Curtains Up: 2016 in Scottish Theatre
We pick out some of the expected highlights in Scotland's theatres in the first half of the new year
With a new year comes a new crop of theatre lined up for the year ahead, or at least for the next five months. January is always a little quieter for theatre as the pantos wind down, but the Traverse Theatre kick things off at the end of the month with Manipulate festival, which you can read more about here. Also in January, The Lyceum are in the midst of their 50th birthday season, opening their 2016 programme with The Weir, directed by Amanda Gaughan.
In February, the Citizens Theatre are producing the classic Beckett work Endgame, with the leads taken by David Neilson and Chris Gascoyne, both of Coronation Street and both regulars to the stage. Meanwhile, the National Theatre of Scotland are bringing back their critically acclaimed James Plays. The trilogy jumps from Edinburgh to Australia before returning for a UK tour in March and April. With this their tenth birthday year, the company are celebrating past-loved plays as well as embarking on exciting new work.
The Tron theatre company are producing Mike Bartlett’s Cock, with its first UK staging since its Royal Court premiere six years ago. This play exploring sexuality is certainly one for the modern age, and Andy Arnold’s direction is sure to bring this to the forefront, raising interesting questions about what is really important in relationships.
Mark Thomas' Trespass will be touring to Dundee Rep in early March after dates in Stirling and Falkirk, hitting the Tron in Glasgow in April. The Mark Brew Company will be taking For Now I Am… to the Traverse, a solo piece that engaging directly with Brew's body as it is now, exploring what it is to be broken, reborn, purified, and to reconcile being in the world in an entirely new way. The play moves to Aberdeen in April.
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Elsewhere, poet Simon Armitage, Told by an Idiot, National Theatre of Scotland and the Lyceum are working together on new music play I Am Thomas. With such great names behind the production as well as the rise of so-called ‘gig plays,’ innumerable at last year’s Edinburgh Fringe, this is an exciting production to watch out for. While the comedy festival takes over much of Glasgow in March, the Citizens ends the month with the Royal Shakespeare Company and A Midsummer Night’s Dream: A Play For The Nation, with local amateur actors joining the RSC professionals on stage.
In April Scottish Ballet are bringing Swan Lake to the Theatre Royal, Glasgow before touring Scotland and Newcastle in the following month. Right Now, written by award-winning Quebecois playwright Catherine-Anne Toupin and directed by former RSC Artistic Director Sir Michael Boyd comes to the Traverse in April, while over in Glasgow Zinnie Harris adapts Greek tragedy The Oresteia for the Citizens, under the guise of The Restless House. Mark Thomson directs his final piece as artistic director for the Lyceum with Chris Hanan’s The Iliad (making this a good month for fans of Greek tragedy) while the classic Of Mice and Men comes to the Kings Theatre, Edinburgh.
May brings the first part of new NTS trilogy The 306: Dawn, which tells the story of the three hundred and six British soldiers who were executed for cowardice, desertion and mutiny during World War I. Summing up their motto as a theatre without walls, this piece will be performed in a transformed barn in the Perthshire countryside. Thon Man Molière closes the Lyceum’s 50th birthday programme, while the stage version of Breakfast at Tiffany’s comes to the Theatre Royal.
If all of this isn’t enough to get you through until the summer announcements, head over to the website for more detailed listings as and when they come in. From puppetry to ballet to Shakespeare to barns, there’s something to be found for any and every theatre fan.