2017

Fire Below

2015

Death of a Comedian

Fire Below (A War of Words) was a companion piece to Quietly commissioned by the Abbey Theatre Dublin and produced as a joint production with the Lyric Theatre Belfast.

What happens to reconciliation when there is no one specific act of violence to reconcile?

Gerry & Rosemary and Tom & Maggie are neighbouring couples who have lived through conflict from a distance. Now, nearly 20 years on from the Belfast Peace Agreement, they sit on Gerry and Rosemary’s deck having a glass of wine on a nice summer’s evening, putting the world to rights while waiting for the 11th night bonfire to be lit in the estate below. Yet there is something missing – the truth. What they actually think about each other is only ever one unguarded comment away. And who knows when and from where that comment will come.

Directed by jimmy fay

Cast includes

Meet Steve Johnston. He’s always wrestling with compromises. He’s constantly under the spotlight. He’s a stand-up comedian.

As his career takes off, the stages get bigger and the choices get tougher. Will he get everything he wants, or lose everything he has?

Death of a Comedian was a co-production between the Abbey Theatre, Dublin, Soho Theatre, London, and the Lyric Theatre, Belfast and was first performed on the Danske Bank Stage of the Lyric Theatre, Belfast, on 7th February 2015.

Directed by Steve Marmion

Cast includes

 Shaun Dingwall - The Agent

Brian Doherty - The Comedian

Katie McGuinness - The Girlfriend

TOUR DATES

Lyric Theatre, Belfast  - 7th February - 1st March

Abbey Theatre, Dublin - 10th March - 4th April

Soho Theatre, London - 14th April - 16th May

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BELFAST & DUBLIN & Lonon

Can relationships withstand the brutality of betrayal? Joan and Tom, Tara and Peter; two couples struggling to comprehend their roles as lovers, partners and individuals. As Tom and Tara face the tedium of daily life, how far will they go to feel their hearts beat again? When their paths cross, the emotional fall-out will be explosive.

A stark and searing glimpse into the reality of our relationships - the unspoken desires, the piercing regrets, and the postponed conversations that mark us all.

Unfaithful was first performed at the Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh, on 3rd August 2014

DIRECTED BY RACHEL O'RIORDAN

Cast included:

Tom - Benny Young

Joan - Cara Kelly

Tara - Amiera Darwish

Peter - Owen Whitelaw

Northern Ireland are playing Poland on the TV. Jimmy and Ian, two middle aged Belfast men are meeting tonight for the first time. They have a shared past. They need to talk. 

Quietly is a powerful story about violence and forgiveness.

Quietly was first performed at the Abbey Theatre, Dublin, on the Peacock Stage, as part of the Great Irish Writers Season, in November 2012.

DIRECTED BY JIMMY FAY

CAST INCLUDES 

 Ian - Declan Conlon

Jimmy - Patrick O'Kane 

 Robert - Robert Zawadzki

Winner of

Best Play at The Writers’ Guild Awards 2013

Fringe First Award at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe

 Best Actor for Patrick O’Kane at the Stage Awards for Acting Excellence.

At 11.40pm on 14 April 1912, the RMS Titanic, on its maiden voyage from Southampton to New York, struck an iceberg. At 2.20am the following morning, the ship sank. 1,517 people died.

In response to the disaster the British Government ordered an immediate inquiry and Lord Mersey was appointed commissioner. The British Wreck Commissioner's Inquiry sat from 2 May to 3 July 1912. It took testimony from 97 witnesses.

Owen McCafferty's Titanic retells the survivors' stories, using dialogue taken word-for-word from the hundred-year-old accounts. 

Titanic ( Scenes from the British Wreck Commissioner’s Inquiry, 1912 ) was first performed at the MAC, Belfast, on 22nd April 2012. 

DIRECTED BY Charlotte Westenra

CAST INCLUDES 

Vocal Coach - Peter Ballance

Gerry and Iggy, two labourers from Belfast face the end of their lives in a London hostel talking of the present and thinking of the past. They argue about who has the biggest liver, the names of tube stations and whether they should go back to Belfast or not.

But where are the women in their lives?

The Absence of Women is a funny and poignant play about the journey of two ordinary and lonely Belfast men. It’s a tale of life and its endless possibilities, missed opportunities and how one man’s choice, in one instant, can alter the path of his life forever.

The Absence of Women was first performed at the Lyric Theatre, Belfast, on 8th February 2010.

Directed by Rachel O’Riordan

Cast includes

Gerry - Karl Johnson

Iggy - Ian McElhinney

Dotty - Alice O’Connell

John - Conor McNeill

Both Antigone's brothers lie dead, having killed each other in single combat, one attacking Thebes, the other defending the city. Creon, ruler of Thebes, has forbidden the burial of Polyneices, because he was the attacker. Antigone is determined to bury him. The resulting conflict ends in a bloodbath of suicides.

Antigone was first performed in the Ulster Bank Belfast Festival at Queen’s on 24th October 2008 by Prime Cut Productions.

DIRECTED BY Owen McCafferty

CAST INCLUDES 

Kevin Toner returns to Belfast to confront his father after a 15-year absence. He has a bone to pick, and he is determined to have a conversation that will leave no stone unturned. There's only one problem. His father is dead. And lying in a coffin in the front room.

Cold Comfort was first performed at the Old Museum Arts Centre, Belfast in May 2005.

Directed by owen mccafferty

Cast includes

Kevin Toner - Patrick O'Kane

Days of Wine and Roses was a 1962 black and white movie directed by Blake Edwards and starring Jack Lemmon in his first 'dramatic' role as a young alcoholic who drags his much-loved wife with him into the swamp of addiction - from which eventually only he escapes. Northern Irish writer McCafferty has relocated J.P. Miller's screenplay to London in the 60's, centring it on a young couple just arrived from Belfast

Days of Wine and Roses was first performed at the Donmar Warehouse, London, on 17th February 2005

Directed by Peter gill

Cast includes

Mona - Anne-Marie Duff

Donal - Peter McDonald

City life in one of the most troubled cities in the world.  Twenty one characters’ lives are interwoven to produce a slice of life in Belfast; another day in a city full of stories that are crying out to be told.  The stories of fighting siblings, cheating husbands and resistance in the face of adversity could originate from any inner city the difference here is that a backdrop of violence is never far away

 Scenes from the Big Picture was first performed at the Cottesloe Theatre of the National Theatre, London, on 10th April 2003.

The play also received its Irish Premiere at the Waterfront Hall Studio, Belfast in 2007. Presented by Primecut Productions and directed by Conall Morrison.

DIRECTED BY PETER GILL

CAST INCLUDES 

An old old man and an old old woman who have been married for ages have lived on an island for years. The Old Man could have made his mark on the world and been a great thinker, philosopher, even a scholar, however he hasn’t been able to articulate his great words of wisdom even though they are on the tip of his tongue. But tonight, he is taking the plunge.

Tonight is the night when a famous Orator has been hired to speak the Old Man’s incredible message. The finest audience you can imagine has been invited to listen – the property owners, the scholars, the celebs, the DNA, the UDA, the IRA, the bankers, the shrinks and the pop stars… It will be a big crowd and they’ll need somewhere to sit so the old Woman starts to set out the chairs…

Slap-stick, music hall, absurdism and paranoia clash in a comedic, frantic and physical theatrical affair. Owen McCafferty has taken Ionesco’s play a created a new, vibrant, linguistically dynamic version, spoken in our own tongue.

The Chairs was first performed at the former Northern Bank Building, Belfast on 25th March 2003 by Tinderbox Theatre Company.

Directed by jIMMY FAY

Cast includes

Old Man - Sean Kearns

Old Woman - Carol Scanlon

Orator - Ronan Leahy

Vera, feisty but fading, and Ronnie, washed up and permanently half-drunk, preside over a grubby pub/hotel in present-day Belfast. We watch them - and their variously inadequate 'regulars' - through one long day in which Ronnie fails to secure the pub's financial future and Vera looks set to run off with the feckless Iggy.

Closing Time was chosen as one of the plays to open the National Theatre's new Loft season, a new studio space carved out of the Lyttelton foyer. It also represented Owen McCafferty's London debut.

Closing Time was first performed at the National Theatre, London, on 9th September 2002.

Directed by james kerr

Cast includes

Vera - Pam Ferris

Iggy - Patrick O’Kane

Robbie - Jim Norton

Joe - Lalor Roddy

Alec - Kieran Ahern

A physical, often comic and deeply affecting drama about two boys (Mojo and Mickybo) aged 9 and 10 whose friendship begins at a chance meeting in a park and is cemented by their obsession with Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. Set both in 1970’s Belfast and the present day Mojo Mickybo is an exhilarating whirlwind adventure through the streets of this colourful city. Two actors play a host of 14 characters ranging from local bullies Gank and Fuckface to Uncle Sidney the Cinema owner, the Old Major who lives in the bonfire and the gossiping women at the top of the street.

Directed by Karl Wallace

Cast includes

Mojo/Narrator - Niall Shanahan

Mickybo -  Fergal McElherron

An endearing, yet hard-hitting comic portrait of how work gets in the way of life, "Shoot the Crow" tells the story of one Friday at the end of a long week for four Northern Irish tilers on the scam. Ding-Ding wants a bucket to start his own window-cleaning business. Randolph dreams of escaping on a motorbike. They have a plan as to how to raise the cash. But then so - unbeknownst to each other - do their workmates, Petesy and Socrates. 

Director  David Parnel

Cast includes

Socrates   David Ganley

Petesy      Anthony Brophy

Ding-Ding  Patrick Waldron

Randolph  Fergal McElherron

Shoot the Crow received a London West End transfer in 2005 to Trafalgar Studios. The cast included James Nesbitt, Conleth Hill, Jim Norton & Packy Lee.

Set Design - Marcus Costello

Composer - Connor Mitchell

Lighting Designer - John Riddel

Choreographer - Sandy Cuthbert

Director   Karl Wallace

Set Design   Alison K Butler

Lighting Design   Susan P

Music   Michael O’Suillehbhaih

Musicians   Scott Herrin, Leslie Herrin

Iggy   Peter O’Meara

Lizzy  Barbara Adair

Beanpole   Niall Cusack

Jimmy   Birdy Sweeney

Linda   Paula McFetridge

Eileen   Helen Trew

Designer Stuart Marshall

Lighting Designer Wallace McDowell

Costumes Anne Whittaker

Movement Director Denni Sayers