Artists announced for Tales Of Two Cities 2024

Cork Midsummer Festival and The Everyman are delighted to announce this year’s participants on the Tales Of Two Cities artist development and mentorship programme, in partnership with MAYK and Bristol Old Vic. This year’s selected artists will be Orla Devlin, Kyle English, and Kate Mitchell.

Orla Devlin is a multi-disciplinary artist with a background of working in devised theatre, community arts, and performance art. Her work responds to current political and feminist topics, with a focus on protest, ritual, and satire. She is a graduate of Drama and Theatre Studies at Trinity College Dublin and was awarded a First Class Honours in MA Acting from the Institute of the Arts Barcelona. Her most recent productions include Plays Are Shite (Dublin, 2023), Anniversary: A Protest (Barcelona, 2022), and Pay No Attention (Barcelona, 2022). This year she was awarded Research and Development Funding from Create on behalf of The Arts Council to facilitate Theatre of the Oppressed workshops with members of the Brazilian Community in Dublin.

Ever since he was born Kyle English knew he wanted to be a scientist or a lawyer or a psychologist/politician/artist...?! Now, he's a performer, writer, director, songwriter and maker, always wanting to do more things. In his work he looks at the surreal, the psychological and the philosophical. He enjoys a humorous spin, and truly believes in the medicine of comedy. His most recent writing and directing works have been The Show We Put On, a musical tragi-comedy about people-pleasing, and The Call Of (co-creator Wike Schippers), an immersive live-scored storytelling show about the act of choosing the unknown for better or worse. He is absolutely delighted to have been selected for The Tales of Two Cities programme.

Kate Mitchell is a highly skilled and multifaceted circus artist who specializes in fire performance, hula hoop, aerial sling and silks. Kate first ran away with the circus in 2013 and became a full-time professional artist when she graduated from UCC in 2019. She has traveled far and wide to learn from some of the greats including mentorship with Marianna de Santis, Lisa Lottie, Aisling Ní Cheallaigh and Loosysmokes. Artistic work, both created and performed by Kate, has been seen as part of Cork Midsummer Festival, Derry Halloween and Pitch’d Circus Festival.