Roisin (Rosh) is an award-winning Cornish/Irish director, predominantly working with new writing and adaptations.
Her productions strike a balance between delicacy and dynamism, and she is curious about people, landscapes (with a particular love of bodies of water), and how we are affected by our environments. She is keen to engage regional artists and audiences through her work.
Roisin trained as a director at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School and is a first-class alumna of the University of Exeter, where she read English literature and Drama. She has additionally trained with the JMK, Wise Children, Young Vic, Soho Theatre and Exeter Northcott Theatre.
She recently directed Cold, Dark Matters which ran at Theatre503 and The Hope Theatre to great success, earning the production a London Pub Theatre's Standing Ovation Award nomination. Prior to that, she directed the UK premiere of Our Christmas Carol - A Musical at the Old Joint Stock Theatre in Birmingham, and a brand new adaptation of The Hound of the Baskervilles by award-winning playwright Matt Grinter for Red Rope Theatre. Bar Tape, which she directed for Rocket Box Theatre, is currently touring across the South-West until July.
Roisin is also a recipient of the MGC Futures Bursary Award 23/24 and is developing her new play inspired by the 1997 cargo ship that spilled 5 million pieces of sea-themed Lego into ocean.
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Further directing credits include Before It All Ends (Minack Theatre), Pushing On Open Doors (Royal Shakespeare Company, rehearsed reading), Life Before You (Alma Theatre, supported by Shakespeare at Tobacco Factory Bursary Award), A Bomb We Called Sam (Bristol Old Vic), No One Will Tell Me How to Start a Revolution (Wardrobe Theatre), GAMBIT (Exeter Northcott), Mrs Buscome’s Brown Betty (Kneehigh). Credits as associate/assistant director include Further Than the Furthest Thing (Minack Theatre), A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Malcolm X Centre), Off Your Chest (Salisbury Playhouse), The Triumphant Sea (Royal Shakespeare Company) and Marthusow ha Mysteris (Hall for Cornwall/O-Region).
As a playwright, Roisin has trained with Canvas Theatre and on the Bill’s Attic Residency (Wildworks Theatre), as well as co-running her own new writing company, Write On, through which she has presented work at the G7 summit. In 2020 Roisin was shortlisted for BBC New Creatives with her radio drama Cross the Tamar: The Path Less Trodden, and she debuted her play GAMBIT in 2021 through the Exeter Northcott Theatre. She is currently a member of the Tobacco Factory's Writer's Lab where she forms part of a writers room, and has been selected to train with the BFI on a programme which supports theatre writers to transition into screen.
As a producer she has developed and delivered work independently and for the Salisbury International Arts Festival (as Wiltshire Creative's Associate Artist on the SHIFT initiative 2021-22), Falmouth International Arts Festival, Edinburgh Fringe, Tresorys Kernow project and Poltimore Festival, where she co-founded the Shakespeare in Bloom initiative.
Roisin also works as a guest lecturer on University of Arts London Performing Arts Diplomas and at the University of Exeter, as well as a regular returning director/practitioner at the Minack Academy, Hall for Cornwall Young Company and Bristol Old Vic Theatre School.
RECENT PRESS:
★★★★
‘Beautifully performed... smoothly directed by Roisin McCay-Hines’
- LondonTheatres1 on Cold, Dark Matters (Nominated for London Pub Theatre's Standing Ovation Award 2024)
★★★★
‘Excellent...great play, great performance’
- Everything Theatre on Cold, Dark Matters
★★★★
‘Under the direction of Roisin McCay-Hines... the show is gripping throughout’
- The Peg on Cold, Dark Matters
★★★★
‘Alluringly transgressive’
- North West Theatre on Cold, Dark Matters
★★★★
‘an electric atmosphere...it took the play into another dimension of terror’
- Everything Theatre on Cold, Dark Matters
★★★★
‘A tour de force’
- Reviews Hub on Our Christmas Carol - A Musical
★★★★
‘an absolute gem this holiday season’
- All That Dazzles on Our Christmas Carol - A Musical
★★★★
‘The show is a testament to the skill of the performers and creatives behind it’
- Stagetalk Magazine on The Hound of the Baskervilles
‘Roisin McCay-Hines' sharp direction keeps the pace and delivers a punchy production’
- British Theatre Guide on The Hound of the Baskervilles
★★★★
‘Director Roisin McCay-Hines has ensured that their story, with all its changes of pace and shifts in mood, is delivered with clarity and conviction’
- Stagetalk Magazine on No One Will Tell Me How to Start a Revolution