(Back row): Bron Barrett, Chelle Henry, (Front row): Neltah Chadamoyo, Slawa Jaskiewicz, Jenny Macdonald and Martha Cosgrove
SoloSIRENS returns with focus on community, resilience and hope
WHAT do we as individuals, society, and a planet need to be truly well? This question is at the heart of The Being Well: SoloSIRENs Festival 2026.
SoloSIRENS is a collective of female-identifying theatremakers and community participants in residence at the Civic, working to create more “just, caring and sustainable” ways of making and presenting.
This year’s festival, directed by Jenny Macdonald and produced by Martha Cosgrove, runs across four weekends, allowing conversation and community to build amongst audiences and artists.
The festival presents performances, works-in-progress, discussions, installations and free workshops exploring community, connection, resilience and hope.
Bringing together artists and audiences from Tallaght and beyond, the festival creates a space to gather and imagine how individuals can co-create ways of living better together.
This week, The Echo sat down with festival director Jenny Macdonald to discuss the 2026 SoloSIRENS Festival, which runs in the Civic Theatre across four weekends; October 29 to 31, November 12 to 15, November 25 to 28, and December 10 to 12.
SoloSIRENs Festival is funded by the Civic, Tallaght, The Arts Council, South Dublin County Council, Creative Ireland South Dublin, Tallaght Community Arts and Creative Places MacUílíam.
For more information on particular events, visit civictheatre.ie or email solosirens@gmail.com.
What is SoloSIRENS’ mission this year, particularly? What is the message behind ‘The Being Well’?
SoloSIRENs works to create more just, caring and sustainable ways of making theatre and living life.
That hope is behind all the performances, projects, festivals and symposia that we create.
The work in our festivals is curated in order to bring artists and audiences together to answer questions that affect us all.
This festival is curated to explore what it means to be truly well.
And we are looking at this in terms our bodies and health, our socio-political relationships, and our relationship to the planet we all share.
Have you approached organising this festival differently to how you did in previous years?
This is our third festival, and it builds on the strengths of previous ones as well as the things we have learned.
This year each performance night shares two shows, generally one full production and one work in progress.
This allows all the works, including the solo shows, to be in conversation with each other.
We are also excited that this festival will have a Young Sirens group.
These young women will follow the festival programme and create a performed response to it at an upcoming symposium.
What has been your favourite part of organising ‘The Being Well’ so far and why?
It is always really exciting to bring the festival together.
We get to hear how the artists’ works are developing and how the context of the festival is shaping and inspiring them.
We are very excited to bring all the festival artists together soon for a workshop before the festival begins.
That will be a time for us all to dig into our motivations and hopes for the festival.
Have there been any challenges so far? If so, how would you navigate these challenges?
A festival involves a lot of people, so the ‘to do’ list can be a little daunting.
The positive challenge there is to be guided by the festival’s theme of wellness.
If we let that really inspire us, we stay grounded and sane and keep our eyes on the bigger picture.
Having done a few festivals now, we know all the hard work will be worth it when everyone is together in the room.
What are your biggest hopes for the festival? What are you hoping will be attendees’ biggest takeaways from the performances?
We always hope that the festival will give our audiences community and connection.
We hope it is a space where things people have been thinking about get a chance to be heard and explored.
I hope people leave all the performances, post-show conversations and workshops knowing they were part of something and that we couldn’t have done it without them!
Who would you like to thank for helping to make this possible?
We are really grateful to have a lot of funders and supporters without whom the festival would not be possible.
Our heartfelt thanks to our home base at the Civic Theatre, who not only host and support the festival but also support SoloSIRENs all year long.
We are really lucky in South Dublin to have a fantastic local arts office, who have also supported us since we began.
Huge thanks to South Dublin County Council, Creative Ireland South Dublin, the Arts Council and the Creative Places MacUilliam programme.
And of course, all our thanks and gratitude to the festival artists, audiences, production and technical teams who make it all happen!
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