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.

Click on the name of the show to go to its ticketing site.

September

Nests
Fri 7 – Sat 8 Sep 2018
Evenings: 8pm.
A frightened, starving boy and his only friend, a crow, encounter a man on the edge of society trying to forget his past. Their meeting begins a surreal journey where magical realism meets real-life media broadcast on life in present day UK.

A Play, A Pie and A Pint
Tue 11 Sept – Sat 20 Oct 2018
Tue – Sat: 1pm; Fri: 7pm.
A popular feature of the Traverse programme, A Play, A Pie and A Pint, Òran Mór returns with six new plays to light up your lunchtime. Ticket includes a pie and a drink.

PPP: Outside In
Tue 11- Sat 15 Sep 2018
Daily: 1pm; Fri: 7pm.
Jay hasn’t left his flat in years due to a fear of the outside world, exacerbated by an endless cycle of TV news. It’s not a problem though; online shopping and his mum are all he really needs anyway. But when a gun is inexplicably posted through his letterbox and two unwelcome visitors come knocking, Jay can’t hide any longer. The outside world is coming to him..

COMMON GROUND at the Traverse
Thursday 13 Sep 2018
Evening: 6pm.
We are delighted to be working with COMMON, an arts organisation which exists to support the UK theatre industry in achieving greater socio-economic diversity, and help working-class artists build sustainable careers in theatre, to deliver their COMMON GROUND initiative at the Traverse Theatre.

PPP: Tap Dancing with Jean-Paul Sartre
Tue 18 – Sat 22 Sep 2018
Daily: 1pm; Fri: 7pm.
Paris, spring 1956, where Fred Astaire, the world’s greatest dancer, Jean-Paul Sartre, the world’s most influential philosopher and Audrey Hepburn, the world’s most beautiful woman, meet in a musical comedy about existentialism, the meaning of life and tap dancing your way to happiness… It don’t mean a thing if it ain’t got that swing!

PPP: The Lottery Ticket
25 Sep 2018 – 29 Sep 2018
Daily: 1pm; Fri: 7pm.
Salih and Jacek are on a run of bad luck. Salih’s asylum claim has been turned down, Jacek hasn’t been able to send money to his wife in Krakow for two months, and they’ve just been ejected from their hostel for ‘rowdy behaviour’. But when a lottery ticket blows into Jacek’s coat as he sleeps, Salih is convinced their fortunes are about to change.

Manpower
Wed 26 – Thurs 27 Sep 2018
Evenings: 8pm.
Silent battles of power drive a politically complex commentary on Britain’s working men over the last 40 years, as a British man and an Eastern European woman share the stage. Sound-tracked on vinyl by the tunes of those years, it’s theatre for the hard-working modern Britain.

Scotties
Thurs 27 – Sat 29 Sep 2018
Evenings: 7.30pm.
A telegram from Ireland in 1937 inspires the untold story of ten young lads from Achill lost in a Scottish bothy fire. The effects reach across the sea, waking the soul of a young Glasgow boy today struggling to find his voice.

Doors Open Day tours
Sat 29 Sep 2018
As part of this year’s Doors Open Day, the Traverse will provide guided tours of our theatre building, offering a behind-the-scenes insight into the history and workings of Scotland’s new writing theatre.

October 2018

PPP: Tipping the Hat
Tue 2 – Sat 6 Oct 2018
Daily: 1pm; Fri: 7pm.
Presented in classic revue format, Tipping the Hat brings the satirical songs of Michael Flanders and Donald Swann, a stage duo of the 50s and 60s, to a contemporary audience. Two men and a piano invite you to enjoy some silliness, be touched by elegant sadness, savour humanity and revel in delicious wit.

Workshop: Playing with Big Questions
Sat 6 Oct 2018
Afternoon: 3pm.
Connected to Traverse commission Arctic Oil, this workshop offers the opportunity to work with playwright Clare Duffy to explore writing about the being and politics of Environment.

Arctic Oil
Sat 6 – Sat 20 Oct 2018
Tue – Sat: 7.30pm; Matinees Thurs 11, Sat 20: 3pm.
A mother and daughter battle to save their children. While Ella fights for her son’s future, Margret is terrified that Ella’s activism will her get killed. Not all mothers know best. Arctic Oil gets under the skin of what climate change could make us do to the people we love.

PPP: It Wisnae Me
Tue 9 – Sat 13 Oct 2018
Daily: 1pm; Fri: 7pm.
A police interview room. A table. Jock has been huckled for a crime he says he didn’t commit: imperialism. He has been spotted at the scene, but is it what it looks like? Or is Jock, despite what he claims, a racist himself? It Wisnae Me is a political satire posing the question of Scotland’s complicity in colonisation.

The Macbeths
Tue 16 Oct 2018 – Sat 20 Oct 2018
Evenings (not Fri): 8pm.
At the heart of Shakespeare’s darkest play is a disintegrating marriage. This new adaptation using a radically cut version of the text focuses on the relationship between one of the most famous killers in literature and his ambitious wife.

PPP: The Last Picture Show
Tue 16 – Sat 20 Oct 2018
Daily: 1pm; Fri: 7pm.
Before the war, Billy was a budding musician, playing along to silent movies in the picture houses of Glasgow. December 1918, he returns blinded, scarred and stuck in a small town with no job prospects. Between the last few months of WW1 and the immediate aftermath, a strange encounter brings Billy the hope that he may not have played his last picture show.

The Unreturning
Wed 24 – Sat 27 Oct 2018
Evenings: 7.30pm.
A British Northern Coastal town. Three young men are coming home from war. Their stories, set at different times over the last 100 years, are beautifully interwoven in this compelling new play by Anna Jordan (Yen, Royal Court Theatre, Bruntwood Prize for Playwriting 2013).

First Look Readings
Thurs 25 – Sat 27 Oct 2018
Evenings: 7pm.
Three Traverse commissioned plays see an audience for the very first time, performed script-in-hand by professional actors. Thurs: Some of us are Brave by Adura Onashile; Fri: Thole by Owen Whitelaw; Sat: Enough by Staff Smith.

Scratch That!
Tue 30 Oct 2018
Evening: 7.30pm.
Come and join Imaginate for Scratch That!, an evening of new ideas for work for young audiences, presented in partnership with the Traverse.

November 2018

Stuff
Tue 6 – Wed 7 Nov 2018
Evenings: 8pm.
Today the Council is coming to clear Magda’s house. She must find a way to deal with the constant shifting of stuff in her house and her head, as she revisits the past and struggles with the present to find a way to face the future.

The Last Witch
Wed 7 – Sat 10 Nov 2018
Evenings: 7.30pm; Matinee Sat: 2.30pm.
A rich, poetic tale full of ambiguity and suspense, The Last Witch reimagines the true story of the alleged Witch of Dornoch. Did Janet Horne actually practise witchcraft? Or was she really a free-thinking woman, ahead of her time?

Chrysalis festival
Thurs 15 – Sat 17 Nov 2018
Join us at the Chrysalis festival for three days of bold and engaging work by young companies, including theatre productions, workshops and pop-up events.

Chrysalis: There is a Globe Stuck in my Throat
Thurs 15 – Sat 17 Nov 2018
Thurs 7pm; Fri 10am; Sat 8.15pm.
Complacent wealth versus abject poverty. Thousands of displaced refugees flee from war and hunger while Europe strives to put up barriers, both real and virtual. Part of Chrysalis festival 2018.

Chrysalis: Noise
Thurs 15 – Sat 17 Nov 2018
Thurs 8.15pm; Fri 11.30am; Sat 7pm.
Noise is a sonic explosion, merging theatre and gig. As the city gets louder there seems to be no getting away from the relentless noise nor the constant stream of information. Part of Chrysalis festival 2018.

Chrysalis: 147Hz Can’t Pass
Fri 16 – Sat 17 Nov 2018
Fri 8.15pm; Sat: 3.30pm.
In life you face options. Some communities choose to turn away, others offer their hand… Using movement, poetry and projection 147Hz Can’t Pass is a celebration of queer experience, an honest, unapologetic and relatable introduction to a trans non-binary experience in 2018. Part of Chrysalis festival 2018.

Chrysalis: Shaking the Habitual
Fri 16 – Sat 17 Nov 2018
Fri: 7pm, Sat: 6pm.
A powerful and stylish production, from one of Scotland’s most exciting young companies, Shaking The Habitual asks questions of the ways in which we conform to the world around us. Part of Chrysalis festival 2018.

Chrysalis: Emergence
Sat 17 Nov 2018
Afternoon: 2pm.
Join three young companies as they present brand new works in development for the first time. Part of Chrysalis festival 2018.

Class Act 2018
Wed 21 – Thurs 22 Nov 2018
Evenings: 7.30pm.
Class Act is the Traverse’s flagship education project. Now in its 27th year, Class Act challenges senior pupils from schools across Edinburgh to become playwrights, creating brand new scripts which are premiered on the Traverse stage.

Schooled
Fri 23 – Sat 24 Nov 2018
Evenings: 7.30pm.
A daring verbatim work in progress using individual experiences of pupils and teachers, past and present, to shine a spotlight on Scotland’s education system, while exploring possible alternative options.

Black Beauty
Thurs 29 – Fri 30 Nov 2018
Evenings: 7pm.
From the cosy horsebox they call home, Andy and Andy take the bit firmly between their teeth and tell the classic tale of Black Beauty as you’ve never seen it before. Created by Andy Manley, Andy Cannon and Shona Reppe.

December 2018

Mouthpiece
Sat 1 – Sat 22 Dec 2018
Tue – Sat: 8pm; Matinees: Thurs 13 & 20, Sat 15 & 22: 2.30pm.
Salisbury Crags. Twilight. A woman takes a step forward into the air. A teenage boy pulls her back. Two lives are changed forever. Often startling, sometimes shocking and threaded with unexpected humour, Mouthpiece takes a frank and unflinching look at the different Edinburghs which often exist in ignorance of one another, and examines whether it’s possible to tell someone else’s story without exploiting them along the way.

McGonagall’s Chronicles (Which Will Be Remembered For A Very Long Time)
Wed 5 – Sat 15 Dec 2018
Tue – Sat (not Thurs 13): 2pm; Evenings: Fri 7/Sat 8: 7.30pm.
A biography of the late Dundonian poet Sir William Topaz McGonagall, written in ‘almost rhyming verse’ – the only way to honour the man who has come to be known as the world’s worst poet. Performed by Gary McNair.

Workshop: Writing and Re-writing (And Re-writing Again)
Sat 8 Dec 2018
Join playwright Kieran Hurley, writer of Traverse commission Mouthpiece, in a workshop focussed on the art of getting your work on the page, and then reworking it again, and then… again.

The Gospel According to Jesus, Queen of Heaven
Thurs 13 – Sat 22 Dec 2018
Evenings: Wed – Sat: 7.30pm; Matinee Sun 16: 3pm.
Jesus has returned to earth as a trans woman and she has a lot to say. Stories to tell. Bread and wine to share. Blessings to give… Now almost ten years on from her controversial premiere, Jo Clifford and company bring their production to the Traverse for the first time.

ENDS