Gavin Kostick is an Irish-Jewish playwright. Born in 1966, he was raised in Dublin. He studied English Literature in Trinity College Dublin from 1984 to 1988. Kostick is literary manager at the renowned Fishamble New Play Company and dramaturgy tutor at the LIR Academy. He has written over twenty plays for companies such as Fishamble, The Gaiety School of Acting, The Gate Theatre, and Whiplash Theatre Company. As a performer, he is best known for his 5-hour-performance of Charlie Marlow in Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness Complete, produced for Dublin Fringe Festival 2007. The performance received the Spirit of the Fringe award, had a sell-out run at Dublin Theatre Festival 2008, and was performed at South Bank as part of the London Festival of Literature, 2009. Other works, which have been produced in Dublin, around Ireland, Northern Ireland, the UK, New York, Philadelphia, and Romania include The Ash Fire, The Flesh Addict, The Asylum Ball, Forked, The Medusa, An Image for the Rose Parts 1, 2 and 3 and This is What We Sang. The Ash Fire is inspired by the immigrant story of his Irish-Jewish grandparents on his father’s side. His grandfather Nat was a cabinet-maker who had a shop on Capel Street in the 1920s and 30s.

An opera, The Alma Fetish, with Kostick’s libretto, opened in 2013 at the National Concert Hall, with music performed by the RTE National Symphony Orchestra. It is based on artist Oskar Kokoschka’s commission of a life-size doll of Alma Mahler.