Roisin (Rosh) is an award-winning Cornish/Irish director, predominantly working with new writing and adaptations. Her productions range from popular family favourites, to the macabre and gothic and she infuses music, movement and puppetry throughout her work. She is influenced by folk culture and fables, the environment (particularly the sea), and her stories often sit in a magical realist space. 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, 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.
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 the ocean.
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 the Paines Plough, Wildworks and Canvas Theatre, as well as co-running her own new writing company, Write On, through which she has presented work at the G7 summit and supported the development of a number of writers/makers. 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 training with the Tobacco Factory's Writer's Lab, where she forms part of a writers room, and was recently selected to train with the BFI on a programme which supports theatre writers to transition into screen. She is currently under commission to the Brewhouse Theatre and will direct her play A Traipse Through Time in Autumn 2024 for the Brewhouse Theatre's Young Company at the Taunton Together Festival. Roisin is also one of the commissioned emerging writers with O-Region Theatre on their From the Horses Mouth project.
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 & visiting director at the University of Exeter, Academy of Music and Theatre Arts (Falmouth University), and on the University of Arts London Performing Arts Diplomas, as well as a regular returning director/practitioner at the Minack Academy, Hall for Cornwall Young Company and Bristol Old Vic Theatre School. Roisin is currently the Young People's Support Lead at the Royal Shakespeare Company, working with the Next Generation Act cohort in their summer production of The Two Gentlemen of Verona, and the Youth Advisory Board on their engagement with the Kyoto conference and additional governing activity.
RECENT PRESS:
★★★★
‘an electric atmosphere...it took the play into another dimension of terror’
- Everything Theatre on Cold, Dark Matters
★★★★
‘Beautifully performed... smoothly directed by Roisin McCay-Hines’
- LondonTheatres1 on Cold, Dark Matters
★★★★
‘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
★★★★
‘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
'intense and spine-chilling, artfully mixing elements of comedy, crime, laughter and shock'
- Bristol 24/7 on The Hound of the Baskervilles
★★★★
‘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