Solas Nua, together with Cork Midsummer Festival and The Everyman, Cork is delighted to announce the artists selected to participate in Tales of Two Cities, an international exchange and professional development initiative that will connect emerging theatre-makers from the Washington, DC region with artists and cultural institutions in Cork, Ireland.
Selected for the 2026 cohort are Washington, DC-based artists KJ Moran Velz and Ynika Pocopio Yuag, alongside Cork artists Cara Christie and Alan Mooney. Together, they represent a diverse range of theatrical practices, including playwriting, dramaturgy, directing, intimacy work, acting, and design. Their work spans new writing, devised performance, community-engaged practice, and interdisciplinary collaboration, reflecting the breadth of contemporary theatre-making in both cities. Over the coming six months, these four artists will take part in a shared process of exchange, mentorship, and creative exploration, building relationships across borders while developing the early stages of new ideas and artistic projects.
From June 18-22, the DC artists will travel to Ireland and attend the Cork Midsummer Festival, where they will experience performances, attend workshops, and meet artists from Ireland and beyond. Working alongside mentors and peers, they will explore the early stages of a new creative project, developing ideas in an environment designed to encourage curiosity, experimentation, and reflection. In the fall, the Cork artists will travel to Washington, DC to meet local artists, attend performances, and grow their professional networks stateside. Unlike many artist development initiatives, Tales of Two Cities places no expectation on participants to produce a finished work, allowing space to absorb new influences and imagine future possibilities.
Now in its fourth year, Tales of Two Cities was established by Cork Midsummer Festival and The Everyman to offer theatre artists the opportunity to engage with new work, build relationships with artists across borders, and develop their practice through mentorship and research. The 2026 edition marks the first time Solas Nua has joined as a lead partner, extending the program's reach across the Atlantic and creating new opportunities for connection between artists in Cork and the DC region. Previous partners include MayFest / MAYK and Bristol Old Vic, both from Bristol, UK. Solas Nua is proud to offer DC-based artists the opportunity to participate in an international exchange program, while simultaneously strengthening artistic ties between Cork and Washington, DC.
As the program continues to grow, Tales of Two Cities remains rooted in a simple but powerful goal: giving emerging artists the time, support, and international perspective needed to shape the future of their practice.
Tales of Two Cities is funded by The Arts Council of Ireland's International Residency Initiatives Scheme. The scheme supports arts organizations, across all artforms, in the delivery of residency initiatives and to create opportunities for transnational exchange and cooperation.
ABOUT THE ARTISTS
DC Artsts
KJ Moran Velz is a Boston-born and raised playwright, educator, and pre-licensed drama therapist. Now based in DC, her work has been performed and developed at Signature Theatre, the Kennedy Center, Imagination Stage, NextStop Theatre, Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company, Flying V, Adventure Theatre MTC, Theater Alliance, and Boston Playwrights’ Theatre. She is the two-time recipient of the Donn B. Murphy One-Act Playwriting Award at Georgetown University, and her most recent play - Mother Mary - has been nominated for five Elliot Norton Awards in Boston, including Outstanding Play and Outstanding New Script. She is a member of the Dramatists Guild, the Woolly Mammoth Playwrights Group, and the North American Drama Therapy Association. Much of her work focuses on the intersections of language, religion, race, and ethnicity, including her latest projects: A Christmas Parol, a collaboration with composer Sally Imbriano that follows Angeles O’Shea-Reyes, a 12 year-old basketball star wrestling with identity and grief in a new TYA Filipino-Irish musical; and Thin Places, a new horror-comedy about a drama therapist haunted by her Irish ancestors and ex-girlfriend when she agrees to take on clients who work in law enforcement.
Ynika Pocopio Yuag is a dramaturg, intimacy choreographer, and director based in DC who specializes in new work for messy marginalized peoples. Directing credits include Sam the Unsinkable (Miranda Family Fellowship), Fabulation (Face Off Theatre Company), Slapjack (Mosaic Theatre Company), Booths (Grand Rapids Civic Theatre) and the annual devised project The Abortion Monologues (Kalamazoo College). They have served as an intimacy choreographer at Grand Rapids Civic Theatre, Face Off Theatre Company, Georgetown University, and NextStop Theatre Company. They have served as a dramaturg at NextStop Theatre Company, The Vagrancy, Breaking the Binary Theatre, and Face Off Theatre Company. Ynika is a 2023 Lin-Manuel Miranda Family Fellow in New Work, and will soon be a Certified Sensitivity Specialist through Ann James & Associates. They are a proud Indigenous, Queer, Immigrant artist. BA Theatre Arts and Psychology from Kalamazoo College. ynikayuag.com.
Cork Artists
Cara Christie is a Cork writer/actor and a graduate of the Bachelor in Acting Studies, Samuel Beckett Centre, Trinity College and The Programme Screen Acting, Bow Street/The Factory. Previous writing work includes Brambles (Dublin Fringe Festival, Sep ’25) which was nominated for 3 Fringe Awards including Fishamble New Writing Award, Capture (WIP Cork Midsummer Festival, Jun ’25) Not Today Not Tomorrow (short film ’24) Influenced (Rehearsed readings by Prime Cut Productions, SJT Scarborough, Scene & Heard 2020).
Cara was selected for Irish Theatre Institute’s Six in the Attic 2026, Axis Assemble Artist 2025 and previously chosen for writing residencies with Cork Theatre Collective 2024 and The Pavilion Theatre 2022 and 2024.
Acting highlights include Montague (The New Theatre) Brambles (Dublin Fringe) Conflicted Theatre’s Neon Western (Samuel Beckett) and 18-35 (Old FAS building, Sullivan’s Quay) and Brokentalker’s It Folds (Peacock) as well as screen work like Kin (Bron Media) Freud’s Last Session (Sony Pictures) Smother (Moyview Productions)
Alan Mooney is a collaborative lighting artist based in Cork, Ireland. He is a graduate of University College Cork, where he studied English and History. His artistic practice is centered around the creation of visual languages to communicate story to an audience in live performance settings.
In 2020 the Association of Lighting and Production Design selected him for the Lumiére mentorship which saw him partnered with acclaimed lighting designer Charles Balfour. In 2022 he was awarded an Agility Award from the Arts Council of Ireland. In 2024 he was awarded a residency with the Cork Theatre Collective to undertake research into a project called Light Orchestra.
As a lighting designer he has worked for some of the leading companies in Ireland and the UK, integrating applied theatre technologies with storytelling for theatre, dance and opera. Through the Tales of Two Cities programme he hopes to expand his practice into wider contexts and explore design-lead practice.
