Artists and Staff
Artistic Director and CEO: Mary Moynihan
Mary Moynihan is a writer, theatre and film-maker, and Artistic Director of Smashing Times International Centre for the Arts and Equality and Smashing Times Theatre and Film Company and a Theatre Lecturer at the DIT Conservatory of Music and Drama.
As Artistic Director of Smashing Times, Mary specialises in using the arts to promote human rights, peace building, gender equality and positive mental health, developing cutting edge, arts-based projects with a range of organisations. Award winning projects include Acting for the Future which uses theatre to promote positive mental health, run in partnership with the Samaritans and the highly successful Women War and Peace using theatre and film to promote equality and peace. Company patrons are First Lady Sabina Coyne Higgins, Senator Joan Freeman, founder of Pieta House, Ger Ryan, actor and Tim Pat Coogan, writer and historian.
As a playwright, Mary’s work includes the highly acclaimed The Woman is Present: Women’s Stories of WWII by Mary Moynihan, Deirdre Kinahan, Paul Kennedy and Fiona Bawn Thompson; In One Breath from the award-winning Testimonies (co-written with Paul Kennedy); Constance and Her Friends and Grace and Joe – selected by President Michael D. Higgins for performance at Áras an Uachtaráin for Culture Night 2016 – and May Our Faces Haunt You and Silent Screams.
As a theatre director, professional directing credits include The Woman is Present: Women’s Stories of WWII by Mary Moynihan, Fiona Bawn Thompson, Deirdre Kinahan and Paul Kennedy, on Irish and international tour (co-director Bairbre Ni Chaoimh); scenes from A Midsummer Night’s Dream by William Shakespeare for the Abbey Theatre, Dublin; Uprising scripted by Tara McKevitt and devised by Smashing Times Theatre Company at Project Arts Centre Dublin and on national tour; Thou Shalt Not Kill by Paul Kennedy at Project Arts Centre Dublin and Lyric Theatre Belfast; Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare, Samuel Beckett Theatre; Macbeth by William Shakespeare, DIT Theatre; Orphans by Dennis Kelly, Focus Theatre; The Crucible by Arthur Miller, Grangegorman; Shattering Glass and In One Breath (Testimonies) for Smashing Times at Project Arts Centre and Helix Theatre, Dublin.
Mary’s film work includes the hour-long television documentary Stories from the Shadows, the short film Tell Them Our Names (selected for the London Eye International Film Festival and the Kerry Film Festival) and the creative documentary Women in an Equal Europe.
Mary has an honours MA in Film Production from DIT and an honours BA in Drama and Theatre Studies from the University of Dublin Trinity College. Mary originally trained as an actor and director at Focus Theatre under the direction of Deirdre O’Connell, her friend and mentor.
Mary’s theatre and film work are physical-based and focus on primal, visceral and intuitive responses to vulnerability and conflict and an exploration of self and the other. She focuses on the interconnectedness of the body, voice and imagination and the use of creative physical and spiritual energies, revealing the inner life through physical and intuitive engagements.
Producer and Company Manager: Freda Manweiler
Freda Manweiler is project coordinator for Women War and Peace. Freda has worked with Smashing Times Theatre and Film Company since 1999. She is highly skilled in management and project coordination and implementation. She has worked as producer on a range of productions by Smashing Times and others throughout the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland.
She is coordinator of the highly successful Acting For The Future programme that uses drama and theatre to promote positive mental health and suicide prevention, which is run in association with the Samaritans and the Irish Association of Suicidology throughout the island of Ireland. As part of her work for Smashing Times she is responsible for all aspects of management and project development and is also involved in teaching practice.
She has extensive experience in team management through her work with Smashing Times as a manager and as a manager and Employment Assessment Coordinator for a Working Skills Centre in Toronto, Canada. Her education includes a Bachelor in Social Work (2007) from the Open University and in 2012 she completed an MEd from the National University of Ireland/UCD.
Other Artists and Staff
Key artists who work with the Smashing Times International Centre for the Arts and Equality include Peter Sheridan, Raymond Keane, Paul Kennedy, Bairbre Ní Chaoimh, Pom Boyd, Adam Traynor, Margaret Toomey, Mary Duffin, Fiona Bawn Thompson, Róisín McAtamney, Geraldine McAlinden, Carla Ryan, Megan O’Malley and Farrah Elle.
Board of Directors
Dr Eric Weitz (Chairperson), Associate Professor of Drama, School of Drama, Film and Music, Samuel Beckett Centre, Trinity College, Dublin 2.
Sandra Berger, (ACCA), Financial Consultant, B.A. (Hons) in Finance and Accounting
Olivia O’Hagan, Business Advisor, Invest NI
Mary Lawlor, Human Rights Activist, Founder and current board member of Front Line Defenders and Adjunct Professor, School of Business, Trinity College Dublin
Patrons
The centre has two high-profile patrons: Mary Lawlor, human rights activist, and Joan Freeman, psychologist and Irish Senator.
Annual Audited Accounts
Smashing Times Audited Accounts 2019