The Traverse Theatre is delighted to announce its 2012 Spring season, a packed programme of new drama, writing events and dance. The Traverse also welcomes its new Artistic Director, Orla O’Loughlin to the helm from January.
Prior to taking up post at the Traverse, Orla was Artistic Director of Pentabus Theatre and International Associate at the Royal Court Theatre.
As part of Orla’s first showcase at the Traverse, the Theatre will host a two-week run of Welsh writer Tim Price’s acclaimed debut play, For Once, produced by Pentabus in association with Sherman Cymru. Originally staged at Hampstead Theatre in April 2011, the production will tour the UK before its Scottish premiere at the Traverse (4-14 April).
Orla will also curate Write Here, a two week mini-festival of readings, workshops and writing events. Details will be announced later in the season.
Speaking about taking up her new position, Orla said: “I am really excited to be joining the Traverse at the beginning of such a great new season. I’m very much looking forward to meeting audiences, artists and writers over the coming months, and to opening up the Traverse to give everyone a look into the incredible work that is done here with Write Here, which will be an exciting introduction to the future of new writing at the Traverse.”
Linda Crooks, Executive Producer of the Traverse said: “We feel very lucky to have Orla joining us at such a pivotal point in the Theatre’s nearly 50 year history. We’re delighted that Scottish audiences will have the chance to sample some of Orla’s directing work so early into her tenure with For Once, and that she’ll be working with our team to present a taste of things to come with the Write Here festival.”
The season opens as one of the Traverse Theatre Company’s biggest hits of recent years, David Greig and Gordon McIntyre’s Midsummer [a play with songs], embarks a three-month Australian tour, taking in dates in Sydney, Canberra, Wollongong and Brisbane (25 Jan-29 April).
Back at home, the Traverse will host development workshops from Plutôt La Vie with Danish writer Line Knutzon’s The Builders (20 Jan) and Stellar Quines’ Reherasal Rooms with new work from Anna Carlisle and Jennifer Tremblay (25 & 26 Jan).
The Manipulate Visual Theatre Festival enters its fifth year, presenting some of the most avant-garde physical theatre, puppetry and animation to be seen anywhere in the UK this year. Highlights include work from France, Germany, Austria, England, Czech Republic and Russia (30 Jan – 4 Feb). Later in the season, the Bank of Scotland Imaginate Festival will showcase the best new international work for children and young people (6-14 May).
Fringe hits get extra outings at the Traverse this Spring. Edinburgh’s Barony Bar will once more become the setting for Grid Iron’s 2009 award-winning show, Barflies, drawn from the short stories and poems of Charles Bukowski, with two runs as part of a national tour (6-9 Feb & 27 Feb – 1 March). Strangetown Theatre Company bring a double bill by Tim Primrose and Sam Siggs,Hex & Chow Mein (8-10 March) and also from the 2011 Festival Fringe comes the Fringe First award-winning 2401 Objects by Analogue (30-31 March). One of the best-loved shows to make its debut at the Traverse 2010 Festival, Catherine Wheel’s White, makes a welcome return following an international tour (11-14 April).
There is work exploring multi-cultural Britain today, with Tamasha’s production of Snookered, a new play by Ishy Din which opens a door to a rarely seen strand of British Muslim life (16-18 Feb) and Ankur’s Mwana, a new play by Tawona Sitholé about a young Zimbabwean educated in Glasgow, conflicted between his love of the West and expectations of his heritage (22-25 Feb).
Two celebrated Irish companies feature in the season. Gare St Lazare return to the Traverse after last year’s sell out Beckett Trilogy, with a performance of Samuel Beckett’s short story, The End(17 & 18 Feb). Ireland’s only full time ensemble theatre company Blue Raincoat are back for a third outing at the Traverse, performing Ionesco’s absurdist masterpiece, The Chairs (7-9 June).
Stellar Quines bring international collaboration, ANA, to the Traverse, a bilingual play by Claire Duffy and Pierre Yves Lemieux, which opened in Montreal in a co-production with Québécois theatre company, Imago (1-10 March). Lung Ha’s present a new version of Antigone, by Adrian Osmond (15-17 March) and Queen Margaret University return to the Traverse with Telford College to create six vibrant pieces of new work in Bated Breath (22-24 March).
Dance forms a strand of the new season, with work from Errol White Company, iam (22 March), Curious Seed’s PUSH (24 March) and Colette Sadler’s Stammer Productions, with I Not I (18 May).
David Greig will curate a season of A Play, A Pie and A Pint, entitled One Day in Spring. National Theatre of Scotland, Òran Mór and the Traverse team up again following last year’s season of Latin American plays, to feature six shows on the revolution that changed the world, with writing from Syria, Lebanon, Morocco, Tunisia and Libya (24 April–2 June).
Magnetic North’s ‘sort-of’ opera Pass the Spoon by visual artist David Shrigley, composer David Fennessy and director Nicholas Bone, will have an exclusive run at the Traverse ahead of performances at London’s Southbank Centre (26-28 April). The Arches Platform Award presents this year’s winning shows, Gary Gardiner’s Thatcher’s Children and Kieran Hurley’s BEATS (26–28 April).
Dogstar Theatre Company returns to its artistic roots with a revival of one of its earliest productions, The Captains Collection by Hamish MacDonald (22 & 23 May). ATC return to the Traverse with Sarah Kane’s Crave, which premiered at the Traverse in 1998. The double bill will include Ivan Vyrypaev’s Illusions, translated by Caz Liske (25 & 26 May).
The Traverse’s open-submissions writing event, Words, Words, Words will move from the Bar into Traverse Two, to become a work-in-progress development event, offering writers the chance to have short scripts performed on stage (2 April).
