James Riordan- Artistic Director

James Riordan(he/him) is Artistic Director of Brú. He is a writer and theatre maker from Galway and trained at LISPA (London) and the APT (Berlin).

James spent many years working in Berlin and London for companies including the ENO and Absurda Comica and was a core member of The LipSinkers (UK) for 4 years. After returning to Ireland, he set up Brú in 2018. He is an Irish Times Theatre Awards Best Actor nominee 2020 for his role in Brú’s Selvage, has recently directed a piece for the Abbey Theatre as part of Reel Mix and received the Abbey’s Michael Hogan Commemoration Bursary in 2021 to write a new piece of long form lament.

He is Digital Artist in Residence with the Centre for Creative Technologies at the University of Galway and currently directing the Macnas flagship parade 2023.

He has been a participant on Creative Europe’s Make a Move, Theatre Forum’s MAKE, Performance Corp’s SPACE programme and Druid FUEL. He works as a freelance director and facilitator and was a Business to Arts Artist in Resident 2019/20, creating the SOAR program with mature students of NUIG’s Access program. He has been a panelist speaker with Theatre Forum, Irish Theatre Institute, Creative Ireland and NUIG.