Calcite
A script-in-hand reading of a new play by Eloise Fairley.
Across six centuries, women gather at the same cliff edge. Time shifts, bodies change, but the land remains. Eloise Fairley’s Calcite traces lives shaped by inheritance: of blood, of memory, of place – asking what it means to endure when the ground beneath you is never quite stable. The cliff stands as both witness and participant, holding the weight of what has come before and what cannot be left behind.
Contains themes of sexual harassment and suicide.
Eloise Fairley
Eloise Fairley is a Kent-based writer, facilitator and actor, raised on the South East coast of Kent. Trained in Writing for Performance at the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama, she graduated in 2024, having previously trained in Professional Acting at LAMDA (2020). Her work explores the relationship between people and place, with a particular focus on rurality, the female experience, and the class dynamics embedded within isolated landscapes. Her work has been showcased at Soho Theatre with SmudgeMonkey Collective. Calcite was longlisted for the Bruntwood Prize in 2025.
Kirsty Housley
Kirsty Housley is a director, dramaturg and writer who specialises in formally bold new work and collaboration.
Recent work as a director includes: Cutting the Tightrope (Edinburgh International Festival and Arcola Theatre); Whole (UK Tour); Rise (Bradford City of Culture), Drive your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead (Complicité); Jekyll & Hyde (National Theatre tour, 2024 and 2022); Horse (Matthew Herbert, Edinburgh International Festival and Barbican, as co director); Hope (Clean Break, short film), Extinct (Theatre Royal Stratford East, 2021); The Long Goodbye Livestream with Riz Ahmed (MIF/BAM, 2020), Rich Kids: A History of Shopping Malls in Tehran (Traverse Theatre, Sundance Film Festival and Under The Radar fest NYC); Mephisto (A Rhapsodie) (Gate Theatre, 2019); Tao of Glass (Manchester International Festival and Royal Exchange Theatre, 2019).
Recent work as a dramaturg includes: Public Interest (Commonwealth/ Bradford City of Culture); ECHO (Royal Court/LIFT); Can I Live (Complicite) and Avalanche (Barbican Theatre).
Kirsty was the recipient of the Oxford Samuel Beckett Theatre Trust Award for Cue Deadly, a Live Film Project, the Title Pending award for innovation at Northern Stage, and The Stage award for Innovation for The Encounter. She is currently under commission to the Royal Shakespeare Company.