Irish Theatre Institute and Tyrone Guthrie Centre, Annaghmakerrig are delighted to announce that playwright and actor Karen Cogan is the recipient of the 2019 Phelim Donlon Playwright’s Bursary and Residency.

The purpose of the Phelim Donlon Playwright’s Bursary and Residency is to provide writers like Karen with the time, physical resources and mentoring necessary to support the writing of a new play. The award includes the ITI writer’s bursary of €2,000 and a two week fully resourced residency in Annaghmakerrig to take place in 2019. The presentation was made by Dr. Pat Donlon at a reception in Irish Theatre Institute on the 11th December 2018.

The previous recipients of the award are Fiona Doyle (2015/16), Dylan Coburn Gray (2016/17) and Amy Conroy (2017/18). 

ABOUT

Karen Cogan
Karen Cogan’s first play The Half Of It won the Stewart Parker Award 2017 and the First Fortnight Award 2017. The Half Of It was nominated for five Fringe Awards. Drip Feed was shortlisted for the Verity Bargate Award and nominated for an Offie award for Best Performance Piece. Drip Feed played Edinburgh, Project Arts Centre and Soho Theatre and was produced by Soho Theatre and Fishamble: The New Play Company. Drip Feed has been commissioned for television by Witchery. Karen was chosen out of 3000 writers to be on Channel 4’s 4Screenwriting programme 2019. Karen’s work has been shortlisted for The Red Planet Prize, the BBC Writers Room, The Adopt-A-Playwright Award, Fishamble’s A Play For Ireland and BBC NI The Break series. Karen is The Hospital Club’s Theatre Emerging Creative for 2018. She has spoken on panels at the Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh Festival and The Guilty Feminist. Karen trained as an actor at RADA.

Phelim Donlon (1936 – 2014)
Born in Dublin and educated at Belvedere College, Phelim graduated from UCD with a BA Honours degree in English and Italian, and a MA in Old and Middle English. Following university he was appointed House Manager of the Olympia Theatre in Dublin. After this Phelim became general administrator of the Irish Theatre Company (ITC). He joined the staff of the Arts Council in 1983, as Administration and Film Officer, and he was appointed as Drama Officer in 1985, a post he held until 2000.  He retired from the Arts Council in 2001, having spent the final eighteen months there as Director of the Auditoria Project, which was a review of the built infrastructure for the performing arts throughout Ireland.As an independent arts consultant, Phelim undertook a range of research and advisory tasks for the various organisations. He was a judge for the Irish Times Theatre Awards in 2003 and 2004 and was a member of the Planning Board for Irish Stage Designers to participate in the Prague Quadrennial Exhibition in 2007.

Tyrone Guthrie Centre, Annaghmakerrig
The overarching policy principle of the Tyrone Guthrie Centre (TGC) is to provide the conditions in which artists can focus exclusively and for extended periods on the creation and development of their work.