Sarah Bacon trained on the Motley Theatre Design Course in London, having previously studied architecture at University College Dublin. She designs sets and costumes for theatre, opera, dance and film. Her recent work includes, Luck Just Kissed You Hello (Peacock Theatre), production design on Irish National Opera’s 20 Shots of Opera (filmed in the Gaiety Theatre, November 2020), Mozart’s The Abduction from The Seraglio (INO, cancelled due to the pandemic), What did I Miss? (The Ark), set and costume design on Drama at Inish, City Song (Winner of the 2019 Irish Times Theatre Award for Best Set Design), Anna Karenina, The Shadow of a Gunman (Abbey Theatre, winner of the 2016 Irish Times Theatre Award for Best Set Design), Beginning/The Children, ASSASSINS (Gate Theatre), Hecuba, Melt, The Effect, Everything Between Us (Rough Magic), The Water Orchard (Collapsing Horse), Tina’s Idea of Fun (Peacock Theatre). Other costume designs include Look Back in Anger (Gate Theatre), The Patient Gloria (Peacock Theatre), The Rehearsal: Playing The Dane (Pan Pan Theatre). She designed the ShortWorks, at Wexford Festival Opera for four seasons between 2008 and 2013, and made her mainstage design debut ­there with Cilea’s L’Arlesiana in 2012. In 2010 she was a Linbury Prize finalist, and exhibited her work at the National Theatre, London.

Caitríona McLaughlin was born in Donegal and studied science at the University of Ulster before moving into theatre. She is currently the Artistic Director of the Abbey Theatre. She was Associate Director at the Abbey Theatre from 2017-2020, where her productions included: The Great Hunger by Patrick Kavanagh (with Conall Morrison); Citysong by Dylan Coburn Gray (ITTA nomination Best New Play); On Raftery’s Hill by Marina Carr, (for which she won Best Director at the 2019 ITTA); and Two Pints by Roddy Doyle, which toured widely in Ireland and the USA.

She also worked with theatre and opera companies on both sides of the border, including Wexford Opera, Hot for Theatre, INO, The Local Group, and Landmark, and she was the director on O’Casey in the Estate, a TV documentary shown on RTÉ.

Prior to moving into directing, with Patrick McCabe’s Frank Pig Says Hello at the Finborough Theatre in London in 2003, Caitríona worked as a drama facilitator in Northern Ireland, working with young people and in conflict resolution.

In London, she directed numerous productions, focusing primarily on new writing, and collaborated with the Royal Court in sourcing and developing a new theatre space.

She was awarded a Clore Fellowship in 2007 and subsequently spent six summers with LAByrinth Theatre Company in New York developing new plays for Artistic Directors John Ortiz and the late Philip Seymour Hoffman, at their Summer Intensive. During this time Caitríona also directed a number of plays in New York including Killers and other Family (part of the OBIE award-winning Hilltown Plays) and plays at Atlantic Theatre, Rattlestick, and Bard Summerscape.