Michael (Mick) Egan was born in Dublin, Ireland in 1954. He was a founding member of City Workshop, a Dublin community based theatre group established in the early 1980s under the umbrella of the North City Centre Community Action Project with Peter Sheridan as Director. This was a pioneering group in terms of both community theatre and community education. It was structured around the production of three plays which charted the history of the north inner city focusing on three distinct periods: the 1916 Rising and its aftermath, the decline of the docks in the late 1950s and 1960s, and the heroin epidemic of the early 1980s. Mick was actively involved doing research, acting, and writing for the group. He wrote "A Hape a' Junk" and co-wrote with Peter Sheridan "The Kips," "The Digs," and "The Village," two of the plays in a trilogy. This trilogy toured many community venues and professional theatres throughout Ireland, and was presented at the Dublin Theatre Festival in 1983. It also ran at the Royal Court Theatre in London. Besides the major plays, which City Workshop presented, he was also involved in writing shorter pieces of topical interest to the community, exploring issues like welfare rights, the justice system, and teenage pregnancy. In 1984, he received a Dublin Arts Council Bursary in Literature. From 1984 to 1992, Mick worked as a full time professional actor. He performed at the Olympia, Gate, Focus, and Project theatres in Dublin, at the Cork Opera House, and at many smaller venues around Ireland. He toured to the Edinburgh Festival, the Israeli Theatre Festival, to the Royal Court Theatre in London, and to Broadway. Plays in which he has performed include "King Lear," "Macbeth," "Merchant of Venice," "La Ronde," "Juno" and the "Paycock," "Blood Brothers," "War," "Hatchet," "The Risen People," "Waiting for Godot," and "A Bedtime Story." Mick has also worked in Pooka Theatre for children as puppeteer and actor. Film work during this period includes "Far and Away," "The Courier," "Sometime City," "Pigs," "Caught" and, for television, "No Comment, Inside." In 1992, he started working as a volunteer to facilitate a drama workshop in the Merchants' Quay Project. He co-wrote with Thomas Larkin and directed "Scrooge Panto," which was performed by the drama group in St. Anthony's Theatre. In October 1993, he founded and became Artistic Director of the Q.T. Merchants, a drama group based within the Merchants' Quay Project. This was a client centered project set up as a response to the increase in illegal drug use and HIV in the south inner city. The program was designed to train workers in acting skills and stagecraft leading to the creation and production of plays, provide a forum for second chance education through related personal development, and provide a safe group environment for people stabilizing their lives after drug dependency. Mick wrote and produced the following plays for the Q.T. Merchants: "The Drama Group Goes To Monaghan" (1994); "Sex and the Saints" (1994); "Laughers and Screamers" (1994); "Death of St. Francis" (1995); "Everybody Get Stoned" (1995). In 1995, he produced and directed the live arts activities for "A Shot in The Arts," an exhibition featuring performance pieces, at the Guinness Hop Store. Mick wrote and directed the short film "Thirst" in 1996. This film had its first viewing at the Dublin Film Festival in March 1997. "Thirst" was selected by RTE (Radio Telefis Eireann) and shown in their Short Cuts program. It was further selected and shown in film festivals in Derry, Galway, London, and Athens.