Drawing on his own recent experience, this practical workshop looks at various ways adaptation can be approached by dramatists.

Versions of a play that are faithful to the original story in terms of place, situation, and character, have their own unique challenges of syntax, vernacular, and rhythm, whilst versions that reframe the narrative completely, face challenges of how they stand in relation to the original, and where and how this reframing departs from, or deliberately warps the original. 

Darren Murphy is a playwright and essayist. Recent plays include Many Mansions, an Abbey Theatre commission, and Bunny’s Vendetta, commissioned for the UK City of Culture in Derry, The Flats (shortlisted for the Verity Bargate Award, and A Road In Winter (winner of the Westminster Prize). His plays Irish Blood, English Heart and Tabloid Caligula, were performed in London and New York, and are published by Oberon.

Darren's PhD thesis looked at how various dramatists use narrative time. His essay The Playwright & the Pugilist was published by The Tangerine. His most recent play X’ntigone, commissioned by Prime Cut, opens at the MAC in February 2022, and is published by Methuen.