After two years of researching cures in the border, Sarah has a story to tell. It's about strange and wonderful cures, about their future, about growing up during the recession, about friendship, about mental health, about grief, about Cavan. It's the story of her roots and what it means to be from someone where traditional cures survive but a mental health crisis thrives. Performed with live musicians.
DEVELOPED at Scene +Heard: The Festival of New Work. Funded by Cavan County Council. Directed by Charlie McGuinness
Sarah McKenna Dunne studied folklore during her time as a student in UCD where she graduated with a B.A in English with Drama and a M.A in Theatre Practice. She has since gone on to establish herself as an up and coming playwright, writing for Prime Cut Productions, Gonzo Youth Theatre, and was playwright in residence at The Townhall Theatre, Cavan. Her work centres on Irish folklore, mythology, queer representation, and trauma related to children, heavily drawing on verbatim techniques in her work. She has been awarded several Arts Council, Creative Ireland and Cavan County Council Arts awards. Sarah recently published her first book Cures from The Hollow, a social archive, a blend of visual art, photography and stories about ordinary people who practice the extraordinary tradition of 'the cure' in the modern Ireland.
Charlie is a writer, director and actor from Carrigallen Co. Leitrim. His radio play FRAGILE MAOILÍOSA was broadcast on RTE Drama on One in 2025, which is currently nominated for a WGI Zebbie Award 2026. It subsequently received the Silver Award at the 2025 IMRO Awards. He won the RTE PJ O’Connor Radio Drama Award for 2024 with his play ‘clarity at last’ which was broadcast in autumn 2025. In 2024 he received a Theatre Project Award for writing from the Arts Council of Ireland. In 2023 and 2024, he received an Emerging Artist Award from Cavan Arts Office. Livin’ Dred Theatre company performed a rehearsed reading of his play ‘rat b*tch’ in 2024 directed by Aaron Monaghan. He has a First Class Honours Masters in Creative Writing from DCU. As a director, he has worked with playwrights including Seamus O’Rourke, Philip Doherty and John McManus.
