Morgan Steele first came to Ireland from California in 2013 on a summer study-abroad programme on Irish theatre, as part of her degree. “I think it was only about five weeks, and it just kind of sparked something that ended up changing my life, which is kind of crazy,” says the theatre administrator and producer. “When I went into it, I definitely didn’t think that’s what was going to happen. But I fell in love with the place. And I’ve kept coming back.”
Aged 19, she was just keen to travel, and knew little of Ireland other than “the classic, American surface-level knowledge” or of Irish theatre beyond Oscar Wilde. The summer course, part of her bachelor of arts in theatre and performance from UC Berkeley, was “really well curated”, half in Dublin and half in Galway, at the Galway International Arts Festival. “I can’t really put quite a finger on it, but there’s just something about the art I saw that spoke to me.”
Since then she has had “a bit of a circuitous journey with lots of back and forth to Ireland over the years, for various visa/work permit reasons”, along the way training in theatre company management in Berkeley, working internationally on both nonprofit and commercial productions and as an associate producer for Disney Channel. “There’s been a lot of moving!”
She came back to live here for a year in 2017 on a working holiday visa (similar to a J1 for US citizens). Funnily enough given current events, she applied for that visa the day before the 2016 US election, thinking she would “have something good to look forward to if all hell breaks loose. And I had the best of times.” She worked with independent producer Landmark Productions as assistant company manager on its stage musical Once. “My first time working here, I immediately felt part of the team, not just on that specific project, but in the arts community as a whole, which was very surprising. I’m incredibly grateful for the support I’ve got. I never felt like an outsider or a sense of hierarchy.” She felt she had “full authority to do the thing that you know how to do, which is company management”.
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Back in the US again, Covid hit and she lost her company manager job at Berkeley Repertory Theater. “Blessings in disguise, I suppose.” Pondering her future, “I kept thinking, I want to go back to Ireland.” She applied for an MSc in business management at Trinity College Dublin, “and I’ve been back ever since”.
Since finishing her master’s in 2022 she has worked for Once Off Productions, producer Maura O’Keeffe’s independent producing platform. It works on shows nationally and internationally at all scales, which Steele has relished, first as assistant producer, and now as company manager. “Aside from the team members at Once Off, they’re all so fantastic, but the diverse range of live performance makes it a really exciting place to work. Once Off does primarily theatre, but there is opera, there is dance, there’s music as well. I feel very privileged to be working with them.”
Right now Once Off is working with Dublin’s Smock Alley Theatre on a production of Tennessee Williams’s A Streetcar Named Desire, which runs December 5th-21st. Though she studied the Pulitzer Prize-winning play, where genteel fragility meets brutal reality, and had seen the movie starring Vivien Leigh and Marlon Brando many times, Steele hadn’t seen it onstage. “To be doing an American classic here, it feels quite special. Understandably, most of the classics here are Irish, so to have an American is a bit more uncommon.” As it happens, the show’s producer, Cally Shine, is also American, and “to be on the producing helm with another American, completely by chance” feels appropriate, and “like we’re representing!”
It’s all a far cry from LA, where she grew up. “It’s such a film city, which is great, and I love it for what it is, but it doesn’t have quite the same offering of live theatre, of that quality.”
While LA is “a car-centric culture”, she says, “I love being able to walk here. And a functional public transit system.” For her personally, “a large part of the quality of life is the arts community”, and she’s heartened by “the mere fact that there is an Arts Council”. Such support and development of the arts “is foreign to me, in a way, as an American”. Arts agencies aren’t “as robust by a long shot back home”.
She is “a bit of a workaholic. With that said, I do have a small but mighty group of people I call my friends. We’re a diverse bunch.”
She’s in it for the long haul. “I want to make this work long term now. I love the quality of life here. The only comparison I have is to back home. I love California. There’s always going to be a part of me”, but she’s not happy with the direction the US is taking. “Of course, Ireland’s not perfect, but I do think as a whole Ireland is moving in the right direction.”
I really do love the people and the culture. That’s essentially what kept me coming back
However, “the cost of living is very high” here. Her partner is based in Los Angeles, so renting as a single person is expensive. For the past two years she has rented a room in a family’s home in a south Dublin suburb. “I don’t think it would work for everybody, but I really get on with them. I got quite lucky. Of course, every now and then I’m like, Oh, I just wish I could have my own place.”
She’s currently on a 1G visa, covering her for two years after her master’s, and is “figuring out my visa long term. That’s been a bit challenging to navigate. I’m hopeful and positive.”
While inefficiency and red tape involved in getting things done here can be frustrating, “I think the longer I’ve lived here, the more I understand it. In a way, sometimes the inefficiency has its own charm.” The first example that comes to mind is the Dublin Bus system: scheduled buses often “just don’t show up. When that happens, it is incredibly frustrating. But there’s something darkly comedic about it.” Mind you, “if I were running for the bus right now, I might say something different!”
Her first time opening a bank account was difficult without a utility bill or rental agreement, which are hard to come by in houseshares. “It became this: I don’t know how to get paid. I have a job, I have a PPS number. But in my specific living situation, I don’t have the documents to open a bank account.” Eventually she managed it using a library card. More positively “the cost of healthcare in comparison to the States is mind-blowingly great”.
“I really do love the people and the culture. That’s essentially what kept me coming back. The sense of warmth, and looking out for each other in a way that I didn’t feel as much from strangers in my experience in the States. As a whole, there’s more of a community feeling. I love California, but I could never see myself there long term. I always felt like I was being pulled somewhere else. When I came here, it was, oh, yeah, this is it. It’s felt like a very natural transition for me. I landed here: I understand the culture. I feel like I fit.”
We would like to hear from people who have moved to Ireland. To get involved, email newtotheparish@irishtimes.com
