The Traverse Theatre announces the appointments for 2018 of two Glasgow based new creatives, that see the theatre continue to support and champion woman writers in developing a piece of work from first spark to finished script.
Adura Onashile, who first worked with the Traverse on her Festival 2016 directorial debut, Expensive Shit that garnered awards and nominations, will be the 2018 Writer in Residence, after being awarded a bursary under the Channel 4 Playwrights’ Scheme. The Bursary will see Onashile spend a year at the Traverse on attachment while she works on a new full-length commission. Onashile has worked with companies across the UK as well as New York. Her work HeLa, the incredible true story of Henrietta Lacks, toured worldwide after its success at the 2013 Edinburgh Fringe.
Frances Poet has been awarded Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities (IASH)/Traverse Creative Fellow 2018 and will work on a new themed commission of a play inspired by a current interest of IASH on whether pain an essential part of being alive. Poet has experience in theatres across the UK and has written for stage, TV, radio and short films. Her debut original full-length play Gut opens at the Traverse in April. Her 2017 Fringe play Adam, conceived and directed by Cora Bissett and produced by the National Theatre of Scotland, premièred at the Traverse and won a clutch of awards.
Orla O’Loughlin, Traverse Artistic Director says, “I am delighted to welcome Adura and Frances to the Traverse in 2018. Both are writers of huge integrity, unafraid to ask the difficult questions and break new ground in form. The Traverse is proud to support playwrights at every stage of the creative process and I am thrilled to begin this journey in support of two such exciting artists. We look to our playwrights to examine the big ideas of our day and in doing so we invite our audiences to be part of a conversation about the possibility of change. Both Adura and Frances embody this spirit of grappling with what it means to be alive right now and are a testament to the continued vigour and sheer ambition of new writing in Scotland.”