Biography

Declan Gorman is a native of Monaghan. He has worked as an actor, writer, director and educator. He was co-founder with Joe O’Byrne of Co-Motion Theatre Company, Dublin, acting in and producing many 1980s shows, including Song of the White Man’s Burden and The Sinking of the Titanic, and produced the original Frank Pig Says Hello by Patrick McCabe. From 1990 – 95 he was Theatre Programmer at City Arts Centre Dublin. From 1997 – 2010 he was Artistic Director of Upstate Theatre Project, Drogheda, where he wrote and directed The Weavers (after Hauptmann); The Green Fool (after Kavanagh); Hades (Stewart Parker/BBC Award); Epic and At Peace. Freelance since 2010, he has toured in Ireland, Norway, Russia (pre-Ukraine invasion), USA, Britain and India, with his James Joyce solo shows The Dubliners Dilemma and Falling Through the Universe. He was Arts Council Theatre Artist in residence for Co. Monaghan in 2018-19 and has led public art and community theatre projects of scale in Monaghan, Louth and Dublin, most notably THE STREETS OF JJ CLARKE an outdoor community performance around the town of Castleblayney in 2019 and THE GREEN BELT, a major commission in Fingal (2020-21) which culminated in 25 performances at 25 sites, involving over 120 local particpants. His 2016 play The Big Fellow (after Frank O’Connor) toured in Ireland and to India. He recently co-wrote and directed Dorothy McArdle: Prison Notebooks with performer Sharon McArdle (Kilmainham Gaol /Smock Alley 2022). During Covid he directed The Pilgrims of Slieve a play for Zoom devised by Aisteoirí Muinchille. Most recently he directed The Half Coat by Tara Maria Lovett for Culture Night 2023 at Cavan Museum, and, also in 2022-23, he was visiting writer on the Cavan-Monaghan Bordering Realities project collaborating with playwright Alice Lynch and the Kilnaleck Youth Drama Society. Declan holds an M.Phil in Creative Writing from Trinity College Dublin. He has taught community-engaged theatre at NUI Galway and New York University. He is currently a Creative Associate on the Arts Council Creative Schools Programme, a trainer on the Teacher Artist Partnership (primary) programme and a member of the design team for the forthcoming OIDE Teacher-Artist initiative for secondary schools (2024). He has sat on many boards and arts sector working groups, most recently as Acting Chair of Draíocht, Blanchardstown (term concluded). For anyone interested in a more colourful account, detailing the highs and the lows of a life in the independent theatre, you might enjoy a blog published on this site and on RTE Digital in 2016.   It was written at a time when the effects of the 2009-2014 recession were still quite immediate.  I am pleased that the note of optimism struck at the end of the essay has been borne out by events!  Behind the Biography: Careering through the Arts.  Updated October 2023