Pretty Vacant

Pretty Vacant
(Work in Development)

Bold and darkly comic, Pretty Vacant is a musical satire that delves into the dereliction and housing crisis in Ireland. This work-in-progress is a theatrical journey through Dublin’s historic Liberties that channels public frustration into an engaging, musically driven experience.

Presented as a 45-minute informal sharing of this new work as we develop it towards its full site-specific premiere in 2026. This presentation will offer a glimpse into the world of Pretty Vacant, followed by a short discussion with the creative team.

About the project…

The Pretty Vacant project started from a question that, I think, bothers many people. Why are there so many derelict sites and vacant buildings in Dublin? We live in a city with a massive housing crisis, a city that suffers from a severe lack of social and cultural spaces. It is also a city with an apparently healthy economy. It doesn’t add up, or does it?

When we started our work on a theatrical response to these questions, our early development sessions took place in the Digital Hub on James’ Street in the Liberties. We knew the piece would be site-specific but still didn’t know where exactly we wanted to perform. As we walked around the streets of Dublin 8 we could see a microcosm of the big question we were trying to explore – lots of unused buildings and derelict sites – and so the Liberties seemed like a good place to start.

The real lightbulb moment came when we joined a walking tour of the Liberties in the company of Anthony Freeman from the Liberties Community Project. His In My Shoes tour, gave us a whole new perspective on the area. It started to illuminate the personal and human cost of dereliction for people in the area but also the price paid when ‘development’ happens, and the needs of a local community are put on the bottom of the priority list.

What followed was lots of interesting conversations with local people at the Robert Emmet Community Centre, including members of the Liberties History Group and the local drama group. We really appreciate how generous everyone was with their time and perspectives, in particular Fran Farrell and also Liz O’Connor whose voice you’ll hear during the performance.

Between then and now there’s been a lot of work and creativity and somehow we’ve ended up with the makings of a (sort of) musical. We still have much more work to do and the hope is to bring an expanded Pretty Vacant to full production in 2026, with a site-specific performance in the Liberties.

For now, we want to thank Sophie Motley and the brilliant team at Project Arts Centre for hosting and assisting us during the week. Our thanks also to the Arts Council for its support in the making of this work-in-progress.

CREDITS

Work in progress presentation of Pretty Vacant was performed to an audience of invited guests at Project Arts Centre on 22 March 2025.

Performed by Ruth McGill

With Anthony Freeman and Oliver Dawkins

Writen by
Tom Swift

Music by
Darragh Dukes

Directed by
Jo Mangan

This work is made possible by by a Development Grant from the Arts Council of Ireland

AV Designer
Jane Cassidy

Data Research Collaborator
Oliver Dawkins

Community Liason
Anthony Freeman

Creative Producer
Ciara Gogarty

Production Manager
Morgan Steele

Stage Manager
Zoe Reynolds

Special Thanks to
The Liberties Community Project, Maynooth Data Stories Project, The Liberties History Club and Project Arts Centre.

BIOGRAPHIES

Ruth McGill

Ruth McGill is an actress, singer, and singing coach from Donegal. She graduated with a BA in Acting Studies from the Samuel Beckett Centre, Trinity College Dublin. She recently starred in The Borrowers at the Gate Theatre, she also recently played the role of Kate there, in the Gate’s critically acclaimed production of Dancing at Lughnasa, directed by Caroline Byrne.

Her theatre credits include performances in Furniture (Druid Theatre Company); Assassins, The Constant Wife, Romeo and Juliet, The Threepenny Opera, and Sweeney Todd (Gate Theatre); Let the Right One In, Jimmy’s Hall, Anna Karenina, Donegal, Twelfth Night, Alice in Funderland, Christ Deliver Us!, The Last Days of a Reluctant Tyrant, The Cherry Orchard (The Abbey Theatre); Dubliners, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, FREEFALL (Corn Exchange Theatre Company); The Dead Opera (The Performance Corporation); The Requiem for The Truth(Collapsing Horse Theatre Company); Stoker (Ouroboros); Macbecks (Olympia Theatre); All in The Timing (Inis Theatre); Everybody Loves Sylvia, Drowned World, and The Illusion (Randolf SD).

She was twice nominated for The Irish Times Theatre Award for Best Supporting Actress for her performances in The Threepenny Opera and FREEFALL.

Ruth’s film and television credits include At Sea, KIN, Dead Happy, Nowhere Fast, Miscalculation, Jack Taylor, Damo and Ivor, Wonder House, What Richard Did, Love/Hate II, Leap Year and The Clinic.

Anthony Freeman O’Brien

Anthony is the Social Enterprise Manager at The Liberties Community Project. He manages the beekeeping and walking tour initiatives, fostering connections with nature for inner-city residents and building community pride and confidence. His upbringing in Oliver Bond, The Liberties, gives him great pride in his role

Oliver Dawkins

Oliver is a researcher and creative technologist on the Data Stories project at Maynooth University. Oliver supports the technical aspects of research-creation using arts-based methods by leading the development of interactive data stories which utilise spatial data and creative media like gaming technologies, mixed realities and data physicalisation.

Tom Swift

Tom Swift is a playwright and librettist. He is founder member of the award-winning Irish theatre company, The Performance Corporation. He is known for his innovative site-specific plays for the company, such as Dr Ledbetter’s Experiment, Drive-By, Lizzie Lavelle and the Vanishing of Emlyclough and, most recently, the mixed reality play Emperor 101 (Dublin Theatre Festival; SXSW). He has also written several stage adaptations of classic texts including Candide (Judges’ Prize, Irish Times Theatre Awards), The Nose, and his version of Little Red Riding Hood, Alice and the Wolf (Barnstorm, national tour 2021). Texts for opera include his translations of Fidelio and Susanna’s Secret (Irish National Opera) as well an award-winning operatic version of James Joyce’s The Dead (Breda Cashe Productions), and the reality TV themed Opera Kardashian (Synchromy, L.A. 2023). Other work for The Performance Corporation includes Power Point, Swampoodle, Across the Lough, and The Table. Tom has also been commissioned by The Abbey, The Ark, NAYD and Fishamble. Tom was awarded the Jerwood Foundation Opera Fellowship at Aldeburgh Music (UK) in 2013. A book of his work, Tom Swift – Selected Plays is published by Carysfort Press.

Daragh Dukes

Daragh Dukes is a composer, producer and songwriter currently active mainly in TV and film. He works across a broad range of styles and is increasingly sought after as a musical collaborator. His composition work includes the multi-award winning Far Out Isn’t Far Enough: The Tomi Ungerer Movie, the Reel Art film Photo City, and the documentary films Fallout, Outsiders and The Man with the Moving House. He has scored many TV series’ including GAA USA, The Pet Surgeons and The History of Irish Comedy on TV. Work for TG4 includes Poc na nGael, Anseo I Lár an Ghleanna, Nancy Corrigan – Spéirbhean Acla, Bailte and Gael UK. He also composed for John Boorman’s Afterlife. Under the moniker Headgear, Daragh has written and produced 4 critically acclaimed albums – Where This Good Life Goes, Headgear, Flight Cases and most recently Omphalos released in May 2022. Musically, Headgear has been described as “ambient / contemporary / jazz / indie / leftfield / cinematic / collage / experimental / chillout / and pop”, so let’s just say it draws from a broad palette. Daragh was also singer/ songwriter with The WYOs, whose song A Letter From Saint Jude, featured on the Spiderman 3 Soundtrack Album. In 2018 he began Asylum Speakers with the release of Empathy in G Minor.

He is an experienced live performer, sometimes working alone but more often with an eclectic ensemble. He’s frequently been invited to perform at festivals including The Great Escape, La Route du Rock, The Electric Picnic and Body & Soul, and he has also performed live on the BBC, RTE and France Inter. In 2016 he collaborated with dancer Katherine O’Malley on Bias, which was produced by Liz Roche Company and premiered at the Dublin Dance Festival. In 2022 Daragh created the sound design for The Performance Corporation’s Disappearing Islands performed at Belmullet Tidal Pool. Daragh has a first class Masters in Music Technology from the University of Limerick. His dissertation The Art of Voice-Media Composition is a study of musical endeavors that have concentrated on the alliance of voice and technology.

Some praise for Daragh’s music:

The Irish Times ***** “…will swim around in your head forever”

Hot Press ***** “Creations of real beauty”

Ciara Gogarty

Ciara Gogarty is an arts communicator and cultural collaborator who works with artists, producers and organisations to shape and amplify cultural projects. With over 18 years’ experience across theatre, film, festivals and public events, her practice is rooted in storytelling, design, creative strategy and collaboration. She brings a multidisciplinary approach to positioning work with clarity, creativity and care, driven by a belief in the power of the arts to connect people and ideas.

Jo Mangan

Jo Mangan is a director, curator, advocate and facilitator. Her work has won many awards including multiple Irish Times Irish Theatre Awards and the prestigious Fedora Digital Prize for Opera. She was also awarded the Clore Cultural Leadership Fellowship. She has been working as a theatre director since the 1990’s and has been the Artistic Director of The Performance Corporation for over 2 decades. Some recent work includes Disappearing Islands, a site-specific dance/opera work on a tidal pool on the west coast of Ireland in Belmullet, Emperor 101, a live/VR piece at Dublin Theatre Festival, at SXSW Austin Texas, and at LP360 in Vancouver, and The Dead Opera presented at Project Arts Centre, Gaiety Theatre and nationally on tour.

Other recent directing work includes directing 5 of the 20 Shots of Opera and Out of the Ordinary – a Virtual Reality Community Opera for Irish National Opera. She conceived of and directed 72 Hour Lost Weekend and Woman in the Machine (film, live performances and installations of 30+ artists) at the old Braun Factory in collaboration with VISUAL Carlow, and directed 14 Voices from the Bloody Field for the Abbey (National Theatre). Jo was also Curator for the Prague Quadrennial 2019 for Ireland, International Programmer for Limerick National City of Culture where she featured Royale de Luxe for an audience of 250 thousand. She created Ireland’s first site-specific festival – the BIG House Festival at Castletown House and was Director of the Bram Stoker Festival.

As a recent Director/CEO of Carlow Arts Festival she pioneered Digital work including VR Cinema and a VR Festival Campus. As Digital Programmer for the Arts Council’s Brightening Air project in 2021, she platformed the work of Digital Artists in Ireland.

She has served on many boards, including as Chair of the National Campaign for the Arts for 5 years. She is currently on the board of the Gate Theatre and INY Festival. Jo founded The SPACE Programme – Ireland’s longest running multi-disciplinary international artists residency with a current focus on Arts and Immersive Technology located at the Centre Culturel Irlandais in Paris. She also works as a Tutor for IETM internationally and is recognised as a speaker internationally most recently at SXSW Austin Texas.

Jane Cassidy

Jane Cassidy is a multi-disciplinary artist and educator from Galway. Trained in music and visual art, Cassidy earned a Masters in Music and Media Technologies from Trinity College Dublin and an MFA in Digital Art from Tulane University in New Orleans. Her work spans installation, video, music composition and electronics to create immersive audio-visual environments. Cassidy’s main interest lies in multi-sensory work and creating a sense of synesthesia for the viewer, most often in response to the mysticism of nature.

Cassidy has had solo shows at the Knoxville Museum of Art, Tennessee; Pallas Projects Dublin; the Mobile Museum of Art, Alabama; the Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts, Alabama; the University of New Orleans, Louisiana; and the Ann Arbor Film Festival, Michigan. She most recently collaborated with Bru Theatre on Somnium as part of the Galway International Arts Festival and with That’s Life on their Sound Nest project at Nuns Island Theatre. www.janecassidy.net

Morgan Steele

Morgan Steele is an arts administrator and producer originally from Los Angeles, California. Notable work in North America includes the pre-Broadway tour of Ain’t Too Proud (2018), company managing multiple projects at Berkeley Repertory Theatre, and working as an Associate Producer for Disney Channel Media Relations. Ireland and UK projects include Once (Landmark Productions, 2017), Medicine by Enda Walsh (Galway International Arts Festival and Edinburgh International Festival, 2021), and Daughter of God by Roderick Ford (Once Off and Asylum Productions, 2023). Morgan has previously worked with The Performance Corporation on The SPACE Programme 2023 and 2024 in Paris, and is an Company Manager with Once Off Productions. She holds a B.A. in Theatre and Performance Studies from UC Berkeley and a M.Sc. in Business Management from Trinity College Dublin.

Pretty Vacant (Work in Development)