KAITE O'REILLY'S DRAMA COLLECTION LAUNCHED TODAY

Atypical Plays For Atypical Actors is the first of its kind: a collection of dramas which redefines the notion of normalcy and extends the range of what it is to be human. From monologues, to performance texts, to realist plays, these involving and subversive pieces explore disability as a portal to new experience.

Includes the plays: Peeling, The Almond and the Seahorse, In Water I’m Weightless, the 9 Fridas and Cosy.

Although disabled characters appear often in plays within the Western theatrical tradition, seldom have the writers been disabled or Deaf themselves, or written from those atypical embodied experiences. This is what contributes to making Kaite O’Reilly’s Selected Plays essential reading – critically acclaimed plays and performance texts written in a range of styles over twelve years, but all informed by a political and cultural disability perspective. They ‘answer back’ to the moral and medical models of disability and attempt to subvert or critique assumptions and negative representations of disabled people.

The selected plays and performance texts exhibit a broad approach to issues around disability. Some, like In Water I’m Weightless/The ‘d’ Monologues (part of the Cultural Olympiad and official festival celebrating the 2012 London Olympics and Paralympics) are embedded in disability politics, aesthetics, and ‘crip’ humour. A montage of monologues that can be performed solo or as a chorus, they challenge the normative gaze and celebrate all the possibilities of human variety.   The Almond and the Seahorse is different, a ‘mainstream’ character-led realist drama about survivors of Traumatic Brain Injury, with subversive politics in its belly. A response to ‘tragic but brave’ depictions of head injury and memory loss, and informed by personal experience, the play interrogates the reality of living with TBI, questioning who the ‘victims’ are.

Peeling, a landmark play written for one Deaf and two disabled female actors, was originally produced by Graeae Theatre Company in 2002, 2003, and for BBC Radio 3. A ‘feminist masterpiece…quietly ground breaking’ (Joyce McMillan, The Scotsman), it has become a set text for Theatre and Drama and Disability Studies university degree courses in the UK and US. Frequently remounted, its lively meta-theatrical form supports its central themes of war, eugenics, and a woman’s control over her fertility, which are as relevant today as ever.  

The performance text the 9 Fridas is a complex mosaic offering multiple representations of arguably the world’s most famous female artist, Frida Kahlo, reclaiming her as a disability icon. Performed in Mandarin translation, it was the closing production of the 2014 Taipei Art Festival and will transfer to Hong Kong in October 2016. It is currently being translated into German, Hindi, and Spanish. 

Cosy is a darkly comedic look at the joys and humiliations of getting older and how we shuffle off this mortal coil. Three generations of a dysfunctional family explore their choices in a world obsessed with eternal youth, and asks whose life (or death) is it, anyway?  An Unlimited Commission, Cosy will premiere and tour nationally in 2016, appearing at the Unlimited Festivals at Southbank Centre and Tramway.

‘At Cardiff’s Wales Millennium Centre, an all-female, all-Welsh cast including Sharon Morgan will perform Kaite O’Reilly’s new play Cosy; a provocative, brutally honest but at times laugh-out-loud work that asks big questions about how – and when – our lives draw to a close. It will then be performed as part of the Unlimited festivals in London and Glasgow, in September 2016. This darkly comic new work combines an unflinching examination of our attitudes to youth, ageing and death, with an often hilarious and moving encounter between three generations of women.' – The Disability Arts Online

Kaite O’Reilly was on BBC Radio Wales with Nicola Haywood Thomas on 17th February and was also interviewed by Joe Turnbull for an article appeared on 4th March on The Stage. Among the others, The Guardian also dealt with Kaite’s new play.

‘Kaite O’Reilly has always been a rule breaker… Her latest work Cosy… [is] ostensibly a traditional family drama encompassing three generations of women, which tackles the thorny issue of end-of-life scenarios and ageing.’ – Exeunt Magazine

THE TYPEWRITER’S TALE by Michiel Heyns praised by UK reviewers

Michiel Heyns’ thought-provoking and slyly witty novel THE TYPEWRITER’S TALE has been published by Freight Books in the UK and is winning over reviewers here, with a US deal to be confirmed soon.

Carefully researched and yet abundantly inventive, THE TYPEWRITER’S TALE brings to life a man – Henry James – who is the subject of literary interest worldwide. But unlike in other James-themed novels, Heyns does not make James the hero of the piece – the role of heroine is filled by the wonderful fictional character of his typist, Frieda Wroth. The novel won pre-publication praise – ‘delicious’, ‘breathtaking’, ‘admirable’ – from writers like Ronald Frame, Zoe Wicomb and Lyndall Gordon. Freight have published in the month of the centenary of Henry James’ death and early reviews are glowing.

 ‘Anyone who loves Henry James will adore THE TYPEWRITER’S TALE … Frieda is smart, funny, modern and intuitive and with her story, Heyns has given us something playful as well as thought-provoking’ – Lesley McDowell, The Independent on Sunday

‘A love of Henry James’ work is certainly not necessary to enjoy this novel … in tone it is light-hearted and entertaining. Heyns not only has fun with James and his family, but with a series of guest stars like Hugh Walpole, and Edith Wharton, who sweeps through the novel like a force of nature at regular points. While I wouldn’t go as far as to say we can’t have too many novels about Henry James, I am certainly glad we now have this one too.’ – 1stReading’s Blog

‘THE TYPEWRITER’S TALE is excellent and admirable, written in Jamesian style, but with lashings of the humour often lacking in the great man’s work … Heyns is a beautiful writer and it’s a measure of his talent that he apes James’s circumlocutions without stumbling. His images are vivid and apt. … Frieda provides the novel’s heart and its soul, and she is a lovely creation.’ – Lee Randall, A History of My life in 100 Objects blog

THE TYPEWRITER’S TALE slyly probes questions of love and art, creativity, immortality and the nature of a life fully lived. Michiel Heyns convincingly recreates the society in the town of Rye around ‘the Master’, as seen through the cool gaze of his typist, Frieda. Admiring of the great author, she nevertheless feels marginalised and under-valued, a mere typewriter, amidst the stolid servants and chattering guests. But when the dashing Morton Fullerton comes to visit, Frieda finds herself at the centre of an intrigue every bit as engrossing as the novels she types every day, bringing her into conflict with the flamboyant Edith Wharton, and compromising her loyalty to her employer.  The urbane, long-winded Henry James, the suave, witty Morton Fullerton and the voracious, larger-than life Edith Wharton: caught in a triangle of which she only gradually comes to understand the nature, Frieda tries to obey the Master’s dictum: ‘Live all you can; it’s a mistake not to.’ But living, she finds, exacts a price: it takes place at the expense of other lives.

Michiel Heyns is a prize-winning novelist, translator and critic, one of South Africa’s leading literary lights and recipient of several international fellowships.. He is also Professor Emeritus of English Literature at Stellenbosch University and author of EXPULSION AND THE NINETEENTH CENTURY NOVEL (OUP, 1994) as well as numerous articles, and radio adaptations of Henry James’ novels. All of his novels have been published in South Africa by Jonathan Ball and THE TYPEWRITER’S TALE was shortlisted for the Commonwealth Writers Prize, Africa Region. Freight will publish a further novel LOST GROUND in the UK in 2017

For more on Michiel’s novels, see his website.

More praise for THE TYPEWRITER’S TALE:

'...beams a brilliant light onto the world of Henry James, illuminating the language, manners and social mores of the early twentieth century. This exquisite account of the master and his amanuensis is a tour de force; her story, for all the confines of a typist's life in Rye, a triumph. Heyns is an important figure in South African letters; here he is profound and humorous. THE TYPEWRITER’S TALE is a breathtaking work and, above all, a pleasure to read.' Zoe Wicomb author of Playing in the Light and October

‘THE TYPEWRITER’S TALE is admirable for its Jamesian inwardness and delicacy. It’s a brilliant idea to explore the typewriter’s view of the great writer she serves and to imagine so plausibly how she is drawn into his world.’ Lyndall Gordon, author of Henry James: His Women and His Art

'What a great idea! The master-observer is observed by his stenographer. A delicious treat for Henry James aficionados, and also for those who may never have read a word. Sly, sympathetic, high-minded, involving, moving, funny. I loved it, and was very sorry to reach the last page. But Freida Wroth and Mr James and the other characters will live on in my mind.' Ronald Frame, author of The Lantern Bearers and Havisham

KAITE O'REILLY DISCUSSES HER NEW PLAY "COSY"

In this article in the Wales Arts Review,  Kaite O' Reilly discusses her new play COSY, and its themes of aging and mortality. 

I want to handle this often feared topic with wit, as well as sobriety and respect. I love human beings ability to live joyfully and in the moment, despite the knowledge our time is finite and we will all die one day. How these two opposing perspectives co-exist is fascinating to explore theatrically – and the deceptions, avoidances, contradictions and confrontations within a family with distinct and different ethical, religious, and political perspectives

Performed by a cracking all-Welsh cast, COSY is a darkly comic look at three generations of women as they share the joys and humiliations of getting older.  This new work – at turns hilarious and heartbreaking – examines issues relevant to us all; youth, ageing, and the last, great taboo.

COSY will be performed at the Weston Studio in Cardiff from the 8th - 12th March. 

For more information follow this link

RACHEL'S BLUE BY ZAKES MDA PUBLISHED BY SEAGULL PRESS

Seagull Press have published Zakes Mda’s RACHEL’S BLUE in a beautiful hardback edition, available now across North America, the UK, India and other English language markets outside South Africa (where Kwela’s edition is available). The novel was longlisted for the 2016 International DUBLIN Literary Award and in South Africa it won the University of Johannesburg Prize.

RACHEL’S BLUE is set in Athens, Ohio, and deals with the story of old high school friends Rachel Boucher and Jason de Klerk who reconnect­ and rekindle a relationship that quickly becomes passionate. Initially, all seems well. But then Rachel meets someone else. Jason’s anger boils over into violence—violence that turns the community on its head, pitting friends and neighbours against one another. And all this happens before Rachel realizes she’s pregnant.

The novel was written as a response to the legal situation that persists in many US states today – that the father of a child conceived from rape can claim the same paternity rights as any father. Although RACHEL’S BLUE is set in Athens County, Ohio, many of the issues raised in the book are familiar to South Africa and reviewer Eckard Smuts wrote on SlipNet that “one of the novel’s strongest accomplishments is the ease with which Mda has transplanted his sensitivity to such issues – and to their human impact – from the more familiar South African setting of his earlier work to the apparently fertile grounds of the American Midwest.”

Zakes Mda has just completed a very busy and successful tour in South Africa to promote his latest novel LITTLE SUNS, published in South Africa by Penguin Random House’s Umuzi imprint.

Follow Zakes Mda on Twitter: @ZakesMda

About the author

Zakes Mda is the author of the much loved classics of South African literature WAYS OF DYING and THE HEART OF REDNESS, among many others. He was born in the Eastern Cape, but spent his early childhood in Soweto, finishing his school education in Lesotho. He is a prolific writer of novels, plays, poems and articles for academic journals and newspapers, and his writing has been translated into twenty languages. His creative work also includes painting, and theatre and film productions. Mda is a recipient of South Africa’s Order of Ikhamanga. He is based in Athens, Ohio, where he spends his time writing and teaching.

Praise for Zakes Mda

‘Mda writes from the inside with a rare combination of passion and truth that will connect with readers everywhere.’ – Booklist

‘A voice for which one should feel not only affection but admiration.’ – New York Times

‘Zakes Mda is among the most acclaimed exponents of a new artistic freedom. His fiction has a beguiling lyricism and humour.’ – The Guardian

Role Available: Finance Manager

The Finance Manager has overall responsibility for company and client accounts for the Agency.   This includes processing all client monies, processing company payroll and overseeing processing of company accounts.

The role supervises the Contracts and Royalties Associate, the Office Manager/HR Manager and external Bookkeeper.

Hours:                   4 or 5 days per week
Salary:                   Depending on experience

Client Accounts

·         Overall responsibility for client accounts.
·         Prepare weekly pay run: process payments received, pay & report to clients, transfer commission income to the company bank account.
·         Enter sales details/royalties in database, check details of payments/advances.
·         General maintenance of database.
·         Respond to client queries and requests, with support from royalties associate.
·         Follow up on overdue purchaser payments, with assistance from the royalties associate & agents.
·         Monthly commission analysis and reporting.
·         Income reporting for quarterly VAT return & annual VAT report to HMRC

Company Accounts

·         Oversee processing of company accounts by Office Manager.
·         Update accounting systems
·         Prepare material for company accounts, including quarterly VAT and year end accounts for audit, in conjunction with external bookkeeper.
·         Review finance reports for presentation to the Board and external accountants.
·         Cash-flow analysis & planning.
·         Prepare monthly payroll, including PAYE and pension payments and reconciliations.
·         Submit end of year payroll.

Requirements:

Ideally the applicant will have at least 2 years’ experience in a similar role.

Excel
Accounts & payroll software: ideally Sage 50 accounts and payroll.
Database: ideally Bradbury Phillips

Closing date for applications: 29th February 2016

Send cv to Sian Jenkins:  sian@blakefriedmann.co.uk