Now Playing:

we met on a dance floor

by Inua Ellams

A short film

directed by Colm Summers

The Abbey Theatre, Dublin, Peacock Stage

as part of "Reel Mix" at 05Fest, 2022.

“BEST OF THEATER 2023” THEATERLY MAGAZINE

EVERY BRILLIANT THING

THE GEFFEN PLAYHOUSE PRODUCTION

by duncan macmillan

STARRING

DANIEL K. ISAAC

new plays

Colm works with new playwrights to bring bold new work to the stage in the U.S and Ireland. He can often be found developing a new play from the ideation phase to fruition onstage with a playwright. He is an avid reader, and is always interested in reading new work, send him your plays! He is proud to count May Treuhaft-Ali, A.A. Brenner, Oisín McKenna, Will Dunleavy, Johnny G. Lloyd, LeAnne Howe and Ciara Ní Chuirc among some of his collaborators.

Pictured: “GAYS AGAINST THE FREE STATE,” by Oisín McKenna, Smock Alley Theater, Dublin Fringe Festival 2016 - JUDGES CHOICE AWARD NOMINEE

classics

Colm has directed Chekhov, Shakespeare, Brecht, Strindberg, Miller, Beckett, the Greeks, as well as the plays of Caryl Churchill (who he considers a classic, and his favorite playwright of all time. When he works on the classics, Colm asks, “who needs to perform this piece now?” For him, the classics remain an opportunity for innovation and decolonization - a playground for our collective history.

adaptations

Colm has a passion for adaptation and non-traditional theatrical texts. He has reworked the late prose Samuel Beckett, the lost plays of Bertolt Brecht, the closet dramas of Wyndham Lewis, the Georgian theatre and the Irish cannon. Colm is always excited by the opportunity to dance with a text in adaptation and is keen to explore new and innovative ways to genre-bend and bring new and exciting experiences to audiences.

Pictured: ENEMY OF THE STARS, after Wyndham Lewis, adapted by Colm Summers and Nicholas Johnson, the Samuel Beckett Theatre, Dublin, 2014/2015 and Fez, Morocco, 2015. - WINNER, BEST EXPERIMENTAL THEATER, FEZ FESTIVAL DU THEATRE

COLLABORATION

Colm works often as an associate director for theater and opera. He has worked for Raja Feather Kelly of the feath3r theory (New York, USA), Milo Rau of NT Ghent and the International Institute for Political Murder and Gavin Quinn of Pan Pan (Dublin, Ireland). Colm is currently preparing to Associate Direct the West Coast Premier of The Inheritance by Matthew Lopez, directed by Mike Donohue at the Geffen Playhouse, Los Angeles.

FILM

Colm directing his first film this year as part of Reel Mix at the Abbey Theatre, National Theatre of Ireland, where he adapted Inua Ellam’s We met on a dance floor into a short piece, which premiered in a screening on the Peacock Stage. He is working on his next film, his first narrative short, The High Chair, written by Summers, and created in collaboration with Delano Montgomery. It will shoot in November 2022.