Meet Our Cast
Hysterical Histories Cork is performed by professional Cork based performers and musicians with a unique understanding and love for their city, its culture and people.
Angela Newman
Cast Member, Co-writer, Tour Guide & Producer
Angela is a fifth generation performer who comes from a long line of Irish Musicians, Singers, Composers and Actors on both sides of her family. She began performing at a young age, studied musical theatre at Stella Mann Performing Arts College in London before going on to perform with Montauk Theatre Productions for two seasons in NY, appearing in “Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show”, “Indian Field” and “The Gospel According to Broadway”. While in Australia she played Nash, in an all-female version of “Reservoir Dogs”. Angela spent two years at Bunratty and Dunguaire castles playing multiple parts in “The Literary Greats of Ireland” and in their “Medieval Banquet”.
Her Television credits include “Sattitute” (RTÉ), the (RTE/BBC) series “Falling for a Dancer” and “The Young Offenders”. Favourite theatre roles include Gwendolyn “The Importance of Being Earnest”, Sr. Leo in “Nunsense”, Tina in “The Good Sisters” and Pearl in “The Sunbeam Girls 2” (which she co-wrote).
More recently she spent 5 Seasons on the national tour of Cyclone Rep’s “Shakespeare sessions” playing Ophelia “Hamlet”, Goneril “King Lear”, Portia “The Merchant of Venice”, Lady Macbeth “Macbeth”, and Benvolio “Romeo and Juliet’. Her latest film credits include the award winning “Good to talk”, “Teddy”, “Mother of all assumptions” and “Bound to work”.
As well as being an award winning actor, Angela is the Artistic Director of both Hysterical Histories Cork and Chattyboo Productions, a company best known for their bi-annual musicals such as “I Love you, you’re perfect, now change” in which she played multiple characters and also for their Adult Panto, a sell-out annual event in Cork since 2009. She has played lead roles each year and has co-written “Robin Hood – the adult panto”, “Sleeping Beauty – the adult panto” and “Pubcrawl – The Musical” on writing teams which have included fellow cast members Marie O’Donovan and Darragh Keating. As well as aforementioned projects their other co- writing credits include “Hysterical Histories Cork”, “Gintastic” and Hysterical Histories – Elizabeth fort”.
She also runs a Seasonal theatre for young audiences company called Scéalta Productions whom she has co-written and toured with “The tales of Fionn MacCumhaill” and “Cu Chulainn the Brave”. Angela has also spent quite a bit of time acting as master of ceremonies and performing at events for Tourism Ireland in the U.S.A, Canada and in Scotland since 2023 and is our resident tour guide.
Marie O’Donovan
Cast Member & Co-Writer
Marie has been working for many years in theatre, is experienced in all performance mediums and is perhaps best known for playing the “multiple role” part in many stage productions, swiftly switching roles in an instant. Since 2008 Marie has been doing just that with Hysterical Histories’ sister company Chattyboo Productions, playing characters in their annual Adult Panto’s and she has co-written both “Robin Hood” and Sleeping Beauty” with fellow cast members and writing partners Angela Newman and Darragh Keating for the company. She has also co- written and performed in “Hysterical Histories Cork” and “Hysterical Histories – Elizabeth fort” with this writing team as well as co-writing “Pubcrawl – the musical” in which she played Niamh on a team with Angela Newman.
Some other musical credits include “I love you, you’re perfect, now change” and “Man of La Mancha”. Most recent projects include work on the “little plays in the park series” with Scéalta Productions playing multiple parts in both “The tales of Fionn MacCumhaill” and “Cu Chullain the Brave” on county-wide tours as well as the stage productions of “Present Laughter”, Dockers” and “Sharon”. Marie has played Katty in “Katty Barry – Queen of the coal Quay”, performed the solo play “All up front” as well as playing lead roles and touring nationally with the following Shakespearean plays “Othello”, “King Lear”, “Romeo and Juliet” and “The merchant of Venice” for a number of years. Her work in film work includes “The immeasurable grief of the prawn” the award winning “Coleen” in which she played Nora, she has also played Denise in “255111”, Audrey in “Standing up”, and Sarah in “Shatter”. Marie has leant her voice to the character of Lucy in the audio drama “Lucyd” and is currently penning a solo play.
Darragh Keating
Cast Member & Co-Writer
Darragh has been performing for the better part of fifteen years and is active in the areas of theatre, film, voice work and writing. Some of his film credits include “Dead Air”, “Bliain”, “Hysterical Histories Cork- Schools edition”, “The White Rose” (which he co-wrote) and the award winning “Family Tree” in which he voiced multiple characters. Darragh has also leant his voice to the audio dramas “Lucyd” and “Dog Girl In The City”. Since 2019 Darragh has been performing with Hysterical Histories’ sister company Chattyboo Productions, playing lead roles in their annual Adult Panto’s and has cowritten both “Robin Hood” and Sleeping Beauty” with fellow cast members and writing partners Angela Newman and Marie O’Donovan for the company. He has also co- written “Hysterical Histories Cork”, “Gintastic” and “Hysterical Histories – Elizabeth fort” with this writing team. He recently had the pleasure of spending two seasons working on the little plays in the park project with Scéalta Productions playing multiple parts in both “The tales of Fionn MacCumhaill” and “Cu Chullain the Brave” on county-wide tours.
Katie Taylor
Cast Member & Musician
Katie is an actor and classically trained vocalist based in Cork who recently graduated from MTU Cork School of Music with First Class Honours in BA Theatre & Drama studies degree (BATDS). Recent theatre credits include: Cleo “An Pheacog”, Puca “Blathanna”, “ScareFlowers”, Richard “DNA”, Grimm’s Fairy tales, Hera “Alpha” & Annie “Allen’s World Tour”. Katie’s award winning musical credits include: “Godspell” Judas, a role which she won Best Supporting Actress at AIMS in 2020 and ‘The waitress’ Working, for which she won Best Female Performer at the All Ireland Intervarsity’s 2019. Other notable credits include, The witch “Into the Woods”, Grizabella “Cats” and Mrs. Potts “Beauty and the Beast “. Katie is classically trained in both Opera and Musical Theatre singing as well a Piano with the Royal Irish Academy of Music. She also has a long history of Traditional Irish music in her family, where she learned to play the tin whistle and the bodhran.
Andrew McCarthy
Cast Member
Andrew trained at the American College Dublin where he received first class honors in a BFA in Musical Theatre before going on to perform internationally in both Spain and Greece. He then spent two very happy summers working in the U.S.A at Frenchwoods Festival for the performing arts both directing and choreographing musicals such as “Holly Dolly”, “Billy Elliot”, “Mame” and “Big – the musical” during his time there as a Dance and theatre counsellor. Some Musical performance credits include: Greg Gardner in “A Chorus Line” and pantomimes “Aladdin” and “Cinderella” at the Everyman Theatre Cork. He played the character of MC in “Most Peculiar Dreams” and recently joined fellow cast members Angela Newman and Marie O’Donovan in Hysterical Histories’ sister company, Chattyboo Productions’ annual Adult Panto playing ,Prince Jack in “Sleeping Beauty”. His Screen credits include “Workout”, the music video “Layna” by Ila, he was a featured dancer in feature film “Nan: the movie” and played Davey Leary in the feature film “The Hegartys of the laurels” due for release in 2024.
Anne Ralph
Musician
Anne is a full-time lecturer at Munster Technological University Cork School of Music, where she teaches on the Bachelor of Music and Junior Conservatoire programmes. Anne’s professional training began at the MTU Cork School of Music, where she completed a general BMus and an MA in performance. She has performed at Indiependence Music and Arts Festival, East Cork Early Music Festival, in the UK, Netherlands and Hungary. While Anne’s work is dominated now by her academic activities, she also performs in a range of settings and disciplines, including choral conducting, student accompaniment, early music, orchestral percussion and at various festivals.
Shannon Hegarty
Musician
Shannon discovered her love of Music at an early age and studied at Munster Technological University Cork, School of Music. She is a vocal and instrumental accompanist with a particular passion for musical theatre who has acted as Musical director on productions of “Beauty and the Beast”, “The Little Mermaid” and “Grease” and on many variety shows both in Cork and in Clare. Shannon is not only accompanist for plays too numerous to mention all around the country but she is also secretary and accompanist for Glór Choral Society who were awarded Ireland’s Choir of the year 2023 at the “Cork international choral festival” and has been awarded the “Eimear Noonan, award of Excellence” which has allowed her to pursue a career in music.
