CfP (abstracts): The Theatre of Deirdre Kinahan, Carysfort Press

Call for Papers

Proposals are welcome to an edited collection under the title:
The Theatre of Deirdre Kinahan  

Editors: Lisa Fitzpatrick and Mária Kurdi

To be published by Carysfort Press jointly with Peter Lang Publishers in early 2021

Over the last twenty years Deirdre Kinahan has emerged as a significant and original female voice in Irish theatre, with her plays produced in Ireland, the UK, the USA and several continental European countries. Her work explores issues of personal and communal identity as well as renewing the genre of the family play, bringing forward the difficulties that arise for individuals when accepted narratives of identity diverge from contemporary experience. Her work interrogates and seeks to renegotiate value systems of family, class, ethnicity and gender in the 21st century, neoliberal, secular state.

Eight of Kinahan’s dramas have been published so far:

‘Hugh and Cry’ in Three New Plays by Irish Women (Dublin: Liberties Press, 2007)

‘Passage’ in Queer Notions: New Plays and Performances from Ireland ed. Fintan Walsh  (Cork: Cork University Press, 2010)

Moment (London: Nick Hern, 2011)

Halcyon Days (London: Nick Hern, 2012)

Spinning (London: Nick Hern, 2014)

Wild Sky (Meath County Council Arts Office, 2016)

Rathmines Road (London: Nick Hern, 2018)

The Unmanageable Sisters (London: Nick Hern, 2018)

Crossings (London: Nick Hern, 2018)

Five of her shorter plays will be published in one volume by Nick Hern, including Bé Carna and BogBoy, in 2020.

As Kinahan’s work becomes more accessible for students and scholars in Ireland and internationally, this collection seeks to include:

  • Critical essays;
  • Interviews with translators, directors, designers, performers;
  • Performance reviews from different countries;
  • Reflections of theatre artists who have been involved in producing Kinahan’s works for the stage.

We are aiming for a volume with authors from different places, reflecting productions of Kinahan’s plays Ireland and other Anglophone countries as well as in continental Europe.

Please send proposals of 200-300 words to the editors by 30th September 2019, accompanied by a short bio (cca. 100 words) of the author(s).

The editors will respond to abstracts in early October. The deadline for completed drafts of essays is 31st March 2020.

For more information, please contact

Dr. Lisa Fitzpatrick                                 Prof. Dr. Mária Kurdi

l.fitzpatrick@ulster.ac.uk                          kurdi.maria@pte.hu