The Traverse Theatre today announced highlights from its 50th anniversary programme, a season which will see the theatre for new and contemporary drama, work with 50 playwrights in an ambitious attachment initiative, the Traverse Fifty.
The winning writers (see below) entered a playwriting competition from the Traverse for 500 word Plays for Edinburgh in September 2012, in the Theatre’s search for 50 new theatrical voices to carry the Traverse into its 50th year, and beyond.
The Traverse received 630 scripts from across the globe and writers have been selected from Scotland, Wales, England, Ireland, Croatia and Australia.
The winning 50 plays will be performed together on 26 January to kick off this exciting project which will run throughout 2013 and culminate in a new writing festival in the Autumn.
Artistic director Orla O’Loughlin and executive director Linda Crooks said the Traverse's new season continues with its original remit when it opened in 1963 to present "world class" new work.
Coming in 2013
The Traverse will produce two plays this season. Found at Sea is based on a new sequence of poems by novelist and poet, Andrew Greig, adapted and directed by David Greig. Starring Tam Dean Burn and Lewis Howden, this tale of two old friends’ micro odyssey to the Orkney archipelago began life as a rehearsed reading in the Theatre’s Dream Plays series at the 2012 Festival Fringe, and will be presented as a work in progress (19-23 Feb).
Rob Drummond returns to the Traverse after his Fringe hit, Bullet Catch to make his main stage debut with his new play, Quiz Show, for the Traverse Theatre Company. Directed by Traverse associate director Hamish Pirie (Mark Thomas: Bravo Figaro! and Olivier Award nominated Salt, Root and Roe), Quiz Show sees Drummond pushing the boundaries of popular culture in a piece questioning the nature of memory, truth and lies (2 - 20 April).
Traverse Theatre Company productions will go further afield this year as David Greig and Gordon McIntyre’s hit Midsummer [a play with songs] runs at the Clurman Theatre in New York. Since its 2008 debut, this Best of Edinburgh award winner has been seen across the UK and in Ireland, Canada and Australia (at the Clurman 10-26 Jan).
The Traverse flagship education project, Class Act this year sees Edinburgh secondary schools working with Alan Bissett, Catherine Grosvenor, Stef Smith, Julia Taudevin and Alan Wilkins to write their first plays, which will be professionally produced on the Traverse stage (30 & 31 Jan).
Puppets for young and old
The sixth-annual manipulate Visual Theatre Festival (3 – 16 Feb) is the biggest yet, growing from one to two weeks and packed with international puppetry, physical theatre and film, with highlights including Dutch puppeteer Neville Tranter, a feature film from The Brothers Quay and Vox Motus’ 2008 hit Slick.
Later in the season it’s festival time again with Imaginate, a week of international performance for children and young people (6-13 May).
Also in its sixth season is the successful Òran Mór and Traverse Theatre collaboration, A Play, a Pie and a Pint, with plays by Lesley Hart, David Ireland, Sabrina Mahfouz and Douglas Maxwell, which all originated at the Traverse in the past year, from Words, Words Words to this year’s Fringe Festival breakfast theatre series, Dream Plays. The plays will be directed by Orla O’Loughlin and Hamish Pirie (19 Feb – 23 March).
Past, present and future are investigated by the University of Edinburgh, Traverse Theatre and Scottish Society of Playwrights to celebrate this landmark year with a conference: 50 years of new playwriting (4 – 6 April), a week of play readings in Four Decades: Scottish Society of Playwrights (8 – 11 April) and a closing conference on the Future of Scottish Playwriting (12 April).
Critics’ Awards for Theatre in Scotland make their home at the Traverse this year, in the 10th anniversary of Scotland’s only awards ceremony dedicated to celebrating theatre in Scotland (9 June).
Spring visitors
The visiting company programme of work for the Spring season (Jan – June 2013) includes Mull Theatre’s production of My Name is Rachel Corrie (2 March), Firebrand’s production of White Rose by Peter Arnott (13-16 March) and later on in the season his collaboration with Pepperdine University in Fringe First award-winning, Why Do you Stand There in the Rain (31 May & 1 June).
Lyceum Youth Theatre present their play for National Theatre Connections, What Are They Like? by Lucinda Coxon (14 – 16 March) and there is a double bill from Luke Barnes and Charlotte Josephine for Scrawl and Snuffbox (21 – 23 March).
The Arches Platform 18: New Work Award brings plays from winners Peter McMaster and Amanda Monfrooe (1 – 3 May), Clerkinworks & Improbable co-produce The Bear (16 – 18 May) and Jenna Watt’s Fringe First winner Flâneurs gets a Traverse run (23 & 24 May).
Top Irish theatre companies return to the Traverse with Gare St Lazare’s Samuel Beckett’s First Love (23 – 25 May) and Blue Raincoat with Flann O’Brien’s The Poor Mouth (30 May – 1 June). Communicado team up with National Theatre of Scotland for David Harrower’s adaptation of Calum’s Road (6 – 8 June) and Some Other Mother by AJ Taudevin comes to the Traverse from Refugee Week Scotland in a co-production with the Tron (7 & 8 June).
The Trav 50
The Traverse playwrights who will take up the Traverse Fifty attachment in January are:
- Colin Bell (Edinburgh)
- Kate Bowen (Glasgow)
- Michael Burnett (Edinburgh)
- Alison Carr (Newcastle upon Tyne)
- Colin Clark (Glasgow)
- Grace Cleary (Livingston)
- Giles Conisbee (Pitlochry)
- Robert Dawson Scott (Glasgow)
- Jack Dickson (Glasgow)
- Sylvia Dow (Linlithgow)
- Dave Fargnoli (Edinburgh)
- Sophie Good (Edinburgh)
- Alan Gordon (Edinburgh)
- Caroline Gray (Putney)
- James Green (Newark on Trent)
- Kris Haddow (Paisley)
- Mose Hayward (Paris)
- Molly Innes (Edinburgh)
- Emily Jenkins (Meysey Hampton)
- Denise Keane (London)
- Najma Khanzada (Edinburgh)
- Deborah Klayman (Southall)
- Jamie Laing (Dundee)
- James Ley (Edinburgh)
- Jennifer Makie (Edinburgh)
- Bethan Marlow (Cardiff)
- Stuart Martin (London)
- Katy McAulay (Glasgow)
- John McCann (Edinburgh)
- Martin McCormick (Glasgow)
- Nicholas Mcgaughey (Pontypridd)
- K S Morgan McKean (Glasgow)
- Tara McKevitt (Dublin)
- Iain Mitchell (London)
- Uma Nada- Rajah (Edinburgh)
- Eva O'Connor (Edinburgh)
- Michael O’Neill (Glasgow)
- Dino Pesut (Zagreb)
- Lachlan Philpott (Sydney)
- Frances Poet (Glasgow)
- Tim Primrose (Edinburgh)
- Matthew Ramagge (Glasgow)
- Mark Robson (Edinburgh)
- Helen Shutt (London)
- Sam Siggs (Edinburgh)
- Ellie Stewart (Bathgate)
- J.A. Sutherland (Edinburgh)
- AJ Taudevin (Glasgow)
- Drew Taylor (Glasgow)
- Adam Usden (Cheadle)
This year-long attachment to the Traverse begins in January 2013 and will engage 50 writers in a series of tailor-made writing events, including panel discussions, workshops and one-to-one dramaturgy.
The project will culminate in a new writing festival in Autumn 2013, featuring work the 50 writers have developed throughout the year. The Traverse will offer seed commissions to three of the writers at the end of 2013.
Cllr Richard Lewis, Culture & Sport Convener, of Edinburgh City Council, who are funding the project said:
"The Traverse Theatre is very special to us. It's the home of new theatrical writing in Edinburgh and a source of fantastic international profile for the City. The Council is delighted to be joining the Theatre their 50th anniversary celebrations and supporting this colourful programme of events."