Associate Artist - Dramaturgy - Emily DeDakis

Emily DeDakis joins Droichead in 2024 as our Associate Artist – Dramaturgy. Emily will work with our commissioned writers/bursary recipients/up and coming playwrights; to support the play’s development, providing context and helping each artist tell their intended story.

A writer, dramaturg and producer from the southeast U.S. based in north Belfast, Emily has developed dozens of scripts and performances – including immersive, 24-hour, multimedia, community, verbatim and dance theatre – with companies like Accidental, Dumbworld, OfftheRails, Prime Cut and Terra Nova (Belfast), Sole Purpose (Derry),  Scene+Heard (Dublin) and fools FURY (San Francisco). New-play dramaturgy includes most recently, working with Droichead Bursary Recipient Carol Rooney on her play The Event; Fast & Loose: Theatre for the Chronically Impatient (2007-‘17), Biscuit Tin Readings (2010-'13), The Kitchen, the Bedroom & the Grave (2014 – winner of a Stewart Parker Trust award), Arrivals: Intercultural Plays (2014-’17) The Lost Martini (2015), Gordon Osràm’s Funeral (2016), Spoke (2018) and Toilet Opera (Philadelphia 2018 & Belfast 2023). Among the places she’s taught creative writing and drama are Queen’s University Belfast, Ulster University, the Lyric Theatre, Belfast Exposed, the John Hewitt International Summer School and the Chautauqua Institution. Currently, she’s associate artist with Fighting Words NI, coordinating and mentoring their Young Playwrights programme. Emily’s writing has been broadcast on BBC television and radio and commissioned by the MAC, the Lyric Theatre, Household Belfast and the Sonorities festival. A member of Belfast’s experimental choir HIVE, she often collaborates with sonic artists on multimedia pieces.