Kaite O'Reilly is an award-winning playwright and a recipient of two Cultural Olympiad Commissions. She blogs about writing and the process of writing with a focus on four forthcoming productions, which revolve around disability issues.

Atypical Plays for Atypical Actors: Selected Plays to be published in sync with the launch of Cosy

4 January 2016

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I’m delighted to make this pre-publication announcement: Oberon books will publish five of my plays and performance texts to coincide with the World premiere of Cosy at the Wales Millennium Centre in March 2016. The news is so fresh, we haven’t yet settled on the image for the cover. I’ve been liaising with my agents and editor at Oberon about what production photographs to use after drawing up a shortlist by the fantastically talented Toby Farrow and Patrick Baldwin, who...

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Cosy, quirky, honest, daring...

1 June 2015

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How we live and how we die has never been more topical or relevant to our ageing society that likes to pretend we’re immortal and forever young. It’s universal, as well as our last taboo – a fascinating and compelling subject. This is why I’m delighted that I’ve been commissioned to write Cosy, a play that explores our obsessions with ageing, self-ownership, and end of life scenarios in the company of a dysfunctional family on the verge of killing one another, if...

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Name a thing and it is: on the process of finding titles and character names…

18 May 2015

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We all have to die. My next play 'Cosy' is a darkly comedic look at the joys and humiliations of ageing and how we shuffle off this mortal coil. The rising tensions between three generations of a dysfunctional family ask us to consider what choices we really have in a world obsessed with eternal youth, and whether we truly own ourselves. I recently befuddled a friend with the title ‘Cosy’. ‘But it’s about growing up, and ageing, and rubbish families and...

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Making language visual: an interview with Jean St Clair

17 September 2014

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British Sign Language (BSL)  creative consultant and performer Jean St Clair has been a close friend and collaborator for a dozen years. She has worked with me on many productions – advising on translation/ reinvention from spoken/written language into visual language with National Theatre Wales (‘In Water I’m Weightless’, 2012), Graeae (‘peeling’ 2002) and now for a second time with Forest Forge Theatre company (‘peeling’ 2011, ‘Woman...

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Why I think Frida Kahlo is a disability icon: Frida Kahlo on pain and tragedy

25 August 2014

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“Nothing is worth more than laughter. It is strength to laugh and to abandon oneself, to be light. Tragedy is the most ridiculous thing.”  We are working on my performance text ‘The 9 fridas’ and dealing constantly with Frida Kahlo’s defiance in the face of pain and adversity. One reason why I chose to make this text was a desire to reclaim Kahlo as a disability icon and inspiration, rather than the ‘tragic but brave’ mainstream representations of...

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Chevela Vargas, seated taiquiquan, and stinky tofu: second week rehearsals of The 9 Fridas in Taipei

16 August 2014

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Chevela Vargas haunts me. Her smoky, broken voice is the soundtrack to my dreams and the first thing I become conscious of when I wake. The raspy passion of her songs play in my head all day and then loop and replay in my mind all night. Torch singer, lesbian icon, rumoured lover of Frida Kahlo, her voice is part of the audio for the Taiwanese production of my script ‘The 9 Fridas’. The photo of her sexy and supine, her hand casually resting on the breast of a laughing Frida Kahlo...

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‘The 9 Fridas’ first week of rehearsals – and The Sunflower Protest

8 August 2014

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We are in the first days of rehearsals with Mobius Strip Theatre Company in Taipei, Taiwan. ‘The 9 Fridas’ is a performance text with multiple protagonists who are and yet are not the Mexican artist Frida Kahlo. In the script I’ve taken moments from her extraordinary life and reframed and reinvented them, in contemporary contexts. Using cross-gender, cross-impairment casting, we are creating a mosaic of voices and experiences which, when combined, suggest the whole. The...

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So this is Taipei…

30 July 2014

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There is sun and great heat and tropical plants and Mandarin in the air alongside the song of crickets. There are no sheep, or the blessing of Welsh rain – although I’ve been told to expect a typhoon or two in the next six weeks. In my fridge I have fresh lychee, longan (‘dragons’ eyes’), and green tea with grapefruit. There are smiles everywhere. As Phillip Zarrilli put it last night after we were showered with greetings coming out of the MRT (underground):...

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Making language visual

18 July 2014

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Turning written text into visual, physical language – transforming words on the page into signs and gestures that take flight….  I love working with Jean St Clair. In her London apartment this week, I worked with her and Sophie Stone, transforming written text from my new play Woman of Flowers into flowing, beautiful visual language. Although I’ve been working with Jean now for a dozen years on translation and recreating English text into theatricalised sign, I always...

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Kaite O'Reilly reports on the final week of rehearsals for 'In Water I’m Weightless' with National Theatre Wales

21 July 2012

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It is, I think, a most peculiar way to make a living. No two days are the same and my working life at the moment is of such a surreal quality, normally loquacious taxi drivers are silent as I outline the activity…. ‘Today at work I’m observing slow motion filming of water being poured onto various parts of various actors’ bodies…’ Still, that’s probably nothing compared to what Jacob probably said when he got home for tea that night (‘Well, I...

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New Welsh Review 96: Kaite O’Reilly on the Cultural Olympiad

11 June 2012

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Kaite O’Reilly on the Cultural Olympiad. An extract from ‘Rich Text’ NWR 96: It’s 1995 and I’m lying in front of the wheels of a bus in Wood Street, Cardiff. The bus is ticking over, the driver occasionally revving the engine to try and scare me and so dislodge my body from beneath his bumper. As he does so, a thrilling reverberation is sent through the fat rubber of the wheel and into my waist. I am exhilarated and equally terrified. I haven’t been in an...

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Olympic Questions: Further responses to LeanerFasterStronger

2 June 2012

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We are approaching the end of the run of LeanerFasterStronger at Sheffield Crucible, and have had a fantastic response to the work in the regional press, on twitter, and via the Guardian and Sheffield theatres’ website. This is the start of a period of reflection for me – what lessons might be learnt? How much of my initial ambitions and intentions have I achieved? When I was approached by Chol Theatre with this commission, I had no interest  in sport outside...

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Opening up the rehearsal process. Guest blog by LeanerFasterStronger director Andrew Loretto

15 May 2012

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And here we are at the end of week 2 of rehearsals for the Sheffield Theatres/Chol Theatre co-production of the world premiere of LeanerFasterStronger by Kaite O’Reilly. Time has flown by in the rehearsal room, but so much has been achieved – including a rough stagger run on day 9. The project has been an extraordinary two-year journey of collaborative research and discovery – and my aim now as director is to condense and continue this journey in rehearsals whilst also doing...

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Rosaleen McDonagh discusses her new play Mainstream and the challenges of casting and performance

14 March 2012

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My friend and mentee the playwright Rosaleen McDonagh sent me this link to her article in this month's Irish Theatre Magazine, which I have put on my blog. She talks about "cripping-up" and quotes me, giving some insight into the Irish context, which I think is fascinating (especially as I edited Face On: Disability Arts in Ireland and Beyond' - featuring Rosaleen - some years ago). -- Rosaleen McDonagh discusses her new play 'Mainstream' and the challenges of casting...

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In praise of disability poet Jim Ferris: a call for opportunities to hear him read!

27 February 2012

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The acclaimed American crip poet Jim Ferris is coming to Wales in mid-March to work with Disability Arts Cymru. He's doing a workshop and a reading - I've arranged for two other readings in Wales  - and have been trying to get some further interest and support from other disability cultural organisations, to seize the opportunity of showcasing his work, getting readings, etc, whilst he is in the UK. Sadly, I've not had any response to date, so am trying again. He will be in...

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That was the year that was. Has anything changed? (continued)

2 January 2012

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Kaite O'Reilly continues her run-down of events in 2011. Cardiff, November 2011: I'm in a studio with a group of outstanding performers, some internationally renowned, others forging reputations as 'people to watch'. Also present is John McGrath, artistic director of National Theatre Wales, choreographer/movement director Nigel Charnock, designer Paul Clay, and emerging director Sara Beer. We're here to develop In Water I'm Weightless and I can't quite believe it's happening. The project is a...

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That was the year that was. Has anything changed?

28 December 2011

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I began this blog back in August 2011 after I realised that 2012 would bring an embarrassment of riches production-wise. As the forthcoming work is diverse in aesthetic, process and content, I felt much might be learnt, and writing a blog might help externalise my learning, publicise the work and document the processes of devising, playwriting, co-creating, collaborative montaging. I'm excited by what 2012 will bring, and the diversity both of the work and the creative approaches I'll be...

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Further news of 'In Water I’m Weightless'

5 December 2011

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I am delighted to see 'In Water I’m Weightless', my Unlimited Commission to be produced by National Theatre Wales in 2012, was included in the preview guide to London 2012. ‘Britain’s biggest ever cultural festival’ over the weekend. I quote from a story within the festival supplement, titled 'Stories that Come to Life' A character hears sound for the first time, while the audience reads sign language in back-projected subtitles in a powerful experimental work that...

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In Water I’m Weightless: in development...

21 November 2011

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Many text-based productions are straight-forward in content and form: they are interpretations of existing scripts. So what's the process for a ensemble piece using music, design, movement and selected monologues, with a newly-formed company who have never all met, never mind collaborated before? This has been the challenge to National Theatre Wales this week, in development with In Water I'm Weightless, my commission from Unlimited, part of the Cultural Olympiad. We have a sterling cast of...

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Preparations for Unlimited with the 'Cymru Crips'

9 November 2011

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When I received the Arts Council Wales Creative Wales Major Award back in 2008, I spent a year exploring the form of the dramatic monologue, seeing solo work in Europe and the US, meeting and being mentored by experts of the form, like Sara Zatz and Ping Chong Company in New York. I shadowed part of Ping Chong’s 'Undesirable Elements' series, watching testimonial theatre in various school halls and community centres in Brooklyn, the participants/performers using their own autobiographies...

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‘Cripping up is the twenty first century answer to blacking up.’ Peeling and The ‘d’ Monologues

9 November 2011

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Some years ago I received a Creative Wales Major Award from Arts Council Wales, to begin a project I called The ‘d’ Monologues – short dramatic solos written specifically for Deaf and disabled performers. There is a dearth of plays with disabled characters, and when these are produced, the parts are invariably played by non-disabled or hearing actors. Those who know me and my play 'peeling' will know I’m not a fan of this kind of casting. As...

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LeanerFasterStronger: blurbs, images, publicity

28 October 2011

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I have a love-hate relationship with publicity materials and the PR machine. I know production images, blurb and press releases are essential for the successful publicising of a production, but that still doesn’t lessen the pain of trying to create material that bears some relation to the content of the show, whilst also keeping artistic integrity, and not giving the game away…. I know it’s a personal predilection, but I dislike publicity material which tells me too much....

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LeanerFasterStronger: Bodies in motion, extraordinary moves

13 October 2011

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I'm in Canada, revising the next draft of LeanerFasterStronger, the Cultural Olympiad commission from Chol Theatre in a co-production with Sheffield Theatres. The project is part of Extraordinary Moves, a major strand of the imove programme, which celebrates and challenges the relationship between people and their moving bodies through a series of arts projects across Yorkshire. One of the processes I use when redrafting is to go back and revisit all the source material I've found that when...

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Kaite researches a Cultural Olympiad commission: LeanerStrongerFaster

22 September 2011

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I get an email from Andrew Loretto, creative producer of Sheffield Theatres. It is short, focused, almost telegraphed, as is the nature of missives from scarily busy individuals. How about if the title is presented as a continuous energy as follows: 'LeanerFasterStronger' he asks enigmatically, except I know what he is referring to, and it’s a great suggestion. Andrew will direct one of my commissions next year, a co-production between Chol Theatre in Huddersfield and Sheffield Crucible,...

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