Amanda Verlaque
Selected credits
- This Sh*t Happens All The TimeLyric Theatre, Belfast/ Grand Opera House, Belfast
- DistortionThe Mac, Belfast/ Filmed for Worldwide streaming 2021
- Lolly (Radio Play)The Mac Audio Lab
- Egg (Short Film)Future Screens NI
- An Irish Country DoctorAdaptation for TV Pilot/ Minted Content Productions
About
Amanda Verlaque is a writer for stage, screen, audio and VR based in Belfast.
Amanda’s recent and current work includes commissions for the Abbey, Ireland’s National Theatre, and the National Theatre Connections 2025 season. The Grand Opera House staged a new production of This Sh*t Happens All the Time in March 2024. Amanda enjoyed an award-winning career in TV drama and film as a script editor, storyliner and producer before starting her writing career.
The Lyric Theatre produced This Sh*t Happens All the Time, her critically acclaimed play about homophobic hate crime and the MAC, Belfast produced her critically acclaimed debut play Distortion, about political hypocrisy and PR spin. She adapted and wrote the pilot for An Irish Country Doctor based on Patrick Taylor’s award winning novel and made her directorial debut with Egg; a VR short film set during the Belfast Blitz.
Featured work
Awards
Peggy Ramsay Foundation Award 2022/23
Irish Theatre Institute’s Six in The Attic Artist 2022/23
The Cove Park Playwriting Residency 2022
Selected for IETM Berlin Campus 2022
Arts Council NI Award for Playwriting 2018-23
The MAC Theatre’s Playwright’s Bursary 2020/21
Abbey Theatre Begins Programme for Playwrights 2019
Golden Crown Literary Award Winner and Silver Medal Winner at the Independent Publisher Book awards 2018
This Sh*t Happens All The Time
Lyric Theatre, Belfast/ Grand Opera House, Belfast
Written by Amanda Verlaque
Directed by Rhiann Jeffrey
Starring Nicky Harley
Set in 1990s Belfast, This Sh*t Happens All the Time uses personal experience of homophobia, misogyny, and coercive control to ask why the full protections granted to most of society still remain a challenge for Northern Ireland’s LGBTQ+ community.
Distortion
The Mac, Belfast
Written by Amanda Verlaque
Directed by Rhiann Jeffrey
Set and Lighting Design by Ciaran Bagnall
Cinematography by Carl Quinn
Full length hybrid play, premiered at The MAC, Belfast and streamed worldwide in 2021.
‘In a world where public identity and private inclination are often at odds, face value and protests of virtue count for little, as Verlaque’s steely prising open of a poisoned, deceit-ridden ménage à trois acutely, acidly reveals.’
British Theatre Guide