Help Piper Pursue Her MFA in Dublin, Ireland

I am Piper McDonald, an artist born and raised in Central Texas, who has very recently been accepted into grad school in Dublin, Ireland!

I discovered theatre my sophomore year of high school, back when I couldn’t stand in front of a small crowd of people without severe anxiety attacks and running out of the room. Not only did theatre introduce me to some of my favorite people in the world, but it taught me how to be me. Theatre taught me that I not only have something to say, but that it’s okay for me to say it.

Theatre has only served to further my growth as a human. The most monumental decision of my life is when I decided to study theatre in a completely different country-- Ireland. Ignoring a school field trip to Cozumel, Mexico, I had never left the country until I arrived in Ireland for my first semester. It was challenging in a lot of ways, and the pandemic certainly did not help, but it helped me grow in every way.

From opening my own bank account, navigating a new city, dedicating myself to my studies, and making friends in a culture I didn’t know, I learned a lot about myself and my abilities. I learned to trust myself, and by the end of my final year, I finally found my passion: set design.

Which is why my acceptance to The Lir for an MFA in Stage Design is completely mind blowing and life changing for me. I worked on my application for well over a year, spending two years back home working on what will be a total of nineteen shows with four different theatre companies, getting as much experience and knowledge as I could. And it paid off! It has taken thousands of hours of classes, rehearsals, building, writing, painting, emailing, meetings, and performances, but it has finally gotten me here. To my dream.

I am pursuing set design because I want to create an environment that is built to tell its story. I strive to create designs that set the focus beyond the actors to show how our environment changes along with us and how it is changed by us. My intention in designing is to be the artistic apparatus that teaches the audience to empathize with the environment of the play.

We live a lot of our lives anthropocentrically- focused on ourselves and those around us. We are taught to recognize how our actions affect others and vice versa. But there tends to be an ignorance towards how our actions affect what is around us. The dishes in the sink gradually grow higher, the dirt on the floor slowly collects, and the plants on the windowsill grow ever so slightly each day. And we accept this change as just a part of life- not as something that we have a direct hand in. I want to show that our actions do make a difference. The world around us is changing, and we are ignorant of the ways that we are responsible for its change.

I want us to have empathy for our surroundings. I want us to care about the damage we are doing to the environment. My main goal in earning my Masters is to hone my abilities and create theatre that makes a difference. I dream of creating environmentally conscious theatre-- encouraging sustainable practices while also emotionally impacting the audience. Showing them that the world around us does have a story. It has emotions. It can be hurt and it can heal, just like us.

But I can’t do this alone. I am taking on a whole new level of artistic and academic responsibility, but in order to do my best I need financial help. Grad school is a lot for anyone, but especially for international students. Beyond plane tickets and checked luggage, there are numerous expenses. New health insurance, a student visa, building and painting materials I can’t bring with me, new furniture, accommodation down payments, a new phone plan, and more. So I have started a GoFundMe to help me with my first year- which will cost about €15,000. Whether I reach my goal or not I will be traveling to Dublin this August for my MFA, but every single donation makes it more and more possible to me to make it through my first year. So please consider donating- I promise I will use every bit of it towards improving my future and hopefully improving the future of our world. Thank you.