Katie Holly Announced as Culture Night Cork County Ambassador

Award-winning playwright, Katie Holly, is this year's Cork County Culture Night Ambassador. A native of Charleville in Co. Cork, Katie's first play, Marion premiered at Cork Midsummer Festival in 2016 and was subsequently performed at Clonmel Junction Festival, Skibbereen Arts Festival, and many venues around the country. Her second play, Sharon, won a New York Festival Award and was performed in venues around the country. It was also recorded and broadcast as a Radio Play on RTE RADIO 1. Up until March 2020, her third play, Crowman was touring nationally, starring Jon Kenny.

Katie says, "I feel privileged and proud to be Cork County Culture Night Ambassador, and look forward to the most innovative Culture Night yet. It had to be more innovative than previous years because we've never had to engage with restrictions and guidelines like these before... but I think that these seeming limitations have driven us to think laterally about how we communicate, how we express ourselves, and how we share cultural experiences in a post Covid-19 era."

Katie was commissioned by Cork County Library Service and Arts Office to write Crossword and it has been recorded to be broadcast as a downloadable/streamable podcast on Culture Night, Friday, September 18th. Featuring Tadhg Hickey and Danny Buckley as the two protagonists, Brian and Harry, who are both library service users with different reasons for being in the library and different things to be angry about.

The programme for Cork County Culture Night is taking shape and will, again, feature events for everyone, from a 'Fake Live' performance by internationally renowned pianist, David Syme, from his living room in Castletownbere to an aerial dance show from Tara Brandel, a concert of new music from composer/performer Emily Magner and topically, "Day of the Straws" which examines how social history surrounding the 1832 Cholera epidemic relates to modern day Covid 19 at Sirius Arts Centre in Cobh.

For more information visit: www.culturenightcorkcounty.ie