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Kaite O'Reilly

KAITE O'REILLY

  
Nationality:    Welsh
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Literary Agent:    Blake Friedmann  represented by Conrad Williams

As a playwright, Kate O'Reilly, awards include runner-up in Royal Court Young Writers' Festival, co-winner of the Peggy Ramsay Award (1998), Theatre-wales best new play (2003) and Manchester Evening News best play of 2004. She has received bursaries and awards to artists from the Arts Council Wales and Arts Council England, amongst others. In London, she has had plays on at the Bush, Royal Court Upstairs, Soho Theatre and Arcola; at Contact, Manchester, Birmingham Rep, Manchester Royal Exchange and the Assembly Rooms at the Edinburgh Festival. Her work has been produced in Ireland, Belgium, France, the Netherlands, Germany (in repertoire at the Maxim Gorki Theatre for two years), Austria, Poland (the Grotowski Centre), Spain, Croatia and Australia. She has had seven plays produced by BBC Radio 3 and 4 and wrote and directed a Screen Gem for ChAnnel 4/Sgrin/British Screen, which has appeared in film festivals worldwide. Her plays are published by faber&faber, Aurora Metro and Oberon books. Her prose has appeared in a variety of journals and anthologies. She was a contributor to the 1994 Mind/Allen award winning anthology Mustn't Grumble (Women's Press) and was runner-up in the 1996 Stand International Short Story Competition with mouth . the Meat Man was one of the winners of the Image Irish Short Story Writers of the Year Awards. She is currently writing her first novel. As a Dramaturg and tutor, Kaite has been involved with writernet and Graeae Theatre Company's Mentoring scheme and led their renowned project disPlay4 at Soho Theatre. She is Dramaturg on North West Disability Arts Forum's Off the Page, developing ten new playwrights, and is mentor to several emerging performance writers at Contact, Manchester and Script in Birmingham. She has been writer-in-residence at Essex University and UCE, and a lecturer at Glamorgan University. She currently co-supervises students on the new M.A. in Playwriting and Script Development at Exeter University, where she is the AHRC Creative Fellow (2003-06). Her research through practice is 'Alternative Dramaturgies informed by a Deaf and disability perspective.'

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below is a list of Kaite O'Reilly's plays - click on a Play Title for more information

         9 Fridas         Almond And the Seahorse, The         Belonging         Breaking the Silence         cosy         d' Monologues, The         Dangerous Women of the Mabinogion         Echo Chamber, The         Henhouse         In Water I'm Weightless         LeanerFasterStronger         peelin         Perfect         Persians         playing the maids'         Speaking Stones         Told By the Wind         Women Of Flowers         Yard

9 Fridas

9 Fridas
Kaite O'Reilly's the 9 fridas was commissioned by Sherman Cymru Theatre (Wales, UK), and is exclusively licensed to Taipei Arts Festival to conduct the premiere outside the UK. Directed by internationally known director/actor-trainer, Phillip Zarrilli, co-produced by Mobius Strip Theatre and Hong Kong Repertory Theater, the 9 fridas challenges conventional ways of looking at the world famous female Mexican artist, Frida Kahlo--an everywoman whose life has great resonance for today. The 9 fridas explores disability, love, creativity, and politics. It is a salute to the artist as well as the tenacity and passion in life.

Notes:
TAIPEI ARTS FESTIVAL Mandarin premiere (engl. subtitles)

1st Produced:
Wellspring Theater, Taipei     05 Sep 2014

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
Oberon Books (2016) >>>    978-1783193172

Music:
-

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Genre:
biographical play

Parts:
Male:  -            Female:  -            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Almond And the Seahorse, The

Almond And the Seahorse, The
After the accident Gwennan never came back. Tom thinks they sent someone else. Sarah has reported Joe missing but he's standing right beside her. Four lives are trapped in time but can survivors emerge from the wreckage?

Notes:
-

1st Produced:

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
Oberon Books (2016) >>>    978-1783193172

Music:
-

To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies

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Genre:
Play/Drama

Parts:
Male:  4            Female:  1            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Belonging

Synopsis:
Home? Aren't we there already?' This is the first year, since the 1974 Birmingham pub bombings, that Maura has wanted her family to march proudly through the streets on St Patrick's Day. With her husband's health failing and her two adult children continually arguing, she dreams of returning to her beloved homeland. But will Ireland be her saviour or her ruin?

Notes:
-

1st Produced:

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
Faber and Faber, London, 2000   -

Music:
-

To Buy This Play:
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Genre:
Play/Drama

Parts:
Male:  4            Female:  2            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Breaking the Silence

Synopsis:
-

Notes:
-

1st Produced:
-     1990

Organisations:
Red Ladder Theatre Company

1st Published:
-   -

Music:
-

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If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies

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Genre:
-

Parts:
Male:  -            Female:  -            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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cosy

cosy
It's like I've disappeared. I walk down the road and throw no shadow. "That's what getting older does for you." Rose wants an exit plan that is bold and invigorating, but her three warring daughters have other ideas. We all have to die, but what makes a good death? Everyone seems to have an opinion, Rose's three daughters, her precocious granddaughter and even the strange woman taking refuge in the garden. Cosy is a darkly comedic look at the joys and humiliations of getting older and how we shuffle off this mortal coil. Written by award-winning writer Kaite O'Reilly, it tackles head-on our obsession with eternal youth, and asks whose life (or death) is it, anyway?

Notes:
-

1st Produced:

Organisations:
Unlimited

1st Published:
Oberon Books (2016) >>>    978-1783193172

Music:
-

To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies

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Genre:
play

Parts:
Male:  1            Female:  5            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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d' Monologues, The

Synopsis:
a Dramatic collection of monologues for Deaf and disabled performers, inspired by the stories and experiences of disabled and Deaf individuals across the whole of the UK. the Llanarth Group hope to produce a body of work that will address the dearth of pieces written from a disability perspective, and parts written for disabled performers
- British theatre Guide

Notes:
London 2012 Cultural Olympiad project Unlimited. Unlimited

1st Produced:
Wales     2012

Organisations:
Kaite O'Reilly with the Llanarth Group

1st Published:
-   -

Music:
-

To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies

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Genre:
Piece

Parts:
Male:  -            Female:  -            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Dangerous Women of the Mabinogion

Synopsis:
Four short plays inspired by the women of the Mabinogion

Notes:
written by Gillian Clarke, Angharad Devonald, Kate O'Reilly And Sharon Morgan

1st Produced:
Sherman Theatre Company     1997

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
-   -

Music:
-

To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies

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Genre:
Four short plays

Parts:
Male:  -            Female:  -            Other:  -

Further Reference:
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Echo Chamber, The

Synopsis:
Ninety-nine percent of the human body is made up of just six elements. . . something immeasurable is unaccounted for. . .

Notes:
the Llanarth Group return to Chapter with A new performance of movement, text And sound exploring elemental' human matters. Joining Kaite O'Reilly (2011 Ted Hughes Award Winner for Persians with NT W) And Phillip Zarrilli (Artistic Director) Are co-creators Peader Kirk (Mkultra, London/Athens) And Ian Morgan (Song of the Goat, Poland). Design by Ace McCarron.

1st Produced:

Organisations:
the Llanarth Group

1st Published:
-   -

Music:
-

To Buy This Play:
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Genre:
piece

Parts:
Male:  -            Female:  -            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Henhouse

Synopsis:
Henhouse explores the breakdown of a family against the background of civil war, as those on the sidelines of a conflict feel its effects. At its heart it poses a simple question: how can we live together? the play draws on Kaite's experiences in frontline towns during the war in former Yugoslavia, but this could be Chechnya, Palestine or 'the next big thing'. Our awareness of wars is dominated by news of the soldiers and their loved ones, but it is civilians who bear the brunt of modern warfare. What happens to those just trying to live their lives, how do they hold onto normality?

Notes:
-

1st Produced:

Organisations:
-

1st Published:

Music:
-

To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies

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Genre:
Play/Drama

Parts:
Male:  3            Female:  2            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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In Water I'm Weightless

In Water I'm Weightless
Award-winning writer Kaite O'Reilly has always lived with a visual impairment. For this poetic, provocative and sometimes grotesquely funny piece of theatre, she has taken inspiration from the experiences, attitudes and imagination of disabled and deaf people from across the UK. Working with choreographer Nigel Charnock, designer Paul Clay, National theatre Wales' artistic director John McGrath, and a powerful cast of deaf and disabled performers, Kaite's unique texts will explore the endless possibilities of human difference.

Notes:
An Unlimited commission for the London 2012 Cultural Olympiad

1st Produced:
Weston Studio, Wales Millennium Centre, Cardiff     26 Jul 2012

Organisations:
National Theatre of Wales

1st Published:
Oberon Books (2016) >>>    978-1783193172

Music:
-

To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies

Booksellers:

Genre:
Piece

Parts:
Male:  3            Female:  3            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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LeanerFasterStronger

Synopsis:
In this brave new world of designer babies, bioengineered athletes and genetically-improved human beings - how far would you go to be the best?

Notes:
LeanerFasterStronger is part of Extraordinary Moves, An Arts And science partnership between Chol theatre And Sheffield Hallam University. Extraordinary Moves is A strand of the iMove programme, A Cultural Olympiad programme in Yorkshire, And is primarily funded by Legacy Trust UK, An independent charity set up to create A cultural And sporting legacy from the London 2012 Olympic And Paralympic Games.

1st Produced:

Organisations:
A Sheffield Theatres and Chol Theatre Co-production in association with iMove

1st Published:
-   -

Music:
-

To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies

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Genre:
Play/Drama

Parts:
Male:  2            Female:  2            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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peelin

peelin
Alpha, Beaty and Coral - three actresses in ridiculous dresses - bicker, chat, heckle and share tales of sex, lies and recipes in absurd isolation as an epic production unfolds around, and in spite of them. Gradually their devastating truths are uncovered, leaving them stripped of all pretence in Kaite O'Reilly's darkly comic play on women, war and the things we hide. Peeling explores an entirely new narrative of theatre, weaving in audio description and sign language as a wholly natural part of the characters' personal but resonant stories.
Faber & Faber

Notes:
-

1st Produced:

Organisations:
Graeae Theatre Company

1st Published:
Faber and Faber, London, 2002
Oberon Books (2016) >>>    978-1783193172

Music:
-

To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies

Booksellers:

Genre:
Play/Drama

Parts:
Male:  -            Female:  3            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Perfect

Synopsis:
Curtis Lawson would rather live in his bedroom, designing fantasy girls online, than get a job or even a girlfriend. His Father has other ideas. He wants a proper son and a grandson too, and doesn't hide his frustration with his son's computer obsession. Joi works for Significant Others, an online escort agency. She's hired by Curtis' dad to fake a chance meeting with his son - to get him interested in real life and real women. She looks just like the fantasy girl Curtis has created on-line, and when he meets her he can't believe his luck. But when the couple fall in love, things start to fall apart. What happens when you meet the perfect girl? What do you do when an escort job turns into true love? What does it feel like when no-one knows what's real anymore? What happens when tragedy and revenge seem to be the only options left?

Notes:
Perfect won the M.E.N. Award for Best Play of 2004 And Best design

1st Produced:

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
-   -

Music:
-

To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies

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Genre:
Play/Drama

Parts:
Male:  2            Female:  1            Other:  doubling

Further Reference:
-

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Persians

Synopsis:
Aeschylus' play is an extraordinary exploration of ambition, adventure and failure, and a powerful family tragedy. It recounts the story of the return to his homeland of the defeated Persian king, Xerxes. In this revival, Mike Pearson will stage the action in the rich setting of a military training area in the Brecon hills. On the edge of the Epynt hills near Brecon, the British Army has built a village - no-one lives there. It is a mock-up in which troops train for urban warfare. In an unprecedented move, the Ministry of Defence has permitted National theatre Wales a unique residency on the site. For the first time, audiences will be transported across the military ranges to the remote village called Cilieni, where they will witness the tragedy of the Persians played out in a haunting contemporary setting. In houses with walls missing, amid burned out tanks and spent shell cases, Europe's oldest Drama will unfold.

Notes:
Original Playwright - Aeschylus

1st Produced:
Sennybridge Military Range, Brecon Beacons, Wales     11 Aug 2010

Organisations:
National Theatre of Wales

1st Published:
-   -

Music:
-

To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies

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Genre:
Adaptation

Parts:
Male:  7            Female:  2            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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playing the maids'

Synopsis:
Informed by the recent and ongoing economic downturn in Europe/UK, and the boom in China, South East, and East Asia, playing 'the maids' explores the dynamics of power and servitude, wealth-as-privilege, and the politics of intimacy in this seventy minute performance combining live music, text and movement/choreography. Two pairs of maids  Irish (Bernadette Cronin; Regina Crowley) and Korean (Jeungsook Yoo; Sunhee Kim), a Chinese Madame (Jing Hong Okorn-Kuo), a sound artist (Mick O'shea), and a cellist (Adrian Curtin) weave together a rich web of musical, textual and gestural languages to create a compelling theatrical experience, inspired by Jean Genet's classic The Maids.

Notes:
playing 'the maids' was developed with ACW funding in 2013, further developed in June 2014 in Cork, Ireland with five invited previews performed on invitation of The Cork Midsummer Festival 20-21 June at the Granary Theatre.

1st Produced:

Organisations:
The Llanarth Group (Wales), Gaitkrash (Cork, Ireland) and Theatre P'yut (Seoul, Korea) - See more at: http://www.chapter.org/playing-%E2%80%98-maids%E2%80%99#sthash.QFAkehwV.dpuf

1st Published:
-   -

Music:
-

To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies

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Genre:
adaptation 75 min

Parts:
Male:  -            Female:  -            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Speaking Stones

Synopsis:
If stones could speak, what might they say? Perhaps, in their rock-hard silence, they nevertheless 'speak' as silent witnesses of what has gone before, as prophets of that which might be said afterwards regarding the results of war, destruction, and displacement. What fragments of past(s) are disclosed when stones 'speak'? In Speaking Stones, silence and actions 'speak' as much as words. the performance montage juxtaposes words, images, actions, and music. the montage text and performance score have been generated from newly authored text by Kaite O'Reilly; textual fragments edited from sources such as Signifying Nothing: the Semiotics of Zero by Brian Rotman; Kazuo Ohno's the Dead Sea; and A Chorus of Stones by Susan Griffith; and images, movement, and a physical score generated during rehearsals and workshops.

Notes:
Writer, Dramaturgy Kaite O'Reilly; Translation Frank Heibert

1st Produced:
Theater Asou, Graz, Austria     2002

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
-   -

Music:
-

To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies

Booksellers:

Genre:
Piece

Parts:
Male:  3            Female:  3            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Told By the Wind

Synopsis:
A new performance of movement and text that 'dances' an inner landscape. Inspired by East Asian and 'post-Dramatic' aesthetics, stories are evoked and told by embodied silences. Identity, memory and remembrance haunt transformation.

Notes:
created by An Award-winning team of Wales-based Artists: Kaite O'Reilly (Peeling And the Almond And the Seahorse); Jo Shapland (recently At Chapter with (in)scape And Dance Bytes); And director And performer Phillip Zarrilli (the Beckett Project, the Almond And the Seahorse).

1st Produced:

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
-   -

Music:
-

To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies

Booksellers:

Genre:
Piece

Parts:
Male:  1            Female:  1            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Women Of Flowers

Women Of Flowers
What happens when you want a different life to the one chosen for you? A story of desire, duty, deceit and revenge. An innovative re-telling of an ancient Welsh myth - Blodeuwedd from The Mabinogi - where nothing is quite as it seems. Rose cannot remember what came before the house at the edge of the isolated forest. Gwynne says he magicked her out of the flowers, but she's not so sure. She has played the part of the perfect farmer's wife for Lewis, who is kept firmly in place by his uncle Gwynne, and accepted her lonely existence. Then a stranger is seen in the forest. What lengths will she go to, to escape the life chosen for her? Using a cross-art form approach, this beautiful piece of storytelling will feature live music, dance, video, theatricalised sign and surtitles. .

Notes:
-

1st Produced:
Hanger Farm Arts Centre, Southampton     18 Sep 2014

Organisations:
Forest Forge Theatre Company

1st Published:

Music:
-

To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies

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Genre:
story telling

Parts:
Male:  -            Female:  1            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Yard

Synopsis:
YARD is a meditation on conflict, set in the slaughter-yard of a warring family of butchers. It examines how brutal acts, ostensibly to end a civil war, can instead ensure its continuance into the next generation. the first draft of YARD was written in a frontline town where Kaite O'Reilly was working as a volunteer relief aid worker during the war in former Yugoslavia. It was co-winner of the 1998 Peggy Ramsay Award.

Notes:
translated into German As Schlachthaus

1st Produced:

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
the Bush Theatre ISBN 1898736243, 1998   -

Music:
-

To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies

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Genre:
Play/Drama

Parts:
Male:  3            Female:  2            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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