Michael John O'Neill: Interregnum (Working Title)

Michael John O’Neill: Interregnum (Working Title)

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30 November 2024

To celebrate 50 years of the Scottish Society of Playwrights in 2024, ten Fellowships Awards were granted to innovative, inspiring, boundary-stretching projects that honoured, celebrated and promoted playwriting in Scotland. Supported by The National Lottery through Creative Scotland.

About Michael

Michael John O’Neill is a writer, producer and cultural programmer based in Scotland. As a writer, Michael is currently under commission with Almeida Theatre and with House Productions. His first play Akedah won the Bruntwood Prize Original New Voice Award 2019 and premiered at Hampstead Theatre in 2023. His second play This is Paradise was presented at Traverse Theatre for the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in 2021 and 2022 and won the Popcorn Writing Award.

The Project

Grangemouth, Scotland’s last remaining oil refinery, will cease operations in 2025. The owners have acknowledged this will mean thousands of job losses in the Forth Valley. Interregnum is research for a play reckoning with Grangemouth’s closure, while questioning what constitutes justice in the early days of the end of oil. The first outcome of Interregnum has been A Travelling Man by Michael John O’Neill is a new monologue play about an oil and gas worker, and his one fateful night out with a single mother of two from Falkirk.

Michael’s project was developed in partnership with Macrobert Arts Centre, Stirling.