#EdFringe shows for NTS
NTS announces 2017 season
The National Theatre of Scotland has announced details of three shows which will be playing the Edinburgh Fringe in August 2017, with more involvement with the festivals to be announced later.
With eight world premieres, the season includes a new Play Pie and Pint commission in Gaelic, the continuation of the 306 trilogy, a Highland and Islands tour for a play for young people, a participatory production around the new NTS home in Glasgow and a major new adaptation playing London, Dublin and week in Dundee.
Jo Clifford, whose Eve will play EdFringe 2017.
Other work includes support for Testroom, a new puppetry and object manipulation initiative from puppeteer Gavin Glover which is providing space for seven creatives to explore the form and create new work which will have a scratch presentation during Manipulate in January 2017.
The much-lauded Theatre in Schools Scotland initiative will continue with Rosalind Sydney’s Up to Speed, seen at Imaginate 2014, and Visible Fictions’ long-running hit: Jason and the Argonauts.
The concrete announcements of the season include a pair of plays about Trans lives: Eve and Adam. Previously announced for short runs in Glasgow this Autumn, the pair will now be part of the Traverse’s fringe offering.
Adam, conceived for the stage and directed by Cora Bissett, written by Frances Poet and with music composed by Jocelyn Pook will play Traverse 1. The production delves into the true story of a young trans man who was born into a girl’s body in Egypt and his journey to reconciliation.
Virtual choir
The production will feature a score sung by a virtual choir of trans and non-binary individuals from across the world who will be projected onto the stage. It has been described as: “an ambitious experiment with theatrical form, blending storytelling, classical composition and mass digital elements from participants from around the globe.”
Cora Bissett, Director of Adam and Room. Photo: Johnny McLauchlan
Edinburgh-based playwright Jo Clifford is working with director Chris Goode to bring Eve to Traverse 2. In it, Clifford offers audiences “an authentic and intimate insight into the real life experiences of a trans person”. She was most recently seen in the equally intimate and thoughtful The Gospel According to Jesus Queen of Heaven and wrote the recently seen translation of The House of Bernarda Alba.
Also coming to the fringe is The Last Queen of Scotland, a first co-production for the NTS with Stellar Quines. Written and performed by Dundee-born theatre-maker Jaimini Jethwa and directed by Jemima Levick, it explores Jethwa’s family’s experiences of being expelled from Uganda by idi Amin in 1972. It will open in Dundee and play the fringe, in an as-yet-to-be announced venue.
Stellar Quines are also involved in the second part of The 306 – the collaboration between the playwright Oliver Emanuel and composer Gareth Williams about the 306 men shot for cowardice and desertion in WW1.
Levick will direct The 306: Day, a new piece of music theatre about staying silent and speaking out, fighting for peace and giving into violence. It will tell the forgotten story of three women in wartime and their struggle to survive in a world that won’t listen. A tour across Scotland in May opens in Perth with tour details still to be announced.
Last Tango in Partick
Four further world premieres are announced in the season. Cora Bissett will be directing Emma Donoghue’s adaptation of her own hit novel Room, in a co-production with Theatre Royal Stratford East and the Abbey Theatre Dublin, featuring music by Kathryn Joseph that will also tour to Dundee.
An original piece of 1934 Rocket Post. Image courtesy: Museum nan Eilean
Glasgow’s a Play A Pie and A Pint will be staging Gaelic language production, Last Tango in Partick/ An Tango mu dheireadh ann am Partaig. Written by Alison Laing and directed by Muireann Kelly, it is being staged in association with BBC Alba.
Lewis Hetherington, who co-wrote Beachy Head, is best known for his involvement in Secret Life of Suitcases and Cloud Man. His new play for a six-and-over audience, Rocket Post, is about an experiment into a postal rocket system in the Western Isles in 1934. It will premiere in Strornoway and tour the Highlands and Islands in September.
The NTS is currently moving into a new home, Rockvilla, in canal-side Glasgow. It will be staging a new participatory production, Sumbarine Time Machine, director Simon Sharkey. Using the story of a World War II midget submarine, it will local participants from Speirs Locks to Firhill Basin from April 2017.
Adam World Choir Call Out
Trans and non –binary singers of all experiences are still welcome to join The Adam World Choir. The deadline for joining is 1st February 2017. For any questions about The Adam World Choir, and to join, please contact the Choir Project Manager, Leonie, on leonie.gasson@nationaltheatrescotland.com.
ENDS
