Specky Clark

Choreographed, written, and directed by Oona Doherty

in collaboration with the cast

U.S. PREMIERE  
OCTOBER 25–NOVEMBER 15, 2026

Running time: 60 minutes, no intermission.

Please note: This performance contains smoke, theatrical haze, and gunshot sounds.

Performers:

Diarmuid Armstrong (old man, abattoir worker, tartan)
Maëva Berthelot (bully, Sardegna, witch)
Malick Cissé (bully, devil)
Gerard Headley (pig)
Clay Koonar (strawboy, abattoir worker, bully, angel)
Gennaro Lauro (auntie, blind boy)
Zoé Lecorgne (Specky Clark, mum, bully, Sardegna, witch)
Ryan O'Neill (mum)
Erin O’Reilly (Specky Clark, mum)
Joel Small (auntie, foot)

A note on the roles: The cast rotates through various roles, with some performers playing multiple parts.

Music: Lankum and Gavino Murgia, featuring David Holmes and Raven Violet
Composition and sound design: Maxime Jerry Fraisse
Lighting design: John Gunning
Set design: Sabine Dargent, assisted by Caroline Menassol
Costume design: Darius Dolatyari-Dolatdoust in collaboration with Constance Tabourga, assisted by Aela Bristiel, Lena Manin, Paul Escamez, Ambre Beylier, Meryl Degez, and Christina Clerisse
Rehearsal director: Ryan O’Neill
Audio cast: Louise Conaghan, Janie Doherty, Sam Finnegan, Stephen Rae, and Garry Rowntree
Technical direction: Marie Montfort Prédour
Lighting manager: Thibault Gambari
Creation set manager: Lisa M. Barry
Set engineer: Juliette Pierangelo
Latex props: Jessie Chalumeau
Photos and visuals: Luca Truffarelli
Subtitles: Nadir Bouassria, after a translation by Francesco Leto
Special thanks to: Jen Malarkey

OD Works
Development director: Dorothée Alemany
Logistics: Lucie Gissinger Maurandy
Administration: Christine Maupetit

Co-production: Ballet Preljocaj/CCN Aix-en-Provence (FR); Dublin Dance Festival and the Abbey Theatre (IE); Sadler's Wells, London (UK); International Summer Festival Kampnagel (DE); Festspielhaus St. Pölten (AT); Théâtre de la Ville, Paris (FR); Tanz Köln (DE); MC2: Grenoble (FR); CCN Ballet National de Marseille (FR)

Residencies: Ballet Preljocaj/CCN Aix-en-Provence, KLAP-Maison pour la Danse Marseille, CCN Ballet National de Marseille

U.S. PRODUCTION CREDITS

Assistant stage manager: Tre Wheeler
Head wardrobe: Lameeka Pough
Carpenters: Jarod Bakum, Bryant Blackburn, Ella Burns, James Blydenburgh, Kiel Fuller, and Jefferson Paltan
Electricians: Emily LaRochelle, Peter Lopez, Hailey O'Leary, and Sarazina Stein

Specky Clark is presented with generous support from Culture Ireland, Tourism Ireland, the Arnhold Foundation, and Alan Klein.

Who's Who

Oona Doherty

Oona Doherty was born in London and moved to Belfast when she was 10. She studied at St Louise’s Comprehensive College in Belfast, the London Contemporary Dance School, Ulster University, and Trinity Laban, London. Since 2010, she has performed with various companies, including TRASH, Abattoir Fermé, Veronika Riz, Emma Martin / United Fall, Enda Walsh, and Landmark Productions. She created her first solo work, Hope Hunt and the Ascension into Lazarus, in 2016, for which she was awarded the Tiger Dublin Fringe Festival Best Performer Award in 2016, the Total Theatre Dance Award at the Edinburgh Fringe in 2017, and first place at Reconnaissance in Grenoble in 2017. In 2017, she created Hard to be Soft—A Belfast Prayer (Prime Cut Productions), in collaboration with the seminal DJ and composer David Holmes, which was voted the No. 1 British dance performance of 2019 by The Guardian. In 2019, she created Lady Magma: The Birth of a Cult, again collaborating with Holmes. In 2022, she created Navy Blue with Big Pulse Dance Alliance, with music by Sergei Rachmaninoff and original creation by groundbreaking DJ Jamie xx. In 2023–24, she choreographed The Wall for London's National Youth Dance Company, a piece for 32 young dancers, featuring collaboration with Luca Truffarelli, the cast, and Turner Prize winner Mark Lecky. In 2024, Oona created a new dance theatre work, Specky Clark, with music by Mercury Prize winners Lankum and collaborative composer Maxime Jerry Fraisse. Oona Doherty was one of the Aerowaves Twenty17 selected artists, an associate artist at Maison de la Danse, Dublin Dance Festival's artist-in-residence in 2020–22, and a Big Pulse Dance Alliance artist 2021–23. Oona was the Venice Biennale Silver Lion award winner in 2021, a Ballet Preljocaj artist-in-residence in 2024–25, and a Sadler’s Wells associate artist in 2024.

Diarmuid Armstrong 

Diarmuid Armstrong is a dance artist, teacher, and choreographer from the northwest of Ireland. He graduated in 2021 from Fontys Dance Academy in the Netherlands. He directs his own company, Crooked Thinking. He works full-time as a professional dancer with companies such as Irish Modern Dance Theatre, Attic Projects, Liz Roche Company, CoisCéim, Catherine Young Dance, and Oona Doherty Works.

Maëva Berthelot

Maëva Berthelot is a performer and choreographer whose work unfolds along the threshold of experimental, performative, and collaborative approaches. After graduating in 2003 from the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Paris, Berthelot has collaborated with artists and companies such as Ohad Naharin, Emanuel Gat, Coby Sey, Sharon Eyal, Damien Jalet, Vimala Pons, Nhu Xuan Hua, Kali Malone, and Roberta Jean, among others, and spent five years with Hofesh Shechter Company, contributing creatively as an original cast member in numerous pieces and as a teacher. Alongside developing her own choreographic practice and her work as a movement director, Berthelot is currently collaborating with Colette Sadler, Ola Maciejewska, and Lauren Barri Holstein.

Malick Cissé

Malick Cissé studied dance and English studies at Rennes 2 University. After one year at the Conservatoire de Rennes, he joined the National Center for Contemporary Dance in Angers in 2021. He currently collaborates with different choreographers such as Oona Doherty, Cherish Menzo, and Gisèle Vienne. Malick is also part of Shelter, a collective of young artists.

Gerard Headley

Gerard Headley is an actor and physical theatre artist from Belfast. Since graduating from the Northern School of Contemporary Dance in 2020, he has worked across the UK and Europe with various companies, including Red Ladder Theatre Company, Maiden Voyage Dance, mad dogs dance theatre, and Northern Ireland Opera.

Clay Koonar

Clay Koonar was born in Vancouver, Canada, where he began his dance training at the Richmond Academy of Dance. After completing his training at the Palucca Hochschule für Tanz Dresden, he moved to Saarbrücken, Germany, and joined the ensemble of the Saarländisches Staatstheater. For six seasons, Clay was a member of the Dresden Frankfurt Dance Company, where he performed roles by Jacopo Godani, William Forsythe, and Marco Goecke. Since leaving the company, he has been performing and teaching as a freelance artist.

Gennaro Lauro

After studying philosophy and Eastern languages, Gennaro Lauro has worked as a dance performer for Giorgio Rossi, Romeo Castellucci, Cindy Van Acker, Oona Doherty, Flora Gaudin, Fabiana Ruiz Diaz, Aurélien Dougé, and Heine Avdal / Yukiko Shinozaki, as well as in films by Arnold Pasquier and Jérôme Walter Gueguen. He has created several works, including Sarajevo—the massacre of the quiet man (2019), Mondo (2020), and ZugZwang (2023), in collaboration with his sister Elisabetta Lauro. He is currently working on a new project, To Repel Ghosts/Letter to the Father, a study on masculinity. He is also a professional translator.

Zoé Lecorgne

Zoé Lecorgne began dancing in the Paris region, first at the Conservatoire de Paris and then at the Boulogne CRR. At the same time, she pursued a degree in clinical psychology at the University of Paris Diderot. From 2014–16, she continued her training at Coline. After completing her training, she joined Emanuel Gat Dance in 2018 for Story Water. That same year, she performed in Arcadie by the company La Vouivre. In 2020, she took part in the creation of the duet Inside the Box, led by Cécile Lassonde of Collectif Page 55. In 2021, she joined 3 Works for 12 by Alban Richard and also collaborated with Wendy Cornu on Volutes. She co-founded Vigousse with Thibault Desaules, an artistic platform where she created the piece FATAL.E. In 2023, she collaborated with Collectif ÈS on SHOT and on the opening performance for the Lyon Dance Biennale parade. From 2022–24, she participated in the creation of Navy Blue by Oona Doherty. In 2025, she took part in the creation of En Fanfaaare! by Tatiana Julien and Quartet by Alban Richard.

Ryan O'Neill

Ryan O'Neill trained at Ulster University and studied for his master's in dance performance at Laban as part of a professional postgraduate company, Transitions. Since then, Ryan has worked with Maiden Voyage Dance, Off the Rails Dance, ponydance, Tinderbox Theatre Company, Prime Cut Productions, Oona Doherty Works, Irish Modern Dance Theatre, Junk Ensemble, Panpan, Company Philip Connaughton, CoisCéim, Liz Roche Company, Emma Martin / United Fall, Luke Murphy / Attic Projects, THISISPOPBABY, Michael Keegan-Dolan, Gwyn Emberton Dance, Punchdrunk’s immersive show Sleep No More in Shanghai, and The Burnt City, London.

Ryan is an artist-in-residence with Luail, Ireland's national dance company. In 2011, Ryan was selected by the Arts Council of Northern Ireland to meet Queen Elizabeth II at Buckingham Palace for recognition of his achievements as a young person in the arts. Ryan is also a qualified Ashtanga yoga teacher and certified in Garuda chair and mat work.

Erin O’Reilly

Erin O’Reilly is from California and based between Geneva and Berlin. Erin is an independent artist whose practice spans performance, choreography, teaching, and writing. Since completing the Ballet Junior de Genève in 2014, she has performed with Luca Truffarelli, Yotam Peled, La Ribot Ensemble, Marion Baeriswyl, and James Finnemore, among others. Her own work emphasizes emergent, collaborative creativity and embodied philosophy, often in unconventional performance settings. She has facilitated socio-cultural projects in Switzerland and Kosovo.

Joel Small

Born in Sydney, Australia, Joel Small trained at the School of Hamburg Ballet, graduating in 2008. He worked with the Hamburg Ballet from 2008–11. In 2012, he danced as a guest with the West Australian Ballet. From 2013–14, Joel entered an honours program at the Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts at Edith Cowan University. From 2015–19, Joel was a member of the Dresden Frankfurt Dance Company under the direction of Jacopo Godani. Joel has created works for DFDC and Lange Nacht der Dresdner Theatre at the Festspielhaus Hellerau. In 2019, Joel performed in Cyril Baldy’s Variation(s) for a Few at the Frankfurt Lab. Since beginning his freelance career in 2019, Joel has worked with Emanuele Soavi, Jenny Beyer, Karin Henkel, Bastian Kraft, Jacob Höhne, and many others. Joel has performed and worked with Kampnagel, Münchener Kammerspiele, Deutsche Oper Berlin, Sophiensaele, RambaZamba Theater, Staatstheater Kassel, and Staatsoper Stuttgart, to name a few. Joel also works extensively as a drag queen in theatre and nightlife under his stage name, Reflektra.

About Irish Arts Center

Founded in 1972 and based in Hell’s Kitchen, New York City, Irish Arts Center is a home for artists and audiences of all backgrounds who share a passion or appreciation for the evolving arts and culture of contemporary Ireland and Irish America. We present, develop, and celebrate work from established and emerging artists and cultural practitioners, providing audiences with emotionally and intellectually engaging experiences in an environment of Irish hospitality. Steeped in grassroots traditions, we also provide community education programs and access to the arts for people of all ages and ethnic, racial, and socioeconomic backgrounds. In a historic partnership of the people of Ireland and New York, Irish Arts Center recently completed construction on a state-of-the-art new facility to support this mission for the 21st century, and has begun work on the project’s second phase, the redevelopment of our adjacent original 51st Street building.

Irish Arts Center Staff

BOARD OF DIRECTORS

Andrew Breslin
Aidan Connolly
Kristine Covillo
Robert M. Devlin
Celestine Donaghy
Michael Dowling
John Duffy
Russell Gioiella
Loretta Brennan Glucksman
Shaun Kelly 
Gina Maria Leonetti
John Martin
Robert J. McCann
Tom McInerney
Shane Naughton
Sharon Patrick
James E. Quinn
Aidan Synnott
Pauline Turley
Bill Whelan

STAFF 

Sarah Balsam-Moga (Development Operations Manager)
Patrick Beebe (Programming Assistant)
Aidan Connolly (Executive Director)
Manuel Da Silva (Production Manager and Lighting Supervisor)
Shannon Ducey (Associate Director of Administrative Operations)
Fiona Farrell (Communications and Marketing Coordinator)
Vivian Fong (Director of Communications and Marketing)
Rachael W. Gilkey (Director of Programming and Education)
Laney Granito (Special Events Producer)
Jon Harper (Chief Operating Officer)
Anah Klate (Audience Services Manager)
Gabe Lozada (Associate Director of Development for Major Gifts)
Andy O'Reilly (Artist Services Manager)
Barry Ó Séanáin (Director of Development)
Ciara O'Shea (Communications and Marketing Coordinator)
Emma Reifschneider (Executive and Special Projects Coordinator)
Jessie Reilly (Director of Education, Family and Community Programming)
Thomas Short (Stage Supervisor and Head Carpenter)
Mac Smith (Director of Production)
Matt Storti (Executive Assistant)
Pauline Turley (Vice Chair)
Dennis Walls (Director of Facility Operations)
Maggie Wilson (Grant Writer and Grants Coordinator)
Kestrel Wolgemuth (Associate Director of Programming)

Sabrina Varghese (Senior Human Resources Partner)  

Amandeep Kaur (Staff Accountant, NCheng)
Satyam Puri (Staff Accountant, NCheng)
Desaann Legzim (Senior Accountant, NCheng)
Vera Wong (Manager, NCheng)

Pat Morin (Graphic Designer)
Taylor Panetti (Graphic Designer)
Torrence Brown (Graphic Designer)

Blake Zidell (Public Relations Consultant, Blake Zidell & Associates) 

Kiana Collins (Marketing and Communications Intern)
Sophie Hogan (Special Events Intern)

FRONT OF HOUSE 

Box Office Manager: Stephen Peterson
Box Office Associates: Dane Jerabek, Sarah Jack
House Managers: Lindsey Freeman, John Howley
Usher Shift Leads: Addy Jenkins, Ashleigh Beaird
Ushers: James Barniker, Christopher Cunningham, Joshua Hendricks, Michael Lester, Anne Marie Mascia, Emily Mayo, Quinton Menendez, Sylvia Morsillo, Ray Plocharczyk, Victoria Provost, Francis Rosario, Anne Rutter