About Martin O'Connor
About Martin
Martin O'Connor is an award-winning performer, poet and theatre maker from Glasgow. Martin specialises in new writing projects, playwriting, and spoken word, with a strong emphasis on participation and working in applied contexts. His solo work includes The Mark of the Beast (Platform), Building a Nation (Glasgow Life), and Theology (The Arches). Martin often writes in Glaswegian Scots and is a Gaelic learner.
Other writing and directing projects include Breath Cycle (Scottish Opera); Gossip From the Forest (Magnetic North), Èirigh (Theatre Gu Leòr/BBC Radio nan Gàidheal), Turntable (with MJ McCarthy and Red Bridge Arts), editor of the book for An Audience With...(Janice Parker Projects), Submarine Time Machine (National Theatre of Scotland), The Pokey Hat (Culture 2014) and Alexander McCall Smith's Anamchara: Songs of Friendship (Scottish Opera).
Martin was the recipient of the 2018 Dr Gavin Wallace Fellowship hosted by Playwright’s Studio Scotland in partnership with the Royal Lyceum Theatre. His research was based around the tales of Ossian by James Macpherson, and he presented a work in progress Through the Shortbread Tin: An Ossianic Journey in 2019, which he is currently developing with National Theatre of Scotland.
Martin is an associate artist with Toonspeak Young People’s Theatre where he works as a mentor in pathways, employment and opportunities for young people. He is the director of the Tron Theatre Young Company, which was recently part of the official COP26 programme with the sound piece Retro/Future. Other work with young people includes Citizens Young Company, Scottish Opera’s Connect, and Traverse’s Class Act.
In 2020, Martin was Writer in Residence with National Theatre of Scotland, developing new work in Gaelic, Scots and BSL. His two-year residency with Children's Hospices Across Scotland resulted in a new play A Little Life (Tron Theatre Mayfesto rehearsed reading). He was Artist in Residence with Glasgow Life’s Creative Communities for three years, and his work as Artist in Residence with Inverclyde Culture Collective is being developed for a new solo project in 2025.
Press quotes for Martin's work:
"O’Connor’s talent for morphing social documentation into a bravura prose-poem...a truly exceptional piece of work." ★★★★★ (The Herald on The Mark of the Beast)
“It will make you smile, laugh, feel moved but most of all put a tap in your foot and a song in your heart” ★★★★★ (Edinburgh Reporter on Turntable)
"Martin O'Connor's script merrily turns the pleasures of a bygone era into some gleefully inventive set pieces...full of fun but painstaking and sophisticated with it" ★★★★★ (The Herald on The Pokey Hat)
"This brilliant young Glasgow writer and performer quietly engineers the most eloquent and moving collision between the language - a display of nuanced language and imagery that confirms him as a brave and significant dramatic poet in contemporary Scotland learning from past masters like Tom Leonard, but moving things on, in a bold and memorable direction of his own." ★★★★ (The Scotsman on Theology)
Martin O'Connor is an award-winning performer, poet and theatre maker from Glasgow. Martin specialises in new writing projects, playwriting, and spoken word, with a strong emphasis on participation and working in applied contexts. His solo work includes The Mark of the Beast (Platform), Building a Nation (Glasgow Life), and Theology (The Arches). Martin often writes in Glaswegian Scots and is a Gaelic learner.
Other writing and directing projects include Breath Cycle (Scottish Opera); Gossip From the Forest (Magnetic North), Èirigh (Theatre Gu Leòr/BBC Radio nan Gàidheal), Turntable (with MJ McCarthy and Red Bridge Arts), editor of the book for An Audience With...(Janice Parker Projects), Submarine Time Machine (National Theatre of Scotland), The Pokey Hat (Culture 2014) and Alexander McCall Smith's Anamchara: Songs of Friendship (Scottish Opera).
Martin was the recipient of the 2018 Dr Gavin Wallace Fellowship hosted by Playwright’s Studio Scotland in partnership with the Royal Lyceum Theatre. His research was based around the tales of Ossian by James Macpherson, and he presented a work in progress Through the Shortbread Tin: An Ossianic Journey in 2019, which he is currently developing with National Theatre of Scotland.
Martin is an associate artist with Toonspeak Young People’s Theatre where he works as a mentor in pathways, employment and opportunities for young people. He is the director of the Tron Theatre Young Company, which was recently part of the official COP26 programme with the sound piece Retro/Future. Other work with young people includes Citizens Young Company, Scottish Opera’s Connect, and Traverse’s Class Act.
In 2020, Martin was Writer in Residence with National Theatre of Scotland, developing new work in Gaelic, Scots and BSL. His two-year residency with Children's Hospices Across Scotland resulted in a new play A Little Life (Tron Theatre Mayfesto rehearsed reading). He was Artist in Residence with Glasgow Life’s Creative Communities for three years, and his work as Artist in Residence with Inverclyde Culture Collective is being developed for a new solo project in 2025.
Press quotes for Martin's work:
"O’Connor’s talent for morphing social documentation into a bravura prose-poem...a truly exceptional piece of work." ★★★★★ (The Herald on The Mark of the Beast)
“It will make you smile, laugh, feel moved but most of all put a tap in your foot and a song in your heart” ★★★★★ (Edinburgh Reporter on Turntable)
"Martin O'Connor's script merrily turns the pleasures of a bygone era into some gleefully inventive set pieces...full of fun but painstaking and sophisticated with it" ★★★★★ (The Herald on The Pokey Hat)
"This brilliant young Glasgow writer and performer quietly engineers the most eloquent and moving collision between the language - a display of nuanced language and imagery that confirms him as a brave and significant dramatic poet in contemporary Scotland learning from past masters like Tom Leonard, but moving things on, in a bold and memorable direction of his own." ★★★★ (The Scotsman on Theology)