This year is set to be a historically important one for Scotland and the National Theatre of Scotland’s 2014 Programme season holds promise to match the political theatre ahead.
In the words of NTS Artistic Director Laurie Sansom, this is a “season of theatre, debate and celebration.”
It was commented somewhere last year that Scotland does surreal better that satire and this programme has definite shades of subversion and leftfield thinking. Take a look at this calendar of events:
From January - March 2014 David Greig and Wils Wilson’s darkly comic theatre fable, The Strange Undoing of Prudencia Hart, tours bars and theatres in North America. In association with the Arches, Kieran Hurley and friends’ piece of ceilidh–theatre Rantin does an inimitable take on Scotland’s national identity, touring Scotland (24 January to 1 March 2014). In partnership with the National Trust for Scotland, Fiona J Mackenzie’s A Little Bird Blown Off Course pays tribute to Gaeldom’s legendary Margaret Fay Shaw at the Tron Theatre, Glasgow, as part of Celtic Connections (31 January and 1 February 2014). And last but by no means least, Cora Bissett and David Greig’s Glasgow Girls makes a triumphant return to the Citizens Theatre (20 February to 8 March).
A timeous tribute to Scotland’s brilliant king of the surreal, Ivor Cutler, comes from Vanishing Point and NTS with The Beautiful Cosmos of Ivor Cutler that tours to Inverness, Glasgow, Greenock, Stirling and Edinburgh from 4 April to 3 May 2014.
From 7 April 2014, NTS again collaborates with Òran Mór and A Play, A Pie and a Pint to present a season of plays and UK premieres from Commonwealth writers in Glasgow and in Edinburgh, co-presented with the Traverse Theatre and Fuel Theatre.
From 24 April to 3 May 2014, in a collaboration between NTS and the SNPG that sounds like a gold standard version of the NGS’ Get Inspired, Get Writing competition, twenty of Scotland’s leading writers will scrieve monologues inspired by twenty of the collection’s celebrated artworks. The result will be for a series of pit-stop performances around the Scottish National Portrait Gallery directed by Joe Douglas and Catrin Evans that audiences can stravaig through. The Scottish writers involved are Ali Smith, A L Kennedy, David Greig, Iain Finlay Macleod, Iain Heggie, Jackie Kaye, James Robertson, Janice Galloway, Jo Clifford, John Byrne, Linda McLean, Liz Lochhead, Louise Welsh, Nicola McCartney, Peter Arnott and Zinnie Harris.
NTS and Royal Shakespeare Company’s production of David’s Greig sequel to Macbeth, Dunsinane, visits Shanghai, Hong Kong, Taiwan and Moscow in Spring 2014 making it NTS’ Russian debut.
In June 2014 The Great Yes, No, Don’t Know, Five Minute Theatre Show is co-curated by David Greig and David MacLennan. This innovative event aims to provide hundreds of answers to one very important question, as professional, amateur and first-time theatre makers are invited to make and perform a five minute theatre piece inspired by the theme of Independence for live streaming to a global audience. It takes place at various locations across Scotland and beyond. From 22
July – 3 August 2014 NTS celebrates Glasgow’s industrial past and its creative future in the growing of The Tin Forest: a citywide community project, an international youth theatre festival, a pop-up performance space and an entertainment experience for visitors during the Commonwealth Games. In June the Vox Motus, NTS and Tianjin People’s Art Theatre’s production, the magical and astonishing Dragon, presents a new Chinese version using Scottish creatives with a run in China, at Guang Hua Theatre in Tianjin.
As already pointed up in EdinburghGuide, August - October 2014 sees The James Plays written by Rona Munro and directed by Laurie Sansom. They are a brand new set of history plays about Kings James I, II and III of Scotland. This is a co-production with the NTS, Edinburgh International Festival and the National Theatre of Great Britain that will show in Edinburgh in August 2014 and in London from September to October 2014.
17 September 2014, the day before Scotland votes in the referendum on independence, Blabbermouth, conceived and curated by Graham McLaren, presents a 12 hour celebration of Scotland’s cumulative written word legacy -its greatest letters, lyrics, polemics and poems, read and performed by its leading artists, politicians, broadcasters and sportspeople. This event takes place from midday to midnight at The Assembly Hall on the Mound, Edinburgh.
Going in to October, the 30th anniversary of the 1984 miners’ strike is marked by a re- run of Graham McLaren’s adaptation of Joe Corrie’s 1926 classic In Time o’ Strife with a new tour of venues across Scotland following its successful 2013 run.
December 2014 sees the NTS’ boutique production of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, adapted, directed and designed by Graham McLaren, make its international debut in Michigan, USA.
Throughout 2014, The National Theatre of Scotland will collect letters addressed to Dear Scotland. They want them to contain people's rants and regrets, love letters or break-up cards, advice or demands, hopes and dreams and they will be woven together to create a living record of this momentous year.
Audiences will be asked to do it by writing a postcard, uploading a film, participating online, or in person at events across the country, after which some responses will feature in a NTS project during the year. Join the conversation at #dearscotland.
A full diary and exciting times ahead!