Write Here, Right Now!
Festival of New Writing returns to Traverse this week
Traverse 50 writer: Tara McKevitt. Photo © Eoin Carey
By Thom Dibdin
Secret plays hidden in unlikely places and the return of lunchtime theatre are on the menu at the Traverse this week at the Write Here new writing festival.
Running from Tuesday through to Saturday 26 October, the 18 news plays in the festival also include rehearsed readings of new work from established playwrights and a triple bill of staged productions from members of the Traverse Fifty playwrights.
Following the tradition of a Play, Pie and a Pint, the lunchtime performances include a bottle of Innes & Gunn beer and a Stovie with each ticket. Each day there will be two different script-in-hand performances of new work from the Traverse Fifty playwrights.
Evening performances during the week will feature three different rehearsed readings from established Scottish playwrights. Morna Pearson’s Skin; or How to Disappear is a characteristically witty and macabre play from the Meyer-Whitworth Award-winning writer (Tuesday).
Stef Smith, Olivier Award-winning writer for her 2010 hit Roadkill, will have Swallow performed on Wednesday. Iain Finlay Macleod’s The Devil Master and his Children, the culmination of a year-long residency at the Institute for Advanced Studies of Humanities, will be performed on Thursday.
Friday and Saturday evenings are reserved for a triple bill of Traverse Fifty plays from Lachlan Philpott, Ellie Stewart and John McCann. Directed by artistic director Orla O’Loughlin, associate director Hamish Pirie and associate artist Zinnie Harris, they will include Kathryn Howden, Lesley Hart and John Bett in the casts.
From 2.30-6pm every day there will be site-specific Headset Plays in the theatre’s bar. Featuring pre-recorded five-minute plays, ticket holders will be given a headset and encouraged to find a comfortable spot to listen to as many or as few as they want.
There will also be Hidden Plays, all round the Traverse building. These can be found under tables, on the backs of bar menus, and even in the toilets.
On Saturday afternoon, some of Edinburgh’s theatre critics will talking about and answering questions on their craft and the future for theatre criticism in the internet age, in a panel session chaired by playwright Zinnie Harris. Critics include Mark Fisher of the Guardian, the Scotsman’s Joyce McMillan and Æ’s founder and the Stage’s Scotland correspondent, Thom Dibdin.
Alongside the Traverse Fifty playwriting scheme there has been a one-off collaboration with photography library Writer Pictures. For the project, each writer was paired with a photographer to produce a portrait of the playwright to mark the project and the Traverse’s 50th year. All 50 portraits will be shown together for the first time in the Traverse Bar during Write Here.
Listings
Daily Tuesday 22 – Saturday 26 October
◉ Headset Plays Free (ticketed). Details: www.traverse.co.uk
◉ Hidden Plays Free (unticketed). Details: www.traverse.co.uk
◉ Writer Pictures exhibition. Details: www.writer-pictures.blogspot.co.uk
Tuesday 22 October 2013:
◉ Lunchtime Double Bill 1.30pm. Details: www.traverse.co.uk
We Need to have that Conversation by Jack Dickson (Directed by Hamish Pirie)
The Kingdom of Me by Denise Keane (Directed by Hamish Pirie)
7.30pm:
◉ Skin; or How to Disappear by Morna Pearson. Details: www.traverse.co.uk
Wednesday 23 October 2013:
◉Lunchtime Double Bill 1.30pm. Details: www.traverse.co.uk
Fat Alice by Alison Carr (Directed by Zinnie Harris)
Assessment by Robert Dawson Scott (Directed by Zinnie Harris)
7.30pm:
◉ Swallow by Stef Smith. Details: www.traverse.co.uk
Thursday 24 October 2013:
◉ Lunchtime Double Bill 1.30pm. Details: www.traverse.co.uk
Mother Ease by Molly Innes (Directed by Orla O’Loughlin)
Blue Line by Sylvia Dow (Directed by Orla O’Loughlin)
7.30pm:
◉The Devil Master and his Children by Iain Finlay Macleod. Details: www.traverse.co.uk
Friday 25 October 2013:
◉ Lunchtime Double Bill 1.30pm. Details: www.traverse.co.uk
Joy by Frances Poet (Directed by Orla O’Loughlin)
Potterrow by Martin McCormick (Directed by Orla O’Loughlin)
◉7.30pm: Triple Bill performances. Details: www.traverse.co.uk
In 3D by Lachlan Philpott (Directed by Hamish Pirie)
Spoiling by John McCann (Directed by Orla O’Loughlin)
Strictly by Ellie Stewart (Directed by Zinnie Harris)
Saturday 26 October 2013:
◉ Lunchtime Double Bill 1.30pm. Details: www.traverse.co.uk
One Extraordinary Thing by Katy McAulay (Directed by Hamish Pirie)
Broth by Tim Primrose (Directed by Hamish Pirie)
◉ 3-4.30pm:
Critics panel. Details: www.traverse.co.uk
◉ 7.30pm: Triple Bill performances. Details: www.traverse.co.uk
In 3D by Lachlan Philpott (Directed by Hamish Pirie)
Spoiling by John McCann (Directed by Orla O’Loughlin)
Strictly by Ellie Stewart (Directed by Zinnie Harris)
ENDS
