Traverse Listings
Upcoming shows at Edinburgh’s New Writing Theatre
Traverse
10 Cambridge Street, EH1 2ED. Phone booking: 0131 228 1404
Website: www.traverse.co.uk.
The Traverse. Pic: Mihaela Bodlovic
All live performances at the Traverse have now been cancelled as a result of Covid-19. If you have booked for a cancelled performances, you should have received an email with your refund options.
The Traverse is putting all its efforts its online space Traverse 3.
January 2021
In Someone Else’s Shoes: Edinburgh’s Unexpected Summer
Available now (20 mins, free)
See review: ★★★★☆ Poignant
Transports you into the heart of another person’s life through immersive 360 degree video. Using your smartphone, tablet or desktop computer you will step into someone else’s shoes and explore Edinburgh’s many iterations, with all the surprises they contain. Book here.
Until The Flood
Available now (62 mins, free).
Pulitzer Prize finalist Dael Orlandersmith (Yellowman) performs her poetic and revelatory play Until the Flood, recorded live on stage. Missouri, 2014. Michael Brown, a black teenager, is shot and killed by Darren Wilson, a white police officer. Book here.
A community response to race: Making Until The Flood with Dael Orlandersmith
Available now (14 mins, free).
Dael discusses the journey of creating the play, the parallels between the America of 2014 – when the events of Until the Flood took place – and 2020, and reflects on how communities can respond to injustice through creativity. Book here.
The stories we tell about black lives
Available now (13 mins, free).
In this wide-ranging video essay, academic, playwright and screenwriter, May Sumbwanyambe uses his personal experiences to explore the concerning portrayal of Black people in the media. Book here.
In Dreams I
Available now (10 mins, free).
By Natasha Thembiso Ruwona
Natasha’s Happening is the first film from her in dreams i; series. The film responds to Black geographies and how Black people fit into spaces – physically or metaphorically. It is a mediation on history, identity and memory, and how these can often be blurred into one. Book here.
A Gambler’s Guide to Dying
Available until Wed 27 Jan (1 hr, pay what you can)
By Gary McNair
This is the story of one boy’s granddad who won a fortune betting on the 1966 football World Cup and, when diagnosed with cancer, gambled it all on living to see the year 2000. Book here.
Shielders
Available until Sun 31 Jan (25 mins, pay what you can)
By Matilda Ibini
See review: Traverse Festival (2)
Shahbaz, Zira and Trice have been in lockdown in Glasgow for months, spending their days on the phone to each other whilst searching the skies for sightings from another planet. Now, though the world is opening up, Shahbaz must stay in his shielding bubble. Book here.
Doomsdays
Available until Sun 31 Jan (45 mins, pay what you can)
By Conor O’Loughlin
See review: Traverse Festival (2)
21st December 2012, the day the world was meant to end. The day a cult leader’s apocalyptic predictions failed. Faye and Felix devoted themselves to a doomsday that didn’t come and now, having seen the world get continually worse over the past nine years, they’re confronting their former leader with their findings. Book here.
Matterhorn
Available until Sun 31 Jan (40 mins, pay what you can)
By Amy Rhianne Milton
See review: Traverse Festival (2)
A cathedral at the edge of time, at the end of the world. A few hundred cling to life within its thick, safe walls. Humanity’s final outpost. The cathedral bells ring out in the hopes of finding more lost souls to bring to sanctuary but is there anyone actually left to save? Book here.
The Watercooler
Available until Sun 31 Jan (30 mins, pay what you can)
By Uma Nada-Rajah
See review: Traverse Festival (2)
Two co-workers meet in the staff room of a non-descript corporate office. As one colleague struggles with current events across the Atlantic hitting home, the other is tasked with assessing her mental fitness. Nada-Rajah addresses racism with a searing streak of surrealism. Book here.
Rabbit Catcher
Available until Sun 31 Jan (30 mins, pay what you can)
By Rebecca Martin
See review: Traverse Breakfast Plays (1)
Dead in the woods, Ren of Ord clears her windpipe of soil, earth and rot. Sworn to enact vengeance, she rises to protect her land and her sisterhood from the fate that befell her that day upon the hill. A lyrical, mythical lore set within the dark, dense woods of Ord Hill, Inverness. Book here.
Contemporary Political Ethics (or, how to cheat)
Available until Sun 31 Jan (30 mins, pay what you can)
By Jamie Cowan
See review: Traverse Breakfast Plays (1)
A failed politician and carer are showing Kev, a young lad on academic probation, the in’s and out’s of running a polling station. The splendour of democracy in action! Except no one’s coming to vote, so there isn’t much in the way of action, that is, until they discover a forgotten ballot on the floor. Book here.
April 2021
The Journey
Live stream Tue 13 – Sun 18 April 2021.
Two shows daily: 6pm & 8pm.
Running time: 1hour (Tickets £25)
By Scott Silven
Following a sell-out run in 2020, renowned theatremaker and illusionist Scott Silven returns and invites you to experience an interactive, immersive, live production, unlike anything audiences have experienced before. Book here.
ENDS
