Philip Hardy

Philip trained as an actor and has appeared in most main-house venues in Ireland. He has directed for the theatre in venues as diverse as the Seymour Theatre Centre in Sydney, Australia to the Town Hall on the island of Tiree, and from the Royal National Theatre in London to the streets of Kilkenny. Philip founded Barnstorm in 1991 to develop and provide theatre to a wide audience. In the last 18 years he has developed many exciting projects to fulfil this objective – Children’s Theatre (The Bus, Silly Bits of Sky, The Biggest Adventure in the World), Community Theatre (The ‘Comer Story, River through Time, The Ballad of Rory Roe), Youth Theatre (Kilkenny Youth Theatre, Southeast Network of Youth Theatre, the SE Festival of Youth Theatres) Theatre-in-Other-Spaces (Quad, Act Without Words II, Strollers), Theatre for Young Children (The Elves & The Shoemakers, Martha, Little Rudolf). He is also Chairman of Theatre for Young Audiences Ireland (ASSITEJ centre in Ireland). TYA Ireland is the national association representing and promoting professional organisations and individual artists whose work primarily focuses on engaging Irish children and young people through theatre.