AWARDS:

National Theatre- 100 Significant Plays of the Twentieth Century in 2000, for “My Mother Said I Never Should”

George Devine Award

Manchester Evening News Best New Play Award 1987

Olivier Award – Most Promising Newcomer 1989 nomination

Time Out Theatre Award

Edinburgh Fringe First,

Prix Danube (France)

Sunday Times Outstanding Performance Award,

EMMY joint winner 2003 for research filming in children’s prisons in Georgia for the C4 documentary “Kids Behind Bars”.

 

THEATRE PLAYS:

Underneath The Arndale   Manchester Contact Theatre 1982; also directed.

The Iron Serpent Leeds Theatre Workshop 1983, about the world’s first railway; partly in song with original score.

Dressing For Dinner  British tour 1984; also acted in it and directed.

An Armenian Childhood Leeds 1983, with Pete Brooks of Impact theatre; also actor in it.

The Legend Of Padgate a community play for a cast of eighty; Warrington 1985; also directed, designed and choreographed.

Waiting For Martin monologue; British and Canadian tour 1987 with the English Shakespeare company.

My Mother Said I Never Should Contact Theatre, Manchester 1987, and Royal Court 1989; subsequently produced in 31 countries and languages from Greek to Japanese. Now the most widely performed play ever written by a woman.

A GCSE and A-Level set text in Britain since 1992 and studied in universities from New York to Rajasthan. Selected by the Royal National Theatre 2000 as one of the 100 significant plays in the English language.

You’re a Nuisance Aren’t You for Fears And Miseries In The Third Term, Young Vic 1989.

The Singing Ringing Tree musical children’s play; Contact Theatre 1992, original music for the songs by Errolyn Wallen.

The Sleep Of Reason Produces Monsters  Leeds Theatre Workshop and Shanghai Academy Theatre 1999; also directed by the playwright.

Forest written for production at St.Wilfred’s School, Blackburn, 2001.

The First Pirate Queen for teenage performers, premiered WGS School Manchester 2005. (Shortly to be published by Methuen as plays for young people).

Our Father 2012 Watford Palace Theatre; published by Methuen.

I Am Janet  2016 The Gap, Manchester

CutsTake Back at Comedy Store, Manchester 2018

 

RADIO:

My Mother Said I Never Should reconstructed for BBC Radio 4,1989;

repeated on Radio 4 Extra.

Citizens series : co-devised the series with Marilyn Imrie, and writers

Leigh Jackson and Marcia Kahan; and wrote twenty-two episodes 1987-90 for BBC Radio 4.

Is Green The Same For You ?  BBC Radio 4, 1992.

North and South from the novel by Mrs Gaskell, BBC Classic 3 part serial 1997.

 

TELEVISION and FILM:

Badger children’s drama, Granada 1989. Winner of Prix Danube.

Falling Slowly Channel 4, 1990, commissioned and accepted, co-producer pulled out.

Kids behind Bars Channel 4, 2003, as researcher CK filmed in prisons in Georgia in East Europe for which the researchers won an EMMY.

 

PUBLICATIONS:

My Mother Said I Never Should   Methuen 1987, nine re-prints;

My Mother Said I Never Should   Methuen Student Edition 1993 with notes and practical exercises by CK (currently Methuen are preparing a new Student Edition in response to the play being on the GCSE syllabus again).

My Mother Said I Never Should   Acting Edition, Samuel French 1987 and re-prints.

Rage and Reason  contributed interview on women playwrights and theatre aesthetics, Methuen 1998.

Our Father    New play set in the Peak District, about hidden damage in the land and in families. Methuen 2012

 

Theatre plays in development:

All The Daughters Of War 

Commission for RSC; Workshop at RADA 2006, Royal National Theatre 2007; epic covering 25 years through civil war and the re-making of a country, set in Georgia

in East Europe. Visceral and based on experience, 6 central women parts, 7 men.

Emilie’s Reason,

Based on the life of Emilie du Chatelet, a pioneering physicist and philosopher,  mother of three children, who loved gambling and eating. She created an extraordinary household to protect Voltaire, who lived with for 17 years after falling in love with her. A play about how to live a passionate life, what stops us, and what endures.

Journalism
Theatre critic for The Financial Times, Observer, Yorkshire Post, Glasgow Herald, The Scotsman, Performance Magazine, Spare Rib; live broadcasts on BBC radio and television arts programmes, currently for BBC Front Row.

Wrote for The Guardian on the Rose Revolution in Georgia, having travelled extensively in Georgia and Abkhazia about which she is writing a book.

Teaching creative writing
For the National Theatre, Royal Court Theatre, Contact Theatre and the Royal Exchange Manchester, among many other theatres. Workshops in dozens of schools, colleges and universities across the UK and US, including Cambridge and Harvard Universities.

For the British Council, workshops across Eastern Europe including in Sarajevo, just after the war; and in India.

Other workshops and courses for: The Arvon Foundation, The Women’s Theatre Group and Deafway, a theatre company for hearing and speech impaired actors.

Community Theatre
Created a community play over a year working with children and adults in Padgate, Warrington, involving them in the writing and design.

Created a version of The Tempest from Caliban’s point of view, working with children in Ancoats and Moss Side, Manchester and performed at Contact Theatre.

Running community theatre groups in Burnley, Bury and numerous venues across the North West.

Co-organised the first Festival of Syrian Arts in the UK, Manchester 2017