Titanic

At 11.40pm on 14 April 1912, the RMS Titanic, on its maiden voyage from Southampton to New York, struck an iceberg. At 2.20am the following morning, the ship sank. 1,517 people died. In response to the disaster the British Government ordered an immediate inquiry and Lord Mersey was appointed commissioner. The British Wreck Commissioner's Inquiry sat from 2 May to 3 July 1912. It took testimony from 97 witnesses. Owen McCafferty's Titanic retells the survivors' stories, using dialogue taken word-for-word from the hundred-year-old accounts. Full of intrigue, bravery and human frailty, this courtroom drama premiered in April 2012 as the inaugural production of the MAC, Belfast.

Over the past twenty-five years Owen McCafferty's plays have been performed worldwide and have won numerous awards. Previous work includes Titanic: Scenes from the British Wreck Commissioner's Inquiry, 1912 (MAC, Belfast); The Absence of Women (Lyric Theatre, Belfast, and Tricycle Theatre, London); Days of Wine and Roses (Donmar Theatre, London); Closing Time (National Theatre, London); Shoot the Crow (Druid, Galway); Mojo Mickybo (Kabosh, Belfast); Scenes from the Big Picture (National Theatre, London), which won the Meyer-Whitworth, John Whiting and Evening Standard Awards; Quietly (Abbey Theatre, Dublin), which won the Writers' Guild Award for Best Play; Death of a Comedian (Abbey Theatre, Dublin, Lyric Theatre, Belfast, and Soho Theatre, London); Fire Below (A War of Words) (Lyric Theatre, Belfast, and Abbey Theatre, Dublin) and Agreement (Lyric Theatre, Belfast, commissioned by MGC). Owen's first screenplay Ordinary Love won Best Picture 2020 at the Irish Film & Television Awards.