Hélène Montague LTCL FTCL was born in Stockholm and moved to West Cork where she was educated at home with Music as first subject. Both her parents danced with the Royal Swedish Ballet, and she studied dance and theatre from an early age. Moving to Dublin at age 16 she studied piano with Dorothy Stokes and composition with James Wilson. Her first Musical Direction was The Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny by Brecht/Weill for Trinity Players. She is a founder member of Rough Magic Theatre Company and has worked frequently with them as an actor, musician, musical director and voice director and has worked widely as a freelance actor and musician for theatre radio tv and film.

She is a freelance director for opera and theatre and has directed the premiere of Kevin O'Connell's Opera DreamCatchr in 2019 for RIAM which has now been filmed in collaboration with IADT (co-directed with John Comiskey) and has just been screened as part of the Dublin international Film Festival 2024.

In November/December 2021 she appeared as Music Director in All the Angels by Nick Drake for Rough Magic Theatre Company in Smock Alley Theatre. She co-directed (with John Comiskey) the film of Gráinne Mulvey’s Great Women in the Throne room of Dublin Castle. In July 2022 she was director and dramaturg on the premier production of Slow Recognition, composed by David Bremner. She directed the premiere of Gráinne Mulvey’s SCAM in the ‘Dock’ in Carrick on Shannon with Elizabeth Hilliard as the soprano in November 2022. In April 2023 she directed the premiere of Ailís Ní Ríain’s Refuse to be Wrecked in the Richmond Barracks and a staging of Grainne Mulvey’s Great Women as part of New Music Dublin, also with Elizabeth Hilliard.

Hélène has been teaching Theatre and Musical Theatre in Inchicore College since 2007, she also teaches acting for singers on the BMus in the Royal Irish Academy of Music.

Andrew Synnott is a composer and conductor based in Dublin. He has conducted operas for Irish National Opera, Wexford Festival Opera, Opera Theatre Company and the Royal Irish Academy of Music.

He is a former artistic director and conductor of Crash Ensemble, a group he co-founded in 1997. He has conducted many orchestras and choirs, including Chamber Choir Ireland, the National Symphony Orchestra of Ireland and the RTE Concert Orchestra. In January 2015 he conducted the premiere of his first opera, Breakdown, in the NCH in Dublin. His second opera, Dubliners, was premiered at Wexford Festival Opera in 2017 and was nominated for an Irish Times Theatre Award in the Best Opera category.

His opera, La cucina, commissioned by Wexford Festival Opera in 2019 became the first by a living Irish composer to be performed on the main stage at the festival. He has had two further operas staged at the Wexford Festival as part of his tenure as Composer in Residence—What Happened To Lucrece (filmed and broadcast digitally as part of the 2020 festival) and The Fortyseventh Saturday staged at the 2021 festival. Recent performances of his work include Waiting for Elvira for piano and orchestra premiered at the New Music Dublin Festival in May by the RTECO with Michael McHale on piano, I follow I follow.. for string quartet and flute, 3 Songs for Gertie premiered in December in Paris and Asylum for symphony orchestra and chorus, written for the opening of the new concert hall in TU Dublin also in December. Andrew is a vocal coach at the Royal Irish Academy of Music and is chorus master at Wexford Festival Opera.

John Comiskey has worked extensively in theatre, music, film and television. He has won Best Design at the Irish Theatre awards and has been nominated several times for Best Lighting Design.

Opera credits as lighting designer include Madama Butterfly (INO); La Boheme, La Voix Humaine, L'Orfeo (OTC); The Spectre Knight (WFO) and La Finta Giardiniera (RIAM). He curated and designed the first Irish participation at the Prague Quadrennial exhibition of world theatre design.

Film directing credits include the award-winning Hit and Run and documentaries on the singer Agnes Bernelle (RTE) and the history of Ireland's mental asylums (Misha Productions).

John has recently completed DreamCatchr, an opera film which premièred at the Dublin International Film Festival in February 2024.

Diana holds an MA in drama and performance studies, graduating from UCD with First Class Honours. She is also a CORU registered physical therapist graduating from the Institute of Physical Therapy and Applied Sciences in 2015 with Distinction.

She began her dance training at the Irish National College of Dance, Blackrock and further studied in London, New York and Colorado. She has studied both Graham and Cunningham technique and is proficient in Viewpoints movement theories.

She has worked with the Abbey Theatre Ages of the Moon, Bedrock ,The Skriker and Early Morning, Quarehawks Speaking in tongues and Storytellers Dream of a Summer Day, Dublin Fringe Festival Take Off Your Cornflakes and Glasshouse I Know My Own Heart and Ladies and Gentlemen. Her film work includes Trojan Eddie (Peachtree Productions), I (Sullivan Bluth) and Dental Breakdown (Rocket Productions). Her work in musical theatre is extensive and includes West Side Story, Mack and Mabel, Chorus Line, Cabaret, The Pyjama Game, Chicago, Snoopy – The Musical, La Cage Aux Folles, and Parcels from America.