Tom Creed is one of Ireland’s leading opera and theatre directors, with a particular focus on new plays and operas by emerging and established writers and composers. His productions have been seen at all the major Irish theatres and festivals, and internationally in over 30 cities on three continents.

Opera

A specialist in developing and directing new opera, he recently co-directed the world premiere of Jennifer Walshe’s MARS with Irish National Opera at Galway International Arts Festival and the Abbey Theatre. Other world premieres of new opera include Emma O’Halloran’s Trade and Mary Motorhead (Prototype Festival, New York, LA Opera and Irish National Opera), Michael Gallen’s Elsewhere (Abbey Theatre and Irish tour), Donnacha Dennehy’s The Hunger (Abbey Theatre and BAM, New York), Annelies van Parys’s Private View (winner of the inaugural FEDORA Opera Prize), and Jürgen Simpson’s air india [redacted] (Turning Point Ensemble, Vancouver).

Other opera and music theatre productions include Mozart’s Don Giovanni and Handels Giulio Cesare (Blackwater Valley Opera Festival), Maria Stuarda, Griselda and The Tales of Hoffmann (Irish National Opera), Brittten’s Owen Wingrave (Opéra national de Paris, Opera Collective Ireland), Handel’s Acis and Galatea, Poulenc’s The Human Voice and Wolf-Ferrari’s Susanna’s Secret (Opera Theatre Company), Mavra and The Bear (Royal Conservatoire of Scotland), and Die Zauberflöte, Suor Angelica, Mavra and Renard (Royal Irish Academy of Music).

Private View was awarded the FEDORA Rolf Liebermann Prize for Opera in 2014, Best Production at the Armel Opera Festival in Budapest in 2015, and was named by Music Theatre NOW 2015 as one of 14 notable productions “which are aesthetically innovative and reflect new developments in this genre” .

He was a participant in the Opera Creation Workshop at the 2020 Aix-en-Provence Festival and the Jerwood Opera Writing Programme at Snape Maltings, and was an Opera Hub associate artist of Opera Theatre Company in Dublin from 2015 to 2017.

Theatre

His extensive work as a theatre director includes productions with the Abbey Theatre, Gate Theatre, Thisispopbaby, Rough Magic, Playgroup (which he co-founded in 2003) and a range of independent Irish companies, which have played in Ireland, the UK, Europe, the USA and Australia. He was nominated for Best Director at the Irish Times Theatre Awards in 2007.

His productions of Watt by Samuel Beckett with acclaimed Irish actor Barry McGovern have been presented at the Dublin Theatre Festival, Galway Arts Festival, Edinburgh International Festival, Perth International Festival, Melbourne International Arts Festival, the Barbican Centre in London, the Public Theatre in New York and on tour in Ireland and the USA.

Recent productions include the 100th anniversary staging of The Plough and the Stars and The The Quare Fellow with the Abbey Theatre, The President with the Gate Theatre and Sydney Theatre Company, and extensive work in new writing, including Conversations After Sex and Trade by Mark O’Halloran, Sure Look It, Fuck It by Clare Dunne and I Am Tonie Walsh by Phillip McMahon and Tonie Walsh, all for Thisispopbaby, The Lost Tapes of Lydia Howell, The Bluffer’s Guide to Suburbia, Deep and Mimic by Ray Scannell, and Shibari by Gary Duggan, at the Abbey Theatre as part of the 2012 Dublin Theatre Festival, major contemporary plays by Martin Crimp, Jon Fosse, Christopher Shinn and Michel Tremblay, classic plays by Shakespeare and Calderón, devised and site-specific work including Berlin Love Tour, which was presented in Dublin, Cork and Birmingham. He has directed Punk Rock, Lady Windermere;s Fan, Summerfolk, Anatomy of a Suicide, The Caucasian Chalk Circle, The Skriker, Buddleia, O Go My Man and Into the Woods with graduating acting students at Dublin’s Lir Academy and ZOONOSIS created with Cal Folger Day and Rising created with Helena Enright for Dublin Youth Theatre.

Festivals

Tom was Festival Director of Cork Midsummer Festival from 2011 to 2013, and was nominated for an Irish Times Irish Theatre Award in 2012 “for original and dynamic use of local spaces at Cork Midsummer Festival”. He has previously been Theatre and Dance Curator of Kilkenny Arts Festival and Associate Director of Rough Magic Theatre Company, has worked as a guest curator for Dublin City Council and the British Council, and is a member of the EFFEA International Jury for the European Festivals Association. He worked on the cultural programme for Dublin’s bid to be European Capital of Culture in 2020, and has run masterclasses on festival management in Belgium, Greece, Russia and Uganda as well as online for The Festival Academy.

Other

Tom is a member of the Expert Advisory Committee of Culture Ireland, chair of GAZE Film Festival, a board member of Theatre Forum and member of the Alumni Steering Committee of the Festival Academy. He was a member of the steering committee of the National Campaign for the Arts from 2016-2022, and has previously been a board member of Macnas and Dublin Fringe Festival. He was artist in residence at Centre Culturel Irlandais, Paris, in 2016/17 and 2018/19.