Claire O’Reilly
Country: Ireland
Company: Dublin Theatre Festival/Malaprop
Biography
Claire is an Irish theatre director based in Dublin. She is a firm believer in a playful, considerate & collaborative process. She likes charged, probing work that embraces theatricality.
Claire is a co-founder of the new work collective Malaprop Theatre. Upcoming projects include Bán by Carys Coburn (Nominated for the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize 2025) for the Abbey Theatre (Irish National Theatre), A Christmas Carol for the Gate Theatre Dublin and Death of a Salesman for the Staatstheater Mainz.
Recent projects include Emma by Kate Hamill (Abbey Theatre 2025), Hothouse (Malaprop, touring 2025, winner of Best Production at Dublin Fringe Awards, New York Times Critic’s Pick), Talking About the Fire created with Chris Thorpe (Royal Court Theatre 2023), This Solution by Shaun Dunne (Dublin Theatre Festival 2023), Accents by Emmet Kirwan (Project Arts Centre 2022). Associate and assistant director credits include A Streetcar Named Desire (dir. Rebecca Frecknall, Phoenix Theatre 2023) and Uncle Vanya (dir. Ian Rickson, Sonia Friedman Productions 2020).
Claire is a former Resident Director at the Abbey Theatre (2022-2023). She has a Master’s in Drama Directing from the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School (2019) and is a graduate of Film and Theatre at Trinity College Dublin (2015).
Where Sat the Lovers
Directed by Claire O’Reilly
Written by Carys D Coburn with MALAPROPSimon Lazewski
Cast: Bláithín MacGabhann, Juliette Crosbie, Maeve O’Mahony, Wren Dennehy
Set & Costume Design by Molly O’Cathain
Lighting Design by John Gunning
Sound Design by Leon Henry & Jenny O’Malley
Stage Manager: by Rachael Kivlehan
Assistant Stage Manager: Olivia Drennan
Chief LX: Suzie Cummins
Sound Op: Emily O’Leary
Production Manager: Grace Halton
Costume Maker (Isaac): James McGlynn Seaver
Make Up Consultant & Photoshoot Bodypainting: Caitríona Giblin/Dublin BodyPaint
Producer: Carla Rogers
Synopsis
Imagine you’re scared for your adult sibling. They are on the brink. You think they’re mentally ill, but they think they’re just left wing. To make the right choices together you’ll need to know the right things. The big question: how do you know if you know the right things?
Where Sat The Lovers is about codes, hallucinations, Isaac Newton, seeing meaning where there’s none and vice versa. It’s about facing an overwhelming world and trying to make sense of it all: balancing feeling seen with feeling safe.
Touring dates upcoming
N/A so far!
Contacts for interests
HOTHOUSE
Concept of the Performance:
HOTHOUSE is a new, devised, contemporary Irish play with songs.
This intergenerational story of love, loss, and legacy set on an Arctic cruise ship that takes the audience on a journey to bid farewell to the ice caps. Guided by an unhinged, singing cruise ship captain, HOTHOUSE tells the familiar stories of one families legacy, from 9 year old Ruth in 1960’s Ireland to her greatgreat- great-great-great grandchildren 100 years from now.
There’s nothing climate breakdown doesn’t touch. That means that, in a sense, any story you tell about the world right now is a story about climate breakdown.
So there’s a temptation to try and say everything. HOTHOUSE goes to all sorts of times and places, but there’s one feeling at the centre of it: wanting to be something else, knowing you need to change, not knowing how.
Artistic Statement – artist’s words :
This work was initially inspired by Climate Cruises sailing to the Arctic Circle on new routes left behind by melted ice caps. One report said “During the summer of 2016, seventeen hundred people cruised through the passage aboard the Crystal Serenity, a diesel-powered luxury ship complete with multiple swimming pools, movie theatres, and a crew of six hundred. By 2040, the summer sea ice in the Arctic is likely to vanish entirely – you’ll be able to windsurf at the north pole.”
I don’t believe Hothouse lets us, the present-day human audience, entirely off the hook. I don’t think it should. But something I love about the piece is there is compassion for how we got here and hope for where we’re going.
Performance video/ Trailer if existing (with subtitles/ or script in english) :
Full show
