Akedah

We heal people. That's what we do here. We are a kinship. Gill has returned home to the north coast of Northern Ireland determined to speak to her younger sister Kelly for the first time in three years. There she is shocked to discover that Kelly has become a devout member of a rapidly expanding Christian community called Harvest. As Gill struggles to reconcile this Kelly with the Kelly she has been keeping safe in her mind, a noise is gathering at their periphery that refuses to go unheard any longer. Akedah won the Bruntwood Prize Original New VoiceAward in 2019. It premiered at Hampstead Theatre, London, in February 2023.

Michael John O'Neill is a playwright, dramaturg and theatre producer from the north coast of Ireland. Michael's first play, Akedah, won the Bruntwood Prize Original New Voice Award 2019 and premiered in the Hampstead Theatre Downstairs in 2023. His second play This is Paradise was presented at Traverse Theatre in both 2021 and 2022 as part of the Edinburgh Festival Fringe and won the Popcorn Writing Award 2021. In 2020 his digital short Sore Afraid was produced by National Theatre of Scotland, Citizens Theatre, and BBC Scotland, and his audio short Part of That World was produced by Pitlochry Festival Theatre. He is developing new plays with the Almeida Theatre (as part of the Genesis New Writers' Programme), Lyric Theatre Belfast and National Theatre of Scotland (as Writer on Attachment). In 2022 he completed the BBC Voices Programme and was shortlisted for the Element Pictures Northern Irish Writers' Award. He has an original TV show in development with House Productions. His work as a theatre producer includes as Artistic Producer of the Tron Theatre (2014-2020), where he founded the Tron's new work department and commissioned and produced Isobel McArthur's Pride & Prejudice* (*sort of).