This is a recording of a live event, so bookers won't be able to participate in the Q&A section of the event. Bookers will be able to view the recording on demand until Wed 31 March, 2021.

As part of the First Stages Festival, extracts from plays by writers who entered scripts to Open Submissions 2019 receive their first public readings on their journey towards the stage.

‘You will see that we are all just sculptors.
We break this rock to reveal what is underneath.
To carve out some kind of paradise.’

10 April 1998, Belfast. The Good Friday Agreement has been signed and brings with it the prospect and threat of momentous change.

As Kate watches this historic moment unfold, with an uneasy knot in her stomach, she receives a phone call that forces her to face her past. Her ex-lover, the river, the trauma - all of it comes flooding back.

Written by Michael John O’Neill, Paradise is a powerful monologue exploring our willingness to begin again.

This script-in-hand reading, directed by Gareth Nicholls (A Gambler’s Guide to Dying, Crocodile Fever), was followed by a Q&A from the live event audience, hosted by Traverse Literary Associate, Eleanor White.

Each Autumn, the Traverse invites writers based in the UK and Ireland to anonymously submit a full-length script to us via our Open Submissions window to help us discover the most exciting and visionary new voices out there. Our literary department developed Paradise after Michael John O’Neill was selected from over 600 writers who sent us their plays in 2019.

This event is part of our First Stages Festival - a celebration of storytelling and playwriting.

The Traverse Theatre is funded by Creative Scotland and The City of Edinburgh Council, with additional support from The Scottish Government Performing Arts Venues Relief Fund.

Paradise is part of the Creative Community - Irish Theatre in Scotland series, a Traverse Theatre partnership with the Consulate General of Ireland, Edinburgh.

Image: everyonelovescake.com