Druid Debuts 2025

Fri 5 Dec 7.30pm

“Family, it’s a tangle of jellyfish, try to get closer or further apart, you still end up stinging each other no matter what way you toss or turn.” Fuscardi’s is a memory play set in a chipper by the sea. Over the course of the play, the tides of time wash between the summer of 1982 which irrevocably changed the family, and a week in 2022 when the family’s matriarch is about to pass. It’s a play about love, estrangement, echoes and chips.

Conor Kelly is a Dublin-based playwright and director. Fuscardi’s is the first play he wrote upon completing his MFA in Playwriting in The Lir Academy. He is the founder of the company Saltwater Theatre which recently delivered the premiere production of his play Just Being Open With You at Smock Alley Theatre in August 2025. Other plays include I had a dream I shot you in the head… but the calibre wasn’t very big: a love story (Scene + Heard,  2025), Conservatory (The Lir Academy, 2022) and Horizons (DU Players, 2020).

Sat 6 Dec 2.30pm

Ciaran, Tayto and Di are chronically bored twentysomethings surviving in their dead-end rural Leitrim town. For fun, they spend their early October nights throwing illegally obtained fireworks out of a moving car. One night, they accidentally hit a young child, grievously injuring him. They hide the evidence in the woods and attempt to keep their heads down, but they start to struggle and self-destruct in the aftermath of their crime.

Treasa Nealon is a playwright and theatre-maker based in Leitrim. She is an alumna of Irish Theatre Institute’s Virtual Six in the Attic programme. Some of her most recent theatre work includes Homesick at Dublin Fringe Festival (September 2025), the short play Growing, Grown, Gone at Richmond Arts and Ideas Festival (June 2025), and the commissioned short play The First to Go, performed by AboutFACE Theatre Company for their NEWvember New Writing Festival at the Civic Theatre in Dublin (November 2024).

Sat 6 Dec 5.30pm

Amy is in an institution. Her mother Marie is her only visitor. This is how it has been for the last 2 years. But now, she has been deemed well enough to rejoin society – a society that wants nothing to do with her following the events that lead to her being institutionalised. What she wants, all she wants, is to be reunited with her daughter Grace. Whatever it takes. Because that is all there is.

Clare Monnelly is a writer and actor. Her debut play Charlie’s a Clepto was nominated for two Irish Times Theatre Awards. Her plays have been produced by Livin’ Dred Theatre Company, Asylum Productions, Once Off Productions, have premiered at Dublin Fringe Festival, Kilkenny Arts Festival, Cairde Arts Festival, and have toured nationally. As a screenwriter, Clare was recently awarded the Discovery Award from Dublin International Film Festival for her Screen Ireland-funded short film Cat & Mouse. She is currently in development on her debut feature film.

Tickets for this year's Druid Debuts are on sale now:

• €10 per reading
• €25 for all three readings

To avail of the €25 ticket bundle, simply add a ticket for all three readings to your cart in the online box office and the discount will be automatically applied.

Fuscardi's

Please note that this play reading features mature themes that may not be suitable for all ages.

Boom Boom Bang

Please note that this play reading features sexism, misogyny, and references to sexual assault.

Grace

Please note that this play reading features references to attempted murder-suicide and related matters.