Katie O'Kelly
Katie O'Kelly is a playwright, actor and founding member of WitchWork Theatre Company.
Her adaptation of James Joyce’s Dubliners short stories, Dubliners Women, (dir. Sarah Baxter), has toured extensively around Ireland and most recently toured to the DELL Conference in Cairo. She was artist in residence at Belltable Limerick in 2018 where she began developing a new play exploring themes of cyclical institutionalisation in Ireland. She wrote and performed The Olive Tree (dir. Davey Kelleher), premiering it in the New Theatre and then touring to the HIFA Festival, Zimbabwe, and most recently to the European Theatre Festival in Beirut. Her play Counter Culture was created as part of the Show In A Bag Initiative for the Dublin Fringe Festival, later touring nationally and to the Edinburgh Fringe. She also wrote and performed in the two-hander Mirror, Mirror, Off the Wall (dir. Pom Boyd). Other writing credits include the radio play CAGED, presented as part of the Dead Air series in the Bram Stoker Festival 2017. She was nominated for The Stage Award for Acting Excellence (Solo Performer Category) at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival for her performance of JOYCED!. JOYCED! toured around Ireland and to Norway, Finland, Zimbabwe and the UK, receiving a bursary to perform in the Brighton Fringe Festival. Other stage credits include A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (The New Theatre) Ledwidge (TNT National Tour), Hamlet (AC Productions), King Lear and Romeo and Juliet (Smock Alley National Tour) an Lockout (The New Theatre). Katie is a graduate of the Drama and Theatre Studies BA from Trinity College Dublin and Goldsmiths College London. She is one of the organisers of PalFest Ireland, a lively, cultural arts festival organised by Irish Artists in solidarity with the people of Palestine. Katie is currently Programme Coordinator with Theatre Forum. |
Jane McCarthy |
Jane has over a decade of experience in theatre as a writer and producer. Most recently she wrote the critically acclaimed, sold out play, The Harvest which followed its initially successful run with a national multi-venue tour in 2019. In December 2018 she adapted and staged a much lauded reimagining of Charles Dickens' classic ghost story The Signalman. In 2017, she was commissioned to write a short radio play, Amy, as part of the Bram Stoker Festival's event Dead Air. Her debut play, Overtime (2012, 2013) also received great critical acclaim and a sell out run in The New Theatre, Dublin. On the strength of Overtime she was selected to be part of Dublin Theatre Festival's 'Play- On' initiative in 2014, an advanced playwriting course taught by Graham Whybrow, of The Royal Court Theatre, London. In 2019 she was invited to join the annual Playwrights Workshop in The Tyrone Guthrie Centre, Annaghmakerrig, supported by Stewart Parker Trust. She was commissioned to write a monologue for publication in Fortnight, celebrating 50 years of the journal, published in June 2020. Jane is currently developing a new play, A Straw House, with kind support from Arts Council of Ireland and The Axis Theatre, Ballymun.
Her adaptation of Edna O’Brien’s Girls in their Married Bliss, the third and final novel in O'Brien's Country Girls trilogy, will embark on a tour of Ireland and Northern Ireland, produced by WitchWork TC, with dates TBC. Jane has an MA in Creative Writing from UCD, graduated Dec 2014, where she was taught by many esteemed writers such as James Ryan, Frank McGuinness, Éilís Ní Dhuibhne, Paul Perry and Carlo Gebbler, and a BA in English Literature, also from UCD, graduated Sep 2007. She is also a freelance copywriter and editor. Clara Purcell
Clara has worked in theatre, film and TV production since 2012. Producing credits include Dubliners Women (The New Theatre, 2016) an adaptation of Joyce’s Dubliners directed by Sarah Baxter which toured nationally and internationally; the 30th anniversary tour of Donal O’Kelly’s award-winning Bat the Father Rabbit the Son (Rough Magic, touring 2018/2019), The Roaring Banshees (Devious Theatre Company, 2019), The Harvest National Tour (WitchWork Theatre Company, 2019) and The Signalman (WitchWork Theatre Company, 2018). She was involved as producer in the development of two original projects; Katie O’Kelly’s ‘Displace’ in association with Belltable, Limerick, and ‘Sisters! The Musical’ – book and lyrics by Tracy Ryan, music and lyrics by Kaeylea Van Keith. She also produced a 2-day festival celebrating the 35th Anniversary of the Dunnes Stores Anti-Apartheid Strike in 2019 in association with Mandate Trade Union.
She was production assistant on feature-length documentary ‘Nuala – A Life’ (2012, Accidental Pictures) and worked in production support in RTÉ for four years. Clara was Visitor Services Coordinator at The Ark Children's Cultural Centre from 2019 to 2021, and is currently Producing Assistant at The Abbey Theatre. |
