SoFFt Spotlight Series
A weekly Monday Spotlight series on some of our long term collaborators. Creativity doesn't happen in isolation, it grows in conversation, in collaboration, in the spaces where ideas meet.
MIMI MURRAY- JOURNALIST,
THE IRISH TIME CONTENT STUDIO
“on shoots, the mood was always creative, calm, and fun,” - MIMI MURRAY
What specific aspect of SoFFt’s work was most helpful or memorable?
On shoots, the mood was always creative, calm, and fun, very important in order for the participant to feel relaxed and calm in front of camera.
How was the experience of working with SoFFt?
Very pleasant, creative and great suggestions that complimented my own ideas for the partnership. It was very collaborative. SoFFt would go above and beyond to help with any client issues, be it missed deadlines by client, last minute changes to video (green wall). Nothing was a problem.
SoFFt’s Contribution?
SoFFt helped us create beautiful high end video for digital website and shorter reels for instagram. SoFFt brought their expertise to help me bring my idea for the Dulux Heritage X The Irish Times partnership to life.
They created excellent treatments for each story and helped execute each skilfully and well within reasonable costs. They also offered advice to me as a novice working with video, taking me through the stages of video creation, I could be as hands on or hands off as I wanted.
Working with SoFFt was a great experience because they helped me as a novice, thrown into the area of video production. I am a print and digital journalist and editor and SoFFt helped me learn the ropes of video content. They created perfectly pieces of video content that brought the client's vision to life, all within deadlines, budgets and went on to be award winning pieces of content.
Mimi Murray, The Irish Times, Content Studio Editor
Can you tell me about the project we collaborated on together?
We collaborated on many but the one that stands out and was award winning is Dulux Heritage paint. We wanted to create stories around people and their homes. We were doing up a room with Dulux Heritage paint and documenting that for print and digital media. We also wanted to create gorgeous video content showcasing the transformation and how it made the individual feel and that’s where SoFFt Productions came in.
jennifer webster - CREATIVE PRODUCER
Can you tell us a bit about PROMENADE and how yourself and SoFFt Productions worked on it?
This project was quite an unusual one. Creative Places Mac Uíllíam is funded by the Arts Council and when we finished our research project and South Dublin County Council Dublin Arts Office sent our research report off to all other departments in the council and then the Community department and Sláinte Care came back to us to say “Your report said that that people aren't engaging in artistic activities and they're not coming out at nighttime because they said the lighting is poor and it's not lit up well and they don't feel safe”.
So based on that report, they asked if we wanted to collaborate on putting in an application to the Department of Justice to apply for more physical lights in the community and then to run workshops and an event around that in celebrating light coming to Mac Uíllíam. And why the project came through the Department of Justice and through the community department in South Dublin County Council as opposed to a more artistic strand was that in providing artistic workshops in the lead up to Light Up Mac Uíllíam alongside the physical lights being implemented in the community, it would help prevent crime in the area and having more lights in the area would provide a safer space for young people and the community to engage with the area. So that's where that came about.
I produced the project, and then SoFFt came in and were the most amazing Production Managers and Designers. The backstory of that project is so special. If there ever was an example of a) the power of reports, but b) the power of the arts and how the arts can merge with other fields to actually really make change possible.
A sentence summing up the collaboration.
In the last few years, in any kind of production work I did I would always try to work with SoFFt. Before that, I wasn't able to maybe relax on a project. When you go into that production mode, that really should be when my job stops. But I never really felt that luxury before.
With SoFFt, I think the roles are really clearly defined in that it doesn't matter how small or how big a project is. The production area is taken care of. It's not done where the artistic is taken away. We are still working together on that vision. And I think the difference with SoFFt is they have that balance; between really getting the ethos of the participatory work that we're doing, the artistic vision and how, especially when you're working with communities and young people, sometimes the artistic vision is not realized till six hours beforehand. And we can't throw that out, because that could be an absolute gem. SoFFt gets that. No one has a heart attack when somebody has come up with something absolutely brilliant, and we need to pivot. We all get that what has been put onto the table is really important, and we'll find a way to make it work. Equally, something might be put onto the table, and we go, You know what? We don't need to make that work, but that pivoting is possible. I really feel that we work in unison. I would say that SoFFt work in unison with nearly everybody.
Specific Memorable aspect of the project:
There were so many aspects of it. I started talking to Natasha and I said I want to do something with lights and I want to do something with young people. And I explained to her the funding, the project, where it all came about. I realize what I'm asking for is out of the box. I realize, you know, walking around this estate, that we have no electricity, there is no parking, there is no kind of infrastructure to make this happen, but it's still possible with SoFFt and the attitude is “Let's do this together.” What I love about working with SoFFt is there is never any negativity brought into the conversation. There's never negativity or worry put onto the table. There's just possibilities. And then how we do this in the right way?
I don't really believe that you can actually do this work if you try and introduce a hierarchy, there is no such thing as a hierarchy. There's just different roles and responsibilities. I come from a theater background and I think theater is probably one of the best learnings in that, because you can't do something without somebody else, you can't do your work unless your technician gives you light. Your work is not possible unless the actor that you're playing opposite with comes on and gives you a line. It is a collaborative practice. I really feel for other arts disciplines where they haven't worked collaboratively and don't know the beauty of that, because we are nothing without the person who is working alongside us.
Name, Company, Your Story
My name is Jennifer Webster and I am a Creative Producer with Tallaght Community Arts and I also produce with Solo Sirens. My main job at the moment is I'm coordinator and producer of Creative Places Mac Uíllíam, which is part of the National Creative Places programme with the Arts Council of Ireland.
Can you tell me about how you came to work with SoFFt Productions?
There are many different projects that I've collaborated on with SoFFt Productions but the biggest and most complex one was promenade, which was part of the “Light Up Mac Uíllíam Festival”. The event was in September of 2024 but the work began months previous to that, and it's where we turned a street in Mac Uíllíam Estate in Tallaght into a promenade, a catwalk, and transformed the street with lights, audio and set. It was spectacular.
jenny macdonald - writer, performer, director, facilitator
Can you identify a specific project yourself and SoFFt worked on together?
The most recent project that I have worked on with SoFFt was “To The Power of 3” as part of the Shared Island Initiative and they worked as Production Managers and Designers which is the capacity we usually work with them in. It was a very beautiful, very ambitious, gloriously, kind of crazy project. It culminated last summer (2025). Tallaght Community Arts/Dublin Participatory arts (They have two names) were the lead organisation on the project. So I came in as Artistic Director and the goal of the project was to bring young people from different parts of Ireland together and to look at the concept of a shared Ireland, to look at what a shared island is, what it could be. So we were working with young people from Derry, Eniscorthy and Tallaght.
It was SoFFt’s idea to do the project. SoFFt brought the idea to Freshly Ground, who brought the idea to TCA, who had the organisational infrastructure to hold it, but there were a lot of artists and a lot of organisations and over 50 young people involved. It was this beautiful web like labyrinth that involved residentials in different places, ending with an eight day residential, which culminated in a site specific immersive and interactive performance all around St. Columbs Park in Derry.
SoFFts Contribution:
Specifically, SoFFts adaptability and flexibility really amazed me. I suppose referring back to this sense of a shared ethos that I'd felt when I first worked with them with Freshly Ground Theatre and with Solo Sirens, SoFFt kind of live in the land of why not? nothing's a problem. I feel like with SoFFt, challenges are just their creative fuel. You know, they just go “ooh, okay, that's tricky but it means we could try this” So every challenge just became a portal to a new creation.
I also loved the focus on using recycled materials. It was really inspiring in terms of the fact that we don't need to generate more stuff or spend tons of money to express the inherent artistry that all of us have inside of us.
What is very important too is SoFFt know how to take down. They come in and they create something incredible and a world just emerges. They create that container in a better reality that can be rehearsed in. But they also know how to very, very skilfully take it down. There's a wall of plates that has been left in St. Columbs Park that honours that project that happened there for that time. But they're also very true to the ephemeral nature of theatre and in many of the arts. We experience this time of beauty and then the resonances live within each of us and within the communities that are created through the making, but then they pack up the show really well and it was a really complex and big show to pack up. I've always noticed that with them, this combination of really fine, fine artistry and very grounded technical and production skills. And I think those don't always come together. It’s quite a rare mix. So it makes it such a joy to work with them.
Name, Company, Your Story
My name is Jenny McDonald, and I am a writer and performer of my own work. I also direct and facilitate community engaged productions and I have a company called Solo Sirens which was established 6 years ago. We are based at The Civic Theatre in Tallaght where we are in residence. I am also an Associate Artist with Tallaght Community Arts.
Can you tell me about how you came to work with SoFFt Productions?
I first met SoFFt Productions whilst working on a show with Freshly Ground Theatre Company and I've worked with them over the past three years on numerous projects. It was really exciting to meet SoFFt because I think we have some similarities in ethos and in aspiration. When I was founding Solo Sirens, it was really about bringing those two aspects of our practice together, the writing and forming and the directing and facilitating. It came out of the desire to amplify female identifying voices and also born out of a frustration that I think a lot of people were feeling and probably still feel about a lack of care in our society at large, but also how that then translates into theatre practice and this belief that we could be doing things differently, doing things in more just, caring and sustainable ways. I was really influenced in my training by Augusto Ball, a Brazilian Theatre Maker and I had the opportunity to work with him for a week when training at Trinity College Dublin. It was amazing. He always had this idea that theatre is a rehearsal for reality. So I was always thinking, okay, well, what are we rehearsing? Let's be very careful about our process as much as our product and that those two are actually not separate. And I think SoFFt is very similar. When I met SoFFt and the more I worked with them, the more I was like “Ooh this is so exciting!” because they're doing the same things! I see in SoFFt’s work, this desire for a just and sustainable process and how that also creates extremely beautiful theatre and all arts and then how those beautiful outcomes further inspire the process. In Solo Sirens, we see everything as an infinity symbol, and we're always looking at the dynamic balance between things like process and the outcome.
What ways did SoFFt contribute to this project?
In general, my experience working with SoFFt is that when we've come to them with an idea, with a concept, they see you, they hear it, they meet you, and then they jump up about three more levels and go, and, we could also do this, and we could also do that, and we could also do this. So in this process, Natasha was coming and going a little bit from the other residentials getting a feeling for what was going on. We were exploring the people, the themes, the ways of working for the artist facilitators, for the young people. And then SoFFt was kind of working away in the background and based on that, they were coming up with design ideas.
SoFFt came in a few days into that Derry residential and what they designed was this beautiful container that really held everything we'd created. We'd been trying to be really, really open and let things emerge, and I think that can be quite terrifying for perhaps some more traditional design and production companies who might be like, okay, what do you need us to do? Whilst SoFFt was constantly coming on to meetings and going, okay, so it sounds like it's going this way, now it sounds like it's going this way etc.
And then SoFFt said; Okay, we're going to build a sense of a festival. We're going to arrive with tents and marques, and they just transformed space. They gave us this base camp that we could then fly out of in terms of creating work throughout the park. And things that I really noticed was the incredible warmth, openness and engagement with all the artists, with all the young people, the really deep listening to what different people's ideas were and how they could land in with their technical expertise to those ideas, but also honour that impulse, especially in this case it was a youth- led project and SoFFt really listened to the young artists and worked with them and had this beautiful sense of equality. SoFFt are incredibly skilled at transforming space, at immersive work, at interactive work. So they brought all their skills to the game, but they never created a sense of hierarchy. So they were always working with the young artists as equal human beings, equal creatives, but people who are just at different stages of a journey.
The day that SoFFt arrived and the tents and marques started going up. We were like, oh, we're doing something really, really exciting, like over on our mountain top. And now these other people on the other mountaintop have also been working away on something and now we've come down to the valley together and it's like meeting and exploding and all this beauty and creativity which was just incredible!
What specific aspect of SoFFts work was most helpful or memorable?
Across both programmes, SoFFt always bring the highest standards of professionalism, collaboration, and creativity to their work. Their capacity to transform spaces and deliver unique and enriching experiences to audiences and performers alike has raised the bar for us in terms of the events we seek to create in this county.
Working with SoFFt is like exhaling completely while seeing a beautiful garden grow.
GERRY HORAN - sOUTH DUBLIN COUNTY COUNCIL ARTS OFFICE, NOISE MUSIC.
“SoFFt help us deliver programmes and events that are exciting, inclusive, and genuinely transformative. Their high-quality design, professionalism, and deep understanding of how to create neurodivergent-friendly spaces elevate the work we create together and make it more accessible for every person involved.” - Gerry horan
What was your role and the aim of those projects?
In general my role has been to initiate the projects, engage partners, and work with Sofft on programme design, workshop structure, and overall creative direction. I also provide the links to young people in the county so that they can engage and participate.
For Behind the Scenes, the aim was to provide young people with hands-on training and pathways into further study and careers in the creative sectors, while empowering them to design and deliver their own live events for their peers.
For the Spectrum series, the aim is to bring electronic music, design, and visual arts together, providing a platform where young people and professional artists collaborate and perform. This allows young creatives to explore their own creativity, see how high-quality work is made, and produce innovative, inclusive events within a gallery context.
How was the experience of working with SoFFt? What stood out?
Working with SoFFt has been a consistently positive experience. They bring clarity, professionalism, and genuine care to every stage of a project, and their collaborative approach makes it easy for young people, artists, and programme teams to co-create. What stands out most is their ability to balance high artistic standards with a deeply inclusive practice, ensuring that everyone—regardless of experience or neurodivergence—can contribute meaningfully and take creative risks with confidence.
Any challenges we helped you navigate along the way?
SoFFt’s adaptability and level of engagement are invaluable in overcoming the challenges of delivering complex, multi-faceted events and projects. The SoFFt Space has been particularly instrumental in helping us to learn how to design events that were accessible and welcoming for neurodivergent audiences, ensuring that all participants and attendees could fully engage with the work.
Name, Company, Your Story
I work for South Dublin County Council Arts Office on the NOISE Music and Behind the Scenes programmes, where we design and deliver youth-centred music, performance, and multidisciplinary creative arts programmes. My work focuses on giving young people real, accessible pathways into music production, performance, and creative expression.
Can you tell me about the project we collaborated on together?
We collaborated on two connected strands of work: Behind the Scenes, where young people explored music, performance, and production skills; and the Spectrum series (with Rua Red,) which created space for young artists to experiment with identity, sound, and visual performance in a gallery context. SoFFt are a key partner, and integral to the success of both programmes, bringing creative design, facilitation and production skills that elevate the work we create together and strengthen a collaboration that continues to grow, evolve, and deepen with each project.
In what ways did SoFFt contribute to the project?
SoFFt is a key partner in shaping a positive, creative and inclusive culture across both programmes. They consistently set high artistic and professional standards, bringing creative depth, emotional intelligence, and a strong commitment to inclusion. Their collaborative approach ensured that young people, professional artists, and programme teams work well together, making ambitious ideas achievable while maintaining a supportive creative environment.
What specific aspect of their work was most helpful or memorable?
Across both programmes, Sofft always bring the highest standards of professionalism, collaboration, and creativity to their work. Their capacity to transform spaces and deliver unique and enriching experiences to audiences and performers alike has raised the bar for us in terms of the events we seek to create in this county.
Alla Shmyhovska - Artist
Favourite project with SoFFt Productions:
The one which was really interesting to me was last year's culture night in South Dublin Where Two Paths Meet. Why? Because it had a little bit to do with me personally, because I'm Ukrainian. Ukrainian and Irish artists met for this particular night to exchange their experience & play some music together, explore each other's National Folk as well as fashion, and just to establish a network between each other.
I'm a Ukrainian artist. I arrived here in Ireland in Longford three and a half years ago when the war in my country started. Before that, I was quite well known for producing replicas of 19th century dolls, a narrow niche in the American market because those are the number 1 hobby in the United States. It was a teeny, tiny family business, but a stable income and I was absolutely happy.
How did you first begin to collaborate with SoFFt?
Here in Ireland, I had to rethink my career a little bit because this is a different country, different market, different prices, different cost of living, everything. That's why, when I arrived here, I attended The National University to study Art Management. I had 2 months of a work placement and I was directed to Natasha Duffy of SoFFt Productions. It was probably the best decision my professor at the time could make, because it was exactly the place I needed to be at that moment. I could see how the market works here in Ireland, and Natasha was so friendly. All the staff were absolutely amazing. I had a chance to create some decorations for outdoor projects in parks in Dublin, and then later, they offered me several opportunities to collaborate.
So at the moment, I am a Longford based artist. I have art residences in local schools. I'm one of the team of Longford makers. This is a new team, which was created only half a year ago. Our next big project is the infamous Halloween parade in October 2025. Longford and Westmeath are the capital of Halloween, so our parade is going to be amazing, and I'm making the costumes. Also, I have an exhibition in a library now, and a few projects on the go so I'm quite busy.
Alla’s role with SoFFt Productions:
My role was to make props for the space, which were my dolls, and also to facilitate a workshop for adults and kids. SoFFt Productions were organizing the event. The location was an old court building, historical and obviously, and a little bit out of time. I was surprised to see how it took SoFFt only two hours to consider the space and to make it into a modern setting, ready to have a concert, and a place to give people the opportunity to participate in the event. I'm always amazed at SoFFt Productions, how professional they are, and how they know exactly what to do, and how when they arrive somewhere, the space is changing itself so you cannot recognize it in a few hours. They're amazing at this!
I've been working with SoFFt Productions on a number of projects. The most important thing is they always give you time to think about the project and to get ready, to get prepared, because this is really a very big deal for an artist. Usually you're kind of in a rush and that never happens with SoFFt Productions, they are careful with details. They are so interested in everything you are doing, and you can discuss all of this with them. They're professional. That's, that's all you have to know.
deirdre kinahan, playwright
Background:
Deirdre Kinahan is one of Ireland’s major contemporary playwrights. She writes about issues that affect modern Ireland as well as the issues that have clouded its past. “She is a masterful, poetic writer, with a way with a phrase that just dazzles. All of that is clear in The Saviour.” - The Slotkin Letter, Canada, Review.
An award-winning playwright, Deirdre is a member of Aos Dána, Ireland's elected affiliation of outstanding artists. She collaborates with artists and theatres all over the world, is literary associate to Meath County Council and has a large canon of regularly produced plays to her credit. Deirdre is published by Nick Hern Books.
Recent works include The Saviour for Landmark Productions & Irish Repertory Theatre NYC 2023, An Old Song Half Forgotten for the Abbey Theatre & Sofft productions 2023, TEMPESTA Glassmask Theatre/Cork Midsummer Festival 2024, In the Middle of the Fields for Solas Nua Washington DC 2021, The Visit for Draiocht & Dublin Theatre Festival 2021/22, Rathmines Road for the Abbey Theatre & Fishamble and her Revolutionary Triology – OUTRAGE/EMBARGO/WILD SKY.
Deirdre has a number of new Theatre and Screen projects in development, currently under commission to Staatstheatre Maintz in Germany, Fishamble in Dublin, NOMAD touring group and Landmark Productions. She also has years of experience as a producer and enjoys curating or participating in multi-genre artistic projects for Meath County Council and other national festivals/events.
SoFFt Productions and Deirdre kinahan’s Collaborations
An Old Song Half Forgotten Theatre Project.
“Where Angels Listen” A celebration of Francis Ledwidge.
“In The Middle of The Fields” A celebration of Mary Lavin.
“All Rise” & many other projects in collaboration with Meath County Council.
Collaboration with SoFFt Productions:
The biggest project I have worked on with SoFFt Productions to date is An Old Song Half Forgotten. This was/is a totally unique project in that we developed and produced a play to be performed by Bryan Murray, one of Ireland’s best loved actors who also suffers with Alzheimers. Writing and producing a play in this way has never been done before and without the talent, dexterity, dedication and ingenuity of SoFFt I could never have made this beautiful play happen. SoFFt collaborated with Meath County Council and The Abbey Theatre in supporting me and Bryan and a host of Ireland’s most incredible creatives to create An Old Song Half Forgotten in 2023 and are now completing a documentary on Bryan’s amazing journey.
I wanted to write and produce a play that sang to the extraordinary talent and resilience of human beings, particularly those affected by Alzheimers. SoFFt helped me win funding, partners, creative collaborators and gave all their heart, energy, talent and expertise to creating an award winning production that will resonate with communities in Ireland and on the international stage for years.
Working with SoFFt is always a joy, they are a uniquely talented, open, generous and hugely connected bunch of creatives with a brilliant eye for great Art with heart. I love working with them. I know the final result will sing.
darren mccreesh, artistic director of THE PATRICK KAVANAGH CENTRE
Background and collaboration with SoFFt Productions:
We have collaborated for three editions of the Kavanagh Weekend. My role is the Artistic Director and also the manager of the Patrick Kavanagh Centre. I approached Natasha initially because I liked the cut of the SoFFt jib. I was very impressed by the innovation and creativity demonstrated in event production and felt that SoFFt were at the leading edge of that. And that's the kind of partnership I wanted to have with a production company. A company that can basically deliver exceptional high quality productions to scale, but also provided a certain amount of curatorial and creative thinking around the delivery of the festival and around the programming of it. So it's not just as simply a case of turning up and lighting and the managing of the sound that there is a much more holistic kind of approach to festival making. I felt that that's kind of what SoFFt are great at.
I think The Thinning Veil event was the clincher for me in terms of wanting to work with the team. That was key for myself. We've successfully developed a strong working relationship over the three years and the festival has evolved beautifully from the first edition right through to today. We also do it in a sustainable way.
The aim of the project is to deliver high quality arts experiences for audiences in the Northeast via The Kavanagh Weekend platform.
How is the experience of working with SoFFt?
What stands out for me is, I don't have to stress about this stuff anymore. It gets delivered. I don't have to worry about it. And the audiences don't have to worry about it. Everybody gets a chance to experience the art, the performance, the event, they're not looking at the way things are set up. They're not looking at the lighting, the sound, they're not thinking of any of that because all of that is done to such a high quality. That's key. SoFFt provides the context within which artists can get the best possible artistic experience, the audiences can get the best possible event experience or participatory experience. It's seamless. And it's right from the start, from opening at seven o'clock on the Friday right through to the last event on the Sunday evening. It doesn't stop. That's throughout the village and it's throughout multiple venues and it's within the context of street activities as well. So the excellence doesn't really dip, the quality doesn't dip, and that is crucial.
SoFFt’s contribution
It was all in. Very much, from having the creative conversations around the artistic direction to when it came to street spectacle and public kind of happenerings, we had a lot of strong creative conversations around that, but also a very, very singular, very creative approach to delivering events throughout the village in terms of lighting and the design. All of these things have added to Kavanagh Weekend immeasurably to deliver on the ambition of the programming. That has been very useful in terms of supporting engagement with the community and demonstrating to the community that this is a very significant festival. Those coming to visit Inniskeen during the festival, that they get a feeling that this could be Galway, Dublin, it might be in a village context, but that there's still a quality in terms of the cut and it's to a very, very high standard.
What specific aspects of the work were memorable?
I think having those creative conversations in advance of the festival. You know, they can be very enjoyable. But I think the delivery of the street procession year on year has just grown and grown and grown and certainly from a very modest, but beautiful first edition to the current way we deliver it, there's been a huge amount of growth there and it has become a proper spectacle. I feel that the collaboration between the Kavanagh Centre, the County Council and the artists is really catalysed by SoFFt’s involvement. They help us all become better than the sum of our parts in the delivery of the street parade. So I think that is probably the most impactful in terms of what's visible and what's helping to redefine the Kavanagh weekend because the street procession also allows us to build in a lot of diversity. It allows us to develop our audiences and to support our local artists and local culture to shine on a bigger surface stage. There is a bit of an ecosystem developing around the street performance, with various workshops across different community groups. So all of this is possible because of the vision of SoFFt Productions.
