Judy Hegarty Lovett
Director, designer, writer

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Judy is the director of 19 Beckett productions for Gare St Lazare Ireland.

Among them Molloy, Malone Dies, The Unnamable, Lessness, Enough, Worstward Ho, Texts For Nothing, First Love, The End, The Calmative, Ill Seen Ill Said, How It Is, Here All Night, Waiting for Godot and Rockaby.

In 2006 she directed all seven of Samuel Beckett's radio plays in a Gare St Lazare/RTE Radio One co-production to mark the centenary of the writer’s birth.

In 2021 Judy directed a six hour film of Beckett’s novel How It Is.

In the same year she was awarded a PhD on the staging of Beckett’s prose at University of Reading, UK. She has a post-graduate degree in Dramatherapy from University of Hertfordshire UK and a degree in Fine Art (Performance art/mixed media) from Crawford College of Art & Design in Cork Ireland.

Judy moved to Paris in 1991 and was mentored by Bob Meyer of Gare St Lazare Players (Chicago). In 1992 she directed Rockaby and Waiting For Godot by Samuel Beckett, followed by The Possibilities by Howard Barker at Theatre Marie Stuart in Paris.  Moving to London she trained with Philippe Gaulier and directed The Dumb Waiter by Pinter and Molloy by Samuel Beckett. Other productions include, Swallow by Michael Harding, The Good Thief by Conor McPherson, Moby Dick by Melville, Copenhagen by Michael Frayn, Title and Deed and The Realistic Joneses both by Will Eno.

Judy won Best Director at The Irish Times Theater Awards 2022 for her production of The Realistic Jones by Will Eno and was nominated for Best Director at The Irish Times Theatre Awards (How It Is Part 2) in 2019 and for Best Production (How It Is Part 1) in 2018.

Conor Lovett
Actor, writer

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Conor studied theatre at Scoil Stiofain Naofa, in Cork prior to attending Ecole Jacques Lecoq in Paris.  At the same time he joined Gare St Lazare Players Chicago and under Bob Meyer's direction played Joey in The Homecoming by Pinter, Army in Requiem for A Heavyweight by Rod Surling, Karl in Banana For The Boy King by Bob Meyer and Noses in The Three Legged Fool by Anthony Ryan. He and Judy Hegarty Lovett founded Gare St Lazare Players Ireland in 1996 with their production of Beckett's Molloy. Their subsequent Beckett work has cemented a reputation that places them among the foremost Beckett interpreters.

With Gare St Lazare Conor has performed 15 Beckett roles.  For The Gate Theatre in Dublin he performed in Acts Without Words 1 and 2 and played the role of Bem in What Where at the Barbican in London in 1999. He performed the role of Lucky over sixty times in The Gate's revival 2003 50th anniversary production of Waiting for Godot directed by Walter Asmus, in Dublin, Beijing and Shanghai.n.  Pat Kiernan directed Conor in Beckett's A Piece of Monologue for Corcadorca in 2001 and Walter Asmus also directed him in the same play for Rubicon/Gare St Lazare in 2004. 

In 2005 he played The Old Man In His Coffin in Fabulous Beast's The Bull written and directed by Michael Keegan Dolan. In 2007 he played David in Leaves by Lucy Caldwell directed by Garry Hynes in a Druid/Royal Court production in Galway and London. In 2007 Conor workshopped with Peter Brook for his production 11 and 12.  He declined the offer of a 12 month long engagement in order to concentrate on Gare St Lazare's touring and that year he toured to twenty-five cities in ten countries performing six different shows from Gare St Lazare's repertory.  

On television he appeared in Father Ted, Fair City, Fallout, Acceptable Risk, Endeavour, Charlie, Versailles and Belgravia. On the big screen he has appeared in Moll Flanders (1996), Intermission (2000), L'Entente Cordiale (2005), Small Engine Repair, (2007), De Gaulle (2020), Ritornello (2020) and I’ll Find You (2022). He has read books and short stories on RTE and BBC Radio and has recorded Beckett's Molloy and First Love on audio CD.

He has won an Indie Award (Santa Barbara, USA) (The Good Thief) and The Stage Award for Acting Excellence at Edinburgh (Title and Deed ).  He has been nominated for Best Actor (Moby Dick), Judges Special Prize (First Love & The End), Best Production (How It Is) and Best Ensemble (The Realistic Joneses) at The Irish Times Irish Theatre Awards. And for Best Actor (First Love) at The Off-West-End Awards (UK) and Best solo show (Title and Deed) at the Lucille Lortel Awards (New York).

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