Moonfish Team

Jeanne (they/them) most recently filmed the TV Series CLEAN SWEEP and in the comedy feature APOCALYPSE CLOWN directed by George Kane. They played the role of Grace in AN OCTOROON directed by Anthony Simpson-Pike for The Abbey Theatre.

Last year Jeanne shot the film project POSTCARDS FROM HEANEY COUNTRY directed by Luke Daly and Nathan Fagan; and a main role as Hana in the television series NORTH SEA CONNECTION alongside Sinéad Cusack, Kerr Logan and Lydia McGuinness, directed by Paul Murphy and Hannah Quinn.

Jeanne also plays the lead role of Rosa in the feature HOLY ISLAND, directed by Robert Manson.

Further recent credits include TRY & TOUCH, directed by Nell Hensey; STAY ALIVE directed by Juliet Riddell; DUNGEONS AND DRAGONS directed by John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein for Paramount; and the music video for Pillow Queens’ single, BE BY YOUR SIDE, directed by Kate Dolan (Dir. YOU ARE NOT MY MOTHER)

Ikenna Anyabuike, is an actor, writer, assistant dramaturg, and musician. Trained in drama and theatre with psychological studies at University of Galway. Ikenna was awarded the ‘Baptiste Programme’ with Smock Alley in 2022, as well as the ‘Axis Assemble 2022’ with Axis Ballymun. During this period, he also collaborated with Terra Nova Productions as an assistant dramaturg during their development of what would then become ‘The Trumpet and The King’ that toured in 2023.

He has been awarded the ‘Irish Seed Grant’ by the Irish Hospice Foundation, for his multi-media-based poetry exhibition ‘I Know the Sun Must Set’ a collaboration with visual artist Maclaine Black which premiered in April 2023. Additionally, last year he also performed as part of an ensemble for a four-month tour of the play ‘The Kinds of Sex You Might Have in College’ with Active* Consent. Ikenna believes that art “should be a space of radical change, renewal and acceptance”.

Seoirsín Bashford is an Irish-Thai creative from a small Gaeltacht in Mayo. They moved to Galway in 2017 to study Gaeilge and Drama, Theatre, and Performance in the University of Galway before obtaining a Masters in Modern Irish. Throughout their time in Galway, Seoirsín has focused on working within the Irish language community and the queer community in facilitating workshops and events, teaching, and creating bilingual and queer theatre.

In college, they explored their skills in sound and created sound designs for productions of Much Ado About Nothing, Angels in America Part One: Millenium Approaches, and If We Got Some More Cocaine I Could Show You How I Love You. Later, the pandemic encouraged them to experiment with film and they performed in and co-produced the queer bilingual short film Dlúthchomhrá

Is as Gaillimh do Ionia Ní Chróinín. Is comh-stiúrthóir í ar Moonfish Theatre. She studied at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama (RSAMD) in Glasgow, graduating in 2005. Since then she has worked extensively in theatre throughout the UK and Ireland, with companies such as 7:84, Theatrecorp, Making Strange, and an extended season with Dundee Rep. She also works with Galway-based company, Branar Téatar do Pháistí.

Ionia has appeared in all of Moonfish Theatre productions in Ireland, the UK and the US.

Máiréad is from Galway and was raised with both Irish and English. She studied Politics at Glasgow University, Scotland. She worked at the European Commission as a trainee and she has also worked as a project manager with GDSI in Galway.

She has a great interest in European theatre, especially Polish theatre and in 2008 she received a grant from the Arts Council of Ireland to train with Teatr Gardzienice in Poland.

As well as co-founding and co-directing Moonfish, Máiréad has worked with Dublin-based companies Randalph SD: The Company (The Public, Project Arts Centre), and Making Strange (Revisions, Project Arts Centre), and with the Galway-based theatre company Mephisto (Work/Death, Belltable Arts Centre & Town Hall Studio).

Morgan is from Dublin. He has been working as an actor since 2005, when he played the part of Cathal in the television series FFC. He then took part productions by An Taibhdhearc, Gaeilgeoir Dheirneach Carna, Tine Chnamh, and Coinneáil Orainn. In 2006 Morgan began working with Branar Téatar do Pháistí, composing music and acting in their productions Na Síoga Agus An Gréasaí Bróg, and An Chéad Chéim, and working as a musician on their productions Aistear Ailbí, An Seanfhear Beag, Mise – Scéal Cailín,Spraoi and Croí á Mhúscailt.

As a musician, Morgan is one of the founding members of well-known band Cuckoo Savante. Morgan has also worked with Mary Coughlan, and was a co-composer of the song ‘House of Ill-Repute’, which can be heard on Mary Coughlan’s latest album.

Morgan has performed in three Moonfish productions to date: Namhaid don Phobal Tromluí Phinocchio and Star of the Sea.

Pat has worked with Moonfish since 2012, when he played the narrator in ‘The Musicians of Galway’. He was subsequently invited to undertake the sound design for ‘Star of the Sea’, and operated sound for the production at its 2014 première , 2015 Irish tour and 2017 international tour. Since then Pat has joined the ensemble as a performer.

A graduate of Oxford University, he works primarily as a musician and has toured with a variety of theatre productions as well as performing with some of the leading lights of Irish traditional music. He is also keenly involved in music education in County Galway.

A poet and singer-songwriter, Kayssie K. also known as Christie Kandiwa was born in Zimbabwe and raised in Ireland. Her work is influenced by blending her Zimbabwean cultural heritage and her Irish upbringing and intertwines Southern-African myths and local languages and forms. She was awarded as the Poet Laureate of County Wicklow in 2021. Kayssie K. was one of the five Dream On Recipients facilitated by the Fringe Festival. She has participated in various productions; Festival In A Van, Abbey Begins, Adrian Brinkerhoff Project, formed as part of the St Patrick’s Days Festival, in the Irish Museum of Modern Arts and the Irish Repertory in the USA.

Recently, Kayssie was invited to perform as part of the Literature Festival in Limerick, Diversifying the Canon 2022, MoLi Culture Night, Living Canvas Programme, and NCWI’s 2022 conference and is working as part of the Moonfish Ensemble.

Grace is an actor and musician from Waterford and she is very proud to have worked with Moonfish Theatre for many years. She studied Theatre for two years under Belinda Wild in Kinsale, before going to UCC where she was awarded an Arts degree in English and Irish.

She moved to Galway in 2006 and shortly after worked on Moonfish’s first show Bonny & Read, as a musician. It wasn’t long before she was acting in Moonfish productions and her other skills soon came into use as well: many a prop has she made out of various pieces of rubbish – and she’s not a bad dancer either. She has devised and performed in Moonfish productions Tromluí Phinocchio, Noah’s Ark, Aucassin & Nicolette, The Secret Garden, Mad Sweeney and Star of the Sea

Seán has previously worked with Moonfish on “Star of The Sea”, “Redemption Falls”, and the radio series “Into The World Within”. Other stage work includes: “Baoite” (An Taibhdhearc), “The Glass Menagerie”, “Measure For Measure”, “Waiting For Godot” (Theatrecorp); “Spring Awakening”, “Animal Farm”, “Philadelphia Here I Come” (GYT); “Sétanta”, “Tóraíocht”, Trigger Martin (Fíbín); and “Minimal Human Contact” (Aisling Ghéar) for which he was nominated for an Irish Times Theatre Award.

Screen works includes: “Vikings” (History Channel); “An Klondike” , “1916: Seachtar na Cásca”, “Wrecking The Rising”, “Na Cloigne”, “Rásaí na Gaillimhe”, “Seacht”, “An Crisis”, “Saol Faoi Shráid” (TG4); “Charlie”, “Blackshore” (RTÉ). Film work includes the short films “Love is a Sting”, “Gustav” and “A Better You”, and the features “Kings”, “Jimmy’s Hall”, “Arracht”, “I am Patrick” and “The Callback Queen” for which he received an IFTA nomination.

Writing work includes the plays “Gáire Agus Caoineadh Ó Luan go hAoine”, “The Dead, a Rose, and a Beer Too Many”, the documentary “Breith Agus Bás” about his family’s connection to the Irish Civil War, and the short films “Eoinín” and “An Chúirt”. He has also written 30 episodes of "Ros na Rún", radio comedy series “Radió Ráiméis”, and a radio adaptation of “Jimín Mháire Thaidhg” for young audiences.

Zita Monahan-McGowan holds an M.A in Drama and Theatre Studies from NUI Galway and an ADPA Diploma in Performance Arts Teaching ( London)

She began working with Moonfish on their production of The Secret Garden and since then has been delighted to be part of many of their productions including Tromluí Phinocchio , Thrice Upon a Time and Star of the Sea ( National and International U.S Tour )

Zita is a member of The Sky Babies improv troupe based in Galway City and in 2014 their long-form improvised play Suitcase debuted at Galway Theatre Festival. She played as a regular improviser in Wingin'It a monthly improvised comedy night and recently performed as a solo improviser in The Irish Improv Festival 2018.

She has a particular interest in devising theatre and theatrical improvisation and has facilitated and directed many drama projects with Youth Work Ireland, Foróige,Stageschool Ireland , Westside Arts Festival and Galway Actors Workshop. She currently facilitates drama classes with Ability West teaching adults and young people of all ages and abilities.

Mufutau Yusuf is a Nigeria-born Irish performer and choreographer based between Ireland and Brussels. A graduate of Salzburg Experimental Academy of Dance, Mufutau currently works with Wim Vandekeybus/Ultima Vez and in Ireland with Liz Roche Company, John Scott’s IMDT, United Fall, Catherine Young Dance, Moonfish Theatre, among others. Mufutau debuted his first full length work in 2022, titled ‘Òwe’, which premiered in New York and subsequently at Dublin Fringe Festival. Mufutau is an associate artist with Liz Roche Company and Solstice Arts Centre and a recipient of the Irish Arts Council Dance Bursary award 2020 and Project Award 2022.

Jo studied acting at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama graduating in 2005. She spent 10 years as an actor in the UK and Ireland, performing at Edinburgh's Royal Lyceum Theatre, Shakespeare's Globe, Dundee Rep, Nottingham Playhouse, and the Hampstead Theatre among others.

Jo became Moonfish's producer in 2015 and is proud to have taken Moonfish's work all over Ireland, to the UK and the US. In 2017 Jo was selected to take part in the Elevator producer scheme in conjunction with the Irish Theatre Institute. She is also producer for London-based theatre collective On The Button.