Museum, and toured to New York, London, Edinburgh, Bergen, Moscow, and 15 Irish venues. He was also Co-Artistic Director of the Kilkenny Cat Laughs comedy festival from 2017-19. Collapsing Horse’s final production, A Very Old Man With Enormous Wings was nominated for two Irish Times Theatre Awards and four Dublin Fringe Awards, including ‘Best Production’. Dan directed and co-created TWENTY FIFTY with Fionnuala Gygax, an online interactive theatre piece part of DUETS in Dublin Fringe 2020.
★★★★★
Theatre exists for shows like this…fifty minutes of near theatrical perfection – The Arts Review (A Very Old Man With Enormous Wings)
★★★★
A model of ingenuity – The Irish Times (A Very Old Man With Enormous Wings)
Technical excellence, terrific performances, and multi-layered, intertextual references… a show not to be missed. – Sunday Business Post (The Water Orchard)
Other directing credits include, Me Michael by Tara McKevitt, and a short as part of Fourteen Voices From the Bloodied Field for the Abbey Theatre and Danse Macabre, a large-scale processional street theatre piece for Macnas.
In 2015, Dan was the Creative Producer of TWENTY FIRST the Dublin Fringe’s 21st birthday project. Dramaturgy credits include WillFredd, Sugarglass, Louise White and Macnas. Dan trained as a youth theatre facilitator with Youth Theatre Ireland and has run workshops and classes in the Lir, Trinity College Dublin, LA LGBT Center’s Homeless Youth Services, and in schools, Youth Theatres and with communities Nationally.
Dan was awarded the Arts Council’s Next Generation Bursary Award in 2016. He is Theatre Artist in Residence in the Riverbank Arts Centre, a member of the Project Arts Centre, and on the board of the Dublin Fringe Festival.
image:credits
1. Maeve O’Mahony in The Aeneid by Collapsing Horse. Photo credit: Ste Murray (2016)
2. Genevieve Hulme Beaman in A Very Old Man With Enormous Wings by Collapsing Horse. Photo credit: Ste Murray (2019)
3. Peter Corboy in The Water Orchard by Collapsing Horse. Photo credit: Ste Murray (2017)
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