Biography
Dr. Sarah Jane Scaife is Assistant Professor of Drama in TCD and Artistic Director of Company SJ. She directed seven of Beckett's Shorter plays at the Abbey Theatre 1989/1990. Since then she has toured her own productions and also directed his plays in Georgia, Mongolia, India, Singapore, Malaysia, China and Greece with actors from each country. In 2009 she directed Samuel Beckett's Act Without Words 11 for the Absolut Fringe Festival, it has been re-presented for the International Dublin Theatre Festival (2010); Imagine Watford and Greenwich and Docklands Festivals (2011); River to River Festival (NY, 2012); Limerick Unfringed (2012), Happy Days Festival Eniskillen (2013), and The Abbey Theatre (2014). It was also presented as part of the 2013 Fringe Festival as a companion piece for Beckett's Rough For Theatre One, which subsequently went to Tokyo (2014) and Paris (2014). In 2014 she directed Beckett in the City:Fizzles for the Dublin Fringe Festival.In 2015 she added Beckett in the City: The Women Speak and presented it at the Dublin Fringe Festival and in New York in 2016. In 2018 she presented Beckett's prose piece Company, for the Dublin Theatre Festival. 2021 Company SJ presented an Irish translation of Happy Days as a site specific piece on the island of Inis Oirr for the GIAF and in Dublin for the DTF. She has lectured on Beckett and Irish Theatre all over the world.
Publications and Further Research Outputs
Peer-Reviewed Publications
Samuel Beckett/ Micheal Ó Chonghaile, 'Happy Days/Laethanta Sona', Laethanta Sona, Galway Arts Festival, 2021, -
Directing Marina Carr's By the Bog of Cats (1998) in China in, editor(s)Clare, David, McDonagh, Fiona and Nakase, Justine , The Golden Thread: Irish Women Playwrights Vol. Two (1992-2016, England, Liverpool University Press, 2021, pp51 - 63, [Sarah Jane Scaife]
Samuel Beckett/ Micheal Ó Chonghaile, 'Happy Days/Laethanta Sona', Laethanta Sona, Samuel Beckett Theatre, Dublin Theatre Festival, Arlen Press, 2021, -
Thornton Wilder, 'The Long Christmas Dinner', The Long Christmas Dinner, The Peacock Theatre, The Abbey Theatre, 2021, -
Sarah Jane Scaife, Beckett in the City: The Women Speak, Beckett Mexico, Centro Nacional de Las Artes, Mexico City, 27-29th 2019, 2019
Sarah Jane Scaife, 'Celebrating the Female Voice in Twentieth-century Irish Theatre: Mary Manning and Marina Carr, Moving Worlds: Women Write Now, 18, (1), 2018, p43 - 54
Sarah Jane Scaife, 'Situating the Audience - Performance encounter Beckett in the City: The Women Speak, Contemporary Theatre Review, Vol 28, (No 1), 2018, p114 - 126
Samuel Beckett, 'Company', Dublin, Dublin Theatre Festival, 2018, -
Samuel Beckett, 'Beckett in the City: the Women Speak', Irish Arts Centre, New York, New York, 2017, -
Sarah Jane Scaife, 'The Beckett Project', LaSalle Singapore, LASALLE College of the Arts, 2016, -
'Practice in Focus: Beckett in the City' in, editor(s)edited by Trish McTighe and David Tucker , Staging Beckett in Ireland and Northern Ireland, London & New York, Bloomsbury Methuen Drama, 2016, pp153 - 167, [Sarah Jane Scaife]
Samuel Beckett, 'The Beckett Project', Lasalle, Singapore, Lasalle, Singapore, 2016, -
Sarah Jane Scaife, Review of Happy Days: Enniskillen International Beckett Festival, 22-26 August 2013, The Journal of Beckett Studies, 23, (2), 2014, p255 - 263
Still getting above our stations: Slagging as national pastime and the cultural body in the comedy of Samuel Beckett and Marina Carr in, editor(s)Weitz, Eric , For the Sake of Sanity: Doing things with humour in Irish performance, Dublin, Carysfort Press, 2014, pp77 - 93, [Sarah Jane Scaife]
Sarah Jane Scaife, 'The Insect Play', TCD 2nd Year Show, The Samuel Beckett theatre, Trinity College Dublin, 2014, -
Sarah Jane Scaife, Dossier, The Journal of Beckett Studies, 23, (1), 2014, p73 - 94
Sarah Jane Scaife, 'Beckett in the City: Rough for Theatre 1 and Act Without Words11', Company SJ, Company SJ, 2013, -
Using the practice of theatre to create intercultural dialogues: my experience with practice based projects in China in, editor(s)Wang Zhanpeng , Sino-Irish Relations: Cross-Cultural Perspectives, Beijing, World Affairs Press, 2011, pp166-184 , [Sarah-Jane Scaife]
Playtext with essays on intercultural perspectives in a Mandarin translation by Li Yuan in, editor(s)Li Yuan and Sarah Jane Scaife , By the Bog of Cats, by Marina Carr, Beijing, Beijing Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press, 2010, pp153-173 , [Sarah-Jane Scaife]
Marina Carr Trans. Li Yuan Eds. Li Yuan and Sarah Jane Scaife, By the Bog of Cats, By Marina Carr: Playtext with essays., 1, Beijing, Beijing Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press, 2010, 1 - 190pp
Performing Women in Tom Mac Intyre's Drama in, editor(s)Bernie Sweeney , The Theatre of Tom Mac Intyre: Strays from the Ether, Dublin, Ireland, Carysfort University Press, 2010, pp181-197 , [Sarah-Jane Scaife]
'Mutual Beginnings' in, editor(s)Cathy Leeney & Anna McMullan , The Theatre of Marina Carr, Dublin, Carysfort University Press, 2003, pp1 - 16, [Sarah Jane Scaife]
Research Expertise
Recognition
Awards and Honours
Arts Grant Funding
Galway Arts Festival
Dublin Theatre Festival
Arts Council Projects Awards
Culture Ireland
Writer/Director in Residence NTU Singapore
Arts Council Development Grant
Department of Foreign Affairs China Project
Arts Council Bursary- Women Playwrights of early 20th century
Culture Ireland for Barbican Festival
Arts Council Projects Awards
Arts Council Projects Awards
Culture Ireland for touring to Waseda, Tokyo
Memberships
Irish Society of Theatre Research Irish Actors Equity Dance Ireland International Federation of Theatre Research
Irish Theatre Institute
Irish Theatre Institute
Irish Theatre Institute