[traversetheatre]

10 Questions with Matthew Seager

Matthew Seager is a writer, performer and Artistic Director of Off the Middle theatre company. 

This week we caught up with Matthew who wrote and stars in In Other Words, a humorous and moving story exploring the effect of Alzheimer’s disease and the transformative power of music.

Interested in exploring new and exciting ways to tell important stories, Off the Middle was founded by Matthew Seager, Stephanie Withers and Euan Tyre. Having met at the University of Leeds, the trio quickly discovered their shared passion for making theatre, and have been making work together ever since.

Angela Hardie and Matthew Seager. Image: Rah Petherbridge. 1. What was your inspiration for writing In Other Words?

In my last year at the University of Leeds, I worked in a Dementia care home facilitating sensory stimulation workshops. We would play music at the end of each session that we thought might connect to a time in the teenage or young adult lives of the residents. What I witnessed had a profound impact on me. Many of the residents who seemed to be completely cognitively unaware, would stand and sing every word to, for example, a Frank Sinatra song they recognised. Subsequently, they would often be able to articulate, with genuine clarity, relevant memories and moments from their life.

Whilst at drama school at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland I shared a work in progress at The Arches, which was the first time the ideas had been presented to an audience.

2. What three words would you use to sum up the play? Music. Love. Hardship.

3. How do you want audiences to feel having watched the show?

Ultimately this is a love story. We hope, first and foremost, the audience can connect with these characters and these feelings. We want them to enjoy it. This show is about the power of music and we want that to come across. We’re aware we tackle a serious topic, but there are also laughs and dancing and lots of Frank Sinatra.

We do feel pressure to be truthful to a topic that affects so many, so we really hope that audiences will recognise this and engage with the material. We’d like them to leave hopeful.

Angela Hardie and Matthew Seager. Image: Rah Petherbridge. 4. Do you have a favourite line or moment in the play? ‘So effectively, before we’re even born, we’re learning to sing with another person. Isn’t that amazing? And he still sounded that bad!’

5. Can you tell us about your writing environment? I love writing in coffee shops because I can watch people without feeling like I’m being watched. It’s also not silent but not too noisy. I like the background noise.

6. If you could spend a day with a day with the characters from In Other Words what would you do together? Go to a gig. Not sure what but definitely some live music. Frank Sinatra features a lot, so does Bobby Darin. If I can do at the time the play is set then I would go and see those guys. Do some dancing.

Angela Hardie and Matthew Seager. Image: Rah Petherbridge. 7. Can you tell us about the first play you wrote?    It’s this one! Well, I think I wrote something at school about a Grandma who fights crime, but I’m not sure I’ll count that.

8. Going on from that, what advice would you give to your younger playwriting self? Just get it down and see how it goes. Show it to people you trust and definitely don’t be afraid to be bad.

9. What has been your most memorable theatre experience – either as a member of the audience or as part of the creative team? That’s tough as I think it changes a lot and is always a fairly recent one. My favourite play of the last couple of years I think was Yerma at the Young Vic.

10. Are there any websites, books or other resources that you find particularly useful as a playwright? I’ve been listening to the Royal Court Playwright’s Podcast a lot recently. It’s really interesting hearing about writers’ processes and basically reassuring to hear there is no hard and fast right way of doing things!

In Other Words Fri 1 - Sat 2 March BOOK NOW

Angela Hardie. Image: Rah Petherbridge.

[traversetheatre]

Playwright Nick Makoha on The Dark

Production image, The Dark. Image: Helen Murray.

The Dark belongs to the same world as my award-winning poetry collection Kingdom of Gravity. They both look at Idi Amin’s regime in Uganda from 1971 to 1979. The poetry collection takes a broader lens to encompass the people of Uganda. And only mentions my mother in the poem Stone (see below). Whereas The Dark looks at my personal story. I focus on the day my mother smuggled the two of us out of the country when the regime was at its worst. I wrote the story to honour my mother and the risk she took to give me a better life. I also wanted to put a face to the polarising words of refugee and immigrant. 

The story looks at how I moved from being a boy in Africa to "The Other” in the UK. It was important to find a team that could help me realise the story. Ovalhouse gave me some seed money to do a 10-minute scratch. Fuel Theatre and Roy Alexander Weise came on board and things went into hyper gear. Two Christmas’ ago I wrote them a rough draft which we all read at their offices. I am not sure if it was Roy or myself who said: “Wouldn’t be great to trace the journey the matatu (mini Bus) took in Uganda”. Cut to next autumn and Roy and I are in Uganda. This really helped bring the world to life. 

Production image, The Dark. Image: Helen Murray.

Stone by Nick Makoha

The best thing I did was

     move my body from one side of the world

to the other. This required a visa,

    which required a bribe.

The bribe, placed in the palm

     of a man with a gun,

took my mother’s monthly wage packet.

    The man with a gun

let you speak to a clerk.

    He too wanted a wage

because it would be his job

     to have words with a judge

for another month’s salary.

    The official wanted his bribe

so listened to the clerk

   escorted by the soldier as he held his gun.

As I sat with my mother

     at the steps of the court,

drinking soda, waiting

     for one man to say yes, my mother said,

“In Uganda, a bribe stops men

  doing nothing. It rolls away the stone.”

Her sips were slower than mine,

 each separated by this prayer.

The Dark Tue 12 – Wed 13 Feb, 8pm BOOK NOW

Rehearsal photo, The Dark. Image: Helen Murray.

Creative Team Fuel Roy Alexander Weise - Director Rajha Shakiry - Designer Neill Brinkworth - Lighting Designer Duramaney Kamara - Sound Designer

[traversetheatre]

10 Questions with Jo Clifford

Jo Clifford a renowned Scottish playwright who in the late 1980s gained acclaim for her plays Losing Venice, Lucy’s Play, Playing with Fire, Ines de Castro and Light in the Village. In 2012, she became the first openly trans playwright to have a play running in London’s West End with her adaptation of Great Expectations. 

Jo has written over 70 scripts. Here, she shares more about one of them in particular - The Gospel According to Jesus, Queen of Heaven. 

Jo Clifford in The Gospel According to Jesus, Queen of Heaven. Image: Rod Penn.

1. What was your inspiration for creating The Gospel According to Jesus, Queen of Heaven?

Hatred.  About 6 years before I’d written a play called God’s New Frock in which I was trying to understand why I hated myself. I thought it might have something to do with the Old Testament.  By the time I was writing this play I’d begun living as a woman and getting a lot of abuse on the street. People laughing at me to my face, saying insulting things about me, threatening me with violence. I wanted to understand so I could deal with it better.

God’s New Frock had been a big hit in Italy, and I told the Company I’d write them a sequel based on the New Testament if they found me a free flat in Florence for a fortnight. And they did.

2. Can you tell us a bit about your writing environment?

For this play, it was a flat in the centre of Florence. I’d write in the morning, have lunch in a restaurant by the market, a little siesta, and then explore Florence in the afternoon… I felt what I was writing was very foolish. But the amazing beauty of my surroundings somehow gave me strength…

Jo Clifford in The Gospel According to Jesus, Queen of Heaven. Image: Arvind Mistry.

3. Do you have a favourite line or moment in the play? It changes. Right now it’s the line ‘We all have a light inside us, and sometimes it’s the thing we’ve been taught to be most ashamed of’.

I was so desperately ashamed of being Trans for so many years, and now I understand what a huge and precious gift it is…

4. How do you want audiences to feel having watched the show?

I want them to have had pleasure. To have been moved. To feel solidarity with their fellow human beings. To sense that they love and are loved. To be empowered to imagine a different world.

Jo Clifford in Eve - National Theatre of Scotland and Traverse Festival 2017. Image: David Monteith-Hodge.

5. What has been your most memorable theatre experience – either as a member of the audience or as part of the creative team? Arriving on the first night of the Gospel… and seeing the street outside the theatre brim-full of protesters. There was a Virgin Mary there, and people carrying placards with things like ‘God Says: My Son is Not a Pervert.’ I loved acting when I was young. I also loved the women’s parts I was given to play. But I became afraid. I thought: ‘If I keep acting people will know I love being a girl and then they will hate me and my life won’t be worth living.’ From that moment on, theatre became blocked for me for many years. And it’s only now, when I’m in my late sixties, that I’ve understood I could have been an actor all along… Anyway, there I was at the first night of this play, looking at a street full of people who knew I was Trans and who hated me. My adolescent nightmare had come true. In the post-show celebration in the bar, someone had picked up that placard and I stood beside it. And I knew that hatred would not destroy me.

6. What’s been the most useful piece of writing advice you’ve been given?

When I was young I found it very hard to tell anyone I was going to be a writer, never mind ask advice. I was very embarrassed and ashamed. So I went my own way.  But I remember an interview I read with the composer Hans Werner Henze when he said: ‘I want to write love songs to the future. Not songs of personal complaint.’ Fifty years later, these words still live in me.

Jo Clifford in Eve - National Theatre of Scotland and Traverse Festival 2017. Image: David Monteith-Hodge.   

7. Why is the story of The Gospel According to Jesus, Queen of Heaven important? There is a part of ourselves we don’t understand. We can’t even describe it, I think. You could say it belongs to the spiritual dimension of our lives. I believe it’s there in everybody and that we need to acknowledge and to honour it. If we don’t, we suffer. Generally, our materialist society does not acknowledge this in us. And that’s one reason why people suffer so terribly. I think of my plays as acts of resistance. And because this play, perhaps more than the others, belongs to this spiritual dimension, its resistance matters. 8. Can you tell us about the first play you ever wrote?

It was a play called ‘How like an Angel’. When I was training to be a nurse, I worked in a mental hospital in Fife called Stratheden. It was a locked ward, and one of the patients was a young man who strongly identified as an angel. He was given ECT. That’s when an electric current is passed between someone’s temples and they have a fit. It was my job to hold him down as he went into the convulsions. Bit by bit, his sense of the angelic dimension to his life weakened until his life became safe and dull and grey. He was ‘better’. I wanted to tell his story.

Jo Clifford in The Gospel According to Jesus, Queen of Heaven. Image: Rod Penn. 

9. Going on from that, what advice would you give to your younger playwriting self? Trust yourself. You’re good.

10. Finally, describe The Gospel According to Jesus, Queen of Heaven in three words.

Faith. Hope. Love.

The Gospel According to Jesus, Queen of Heaven  Thu 13 - Sat 22 Dec BOOK NOW

[traversetheatre]

10 Questions with Jo Clifford

Jo Clifford a renowned Scottish playwright who in the late 1980s gained acclaim for her plays Losing Venice, Lucy’s Play, Playing with Fire, Ines de Castro and Light in the Village. In 2012, she became the first openly trans playwright to have a play running in London’s West End with her adaptation of Great Expectations. 

Jo has written over 70 scripts. Here, she shares more about one of her plays in particular - The Gospel According to Jesus, Queen of Heaven. 

Jo Clifford in The Gospel According to Jesus, Queen of Heaven. Image: Rod Penn.

1. What was your inspiration for creating The Gospel According to Jesus, Queen of Heaven?

Hatred.  About 6 years before I’d written a play called God’s New Frock in which I was trying to understand why I hated myself. I thought it might have something to do with the Old Testament.  By the time I was writing this play I’d begun living as a woman and getting a lot of abuse on the street. People laughing at me to my face, saying insulting things about me, threatening me with violence. I wanted to understand so I could deal with it better.

God’s New Frock had been a big hit in Italy, and I told the Company I’d write them a sequel based on the New Testament if they found me a free flat in Florence for a fortnight. And they did.

2. Can you tell us a bit about your writing environment?

For this play, it was a flat in the centre of Florence. I’d write in the morning, have lunch in a restaurant by the market, a little siesta, and then explore Florence in the afternoon… I felt what I was writing was very foolish. But the amazing beauty of my surroundings somehow gave me strength…

Jo Clifford in The Gospel According to Jesus, Queen of Heaven. Image: Arvind Mistry.

3. Do you have a favourite line or moment in the play?

It changes. Right now it’s the line ‘We all have a light inside us, and sometimes it’s the thing we’ve been taught to be most ashamed of’.

I was so desperately ashamed of being Trans for so many years, and now I understand what a huge and precious gift it is…

4. How do you want audiences to feel having watched the show?

I want them to have had pleasure. To have been moved. To feel solidarity with their fellow human beings. To sense that they love and are loved. To be empowered to imagine a different world.

Jo Clifford in Eve - National Theatre of Scotland and Traverse Festival 2017. Image: David Monteith-Hodge.

5. What has been your most memorable theatre experience – either as a member of the audience or as part of the creative team?

Arriving on the first night of the Gospel… and seeing the street outside the theatre brim-full of protesters. There was a Virgin Mary there, and people carrying placards with things like ‘God Says: My Son is Not a Pervert.’ I loved acting when I was young. I also loved the women’s parts I was given to play. But I became afraid. I thought: ‘If I keep acting people will know I love being a girl and then they will hate me and my life won’t be worth living.’ From that moment on, theatre became blocked for me for many years. And it’s only now, when I’m in my late sixties, that I’ve understood I could have been an actor all along… Anyway, there I was at the first night of this play, looking at a street full of people who knew I was Trans and who hated me. My adolescent nightmare had come true. In the post-show celebration in the bar, someone had picked up that placard and I stood beside it. And I knew that hatred would not destroy me.

6. What’s been the most useful piece of writing advice you’ve been given?

When I was young I found it very hard to tell anyone I was going to be a writer, never mind ask advice. I was very embarrassed and ashamed. So I went my own way.  But I remember an interview I read with the composer Hans Werner Henze when he said: ‘I want to write love songs to the future. Not songs of personal complaint.’ Fifty years later, these words still live in me.

Jo Clifford in Eve - National Theatre of Scotland and Traverse Festival 2017. Image: David Monteith-Hodge. 

7. Why is the story of The Gospel According to Jesus, Queen of Heaven important? There is a part of ourselves we don’t understand. We can’t even describe it, I think. You could say it belongs to the spiritual dimension of our lives. I believe it’s there in everybody and that we need to acknowledge and to honour it. If we don’t, we suffer. Generally, our materialist society does not acknowledge this in us. And that’s one reason why people suffer so terribly. I think of my plays as acts of resistance. And because this play, perhaps more than the others, belongs to this spiritual dimension, its resistance matters.

8. Can you tell us about the first play you ever wrote?

It was a play called ‘How like an Angel’. When I was training to be a nurse, I worked in a mental hospital in Fife called Stratheden. It was a locked ward, and one of the patients was a young man who strongly identified as an angel. He was given ECT. That’s when an electric current is passed between someone’s temples and they have a fit. It was my job to hold him down as he went into the convulsions. Bit by bit, his sense of the angelic dimension to his life weakened until his life became safe and dull and grey. He was ‘better’. I wanted to tell his story.

Jo Clifford in The Gospel According to Jesus, Queen of Heaven. Image: Rod Penn. 

9. Going on from that, what advice would you give to your younger playwriting self?

Trust yourself. You’re good.

10. Finally, describe The Gospel According to Jesus, Queen of Heaven in three words.

Faith. Hope. Love.

The Gospel According to Jesus, Queen of Heaven  Thu 13 - Sat 22 Dec BOOK NOW

[traversetheatre]

Mouthpiece by Kieran Hurley | Production Photos

Startling, 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. 

Images Roberto Ricciuti 

Cast Lorn Macdonald & Neve McIntosh | Director Orla O'Loughlin | Designer, Lighting Designer Kai Fischer | Composer & Sound Designer Kim Moore | Costume Designer Sophie Ferguson | Engagement Associate Heather Marshall (Supported by the Federation of Scottish Theatre with funding from Creative Scotland)

Wed 5 - Sat 22 Dec | www.traverse.co.uk/whats-on/event-detail/1462/mouthpiece.aspx

[traversetheatre]

10 Questions with playwright, Anna Jordan

[4 minute read]

Born in west London to actor parents, Anna Jordan trained as an actor at Lamda but later turned her attention to writing and directing. In 2013 she won the Bruntwood Prize for Playwriting for Yen.

In September, two new plays written by Anna premiered: Pop Music (Paines Plough) and The Unreturning for Frantic Assembly. Here she tells us a bit more about The Unreturning.

Anna Jordan. Photo: Thomas Scurr

1. What was your inspiration for creating The Unreturning? The provocation Frantic Assembly gave me, which was the words “What do we come home to?” They wanted to commission a piece which explores the act of coming home after a transformative experience, and that really appealed to me. I was also inspired by Frantic’s previous work and their distinctive style and wrote very much with them in mind.

2. Can you tell us a bit about your writing environment? I have desk in a creative shared studio in Hackney called the Heart Space, and I have my own little area that I’ve made my own. It’s not completely silent but it’s a lovely vibe and there are some great people there. I don’t like writing at home and I try to keep work life and home life as separate as I can but sometimes it’s inevitable that the two mix – and when deadlines approach, I like to take to my bed to write like I’m in some Victorian novel. I also like writing in theatres foyers and cafes, there’s a spot in the National Theatre that looks out over the whole of London but I’m not telling where it is because I don’t want to share it. 

The Unreturning. Image: Tristram Kenton

3. Do you have a favourite line or moment in the play? I do but it would be a bit of a spoiler! I really like it when the characters come together and their text flows and weaves in and out and we really get a sense of flashing between different decades in a heartbeat. The lads do it brilliantly and it’s wonderfully directed and choreographed. 

4. How do you want audiences to feel having watched the show? All I ever want is to make an audience think about the stories and characters that I’ve written. Perhaps think about things in a new light, have their mind changed about something.  It’s a cliché but I would rather ask questions than answer them – and I am very wary of the idea of trying to “send a message” with my work. Ah – but you asked me about feelings, didn’t you? Umm… exhilarated, empathetic… exhausted!

5. What has been your most memorable theatre experience – either as a member of the audience or as part of the creative team? This is quite a funny one. I met my partner David on OK Cupid and for some ridiculous reason, I suggested the theatre for our first date. We went to see And No More Shall We Part by Tom Holloway at Hampstead Theatre – which is simply the most beautiful and devastating play about a terminally ill woman who wants to end her own life, and the last night her and her husband spend together. I had no idea how sad it was going to be. I was just free sobbing at the end – a mess of tears and snot – as were most of the audience. (Plus I think we were sitting in the front). David reached over and held my hand – bit cheeky really, we’d only known each other an hour -  but I was in pieces. Afterwards we went to the Swiss Cottage pub and got drunk and we’ve been together ever since. 

The Unreturning. Image: Tristram Kenton 

6. What’s been the most useful piece of writing advice you’ve been given? On the BBC Writer’s Room website it has a quote by Paul Abbot: “Writing is rewriting”. I know this is brilliant advice because I ignored it for the first couple of years of my writing journey and paid the price.

7. Why is the story of The Unreturning important?

I think it’s important to examine the past to stop us making the same mistakes in the future. 

8. Can you tell us about the first play you ever wrote? Yes, it was about two people who meet on the roof of a tower block with the intention of throwing themselves off and the bond that they build. It was more fun than it sounds. I wrote it freehand on my train journeys to and from a show I was doing as an actor at the time, which was actually performed in a tower block – I was inspired by that.

The Unreturning. Image: Tristram Kenton   

9. Going on from that, what advice would you give to your younger playwriting self? I can’t help feeling that I’ve got incredibly lucky – I worked my arse off for seven years supporting myself doing other jobs. Then the Bruntwood Prize happened and that changed everything. I don’t think I’d change anything. So just keep going, I guess. Keep the faith.

10. Finally, describe The Unreturning in three words. Well, I would be happy if it was described as fast-paced, poetic and powerful, l but then I do love me a bit of alliteration.

The Unreturning Wed 24 – Sat 27 Oct, 7.30pm  BOOK NOW 

Production images: Tristram Kenton

[traversetheatre]

The Last Witch by Rona Munro - rehearsal photos Pitlochry Festival Theatre in association with Firebrand Theatre Company

[traversetheatre]

A Riot of Reclamation by Ink Asher Hemp

[6-minute read]

Emerging theatre maker, Ink Asher Hemp developed 147Hz Can’t Pass as part of the Scottish Youth Theatre Making Space programme. They are an emerging theatremaker and poet based in Edinburgh who uses theatre as a medium to empower people to take charge of their future.

Using movement, poetry and projection 147Hz Can’t Pass is a celebration of queer experience. Ahead of performing at Chrysalis festival, Ink shares their process of creating the piece.

147Hz Can’t Pass is a celebration of queer experience and an introduction through a person not a definition to trans non-binary gender identity. A calculated mess of movement, energy, spoken word and slam style poetry. It started life as a seven-minute declaration shared at a scratch night in August 2017.

What was to follow was ten months of playing. Of trying and failing. Of seeking opinions, refining and trying again. I was lucky enough to be asked to pilot Scottish Youth Theatre’s Making Space scheme which offers rehearsal space to emerging theatre-makers and this, along with a series of other sharings, formed the skeleton of the development process. Each performance I stand on stage alone, however, to get there I consulted close to 200 people. Theatre people and people who’ve never stepped into a theatre before. People who have never knowingly engaged with the trans community and people for whom this community is home. I am grateful to everyone who fed into the process however it was the thoughts and ideas of the trans community that overall shaped the piece that was made.

I’m not gonna claim to tell the story of every trans-non-binary person out there cos I don’t… that would be impossible and to deny the intricacies of our existence. But I wish to be clear that the piece is not autobiographical… I wanted to tell a story that was wider than my narrow experience of orbiting the sun.

I also wanted to tell a story wider than the “I have always known I was born in the wrong body” narrative that suits wider societies slim fascination with our community and when continually perpetuated as ‘the only way to be trans’ has the effect of erasing and invalidating identities that fall outside of that. 

Ink performing 147Hz Can’t Pass at Edinburgh Fringe 2018.

147Hz Can’t Pass is grounded in reclamation. In a back to front way standing on stage and placing myself in a position of vulnerability is an act of reclamation, of our bodies and identities. Because for once it’s us deciding to speak and deciding what to say refusing to seek permission and holding space in an unapologetic way. It might not be neat and tidy, in fact, let's be clear, it's definitely not neat and tidy. But its honest… and that I think is important in this day and age.

When I started playing around with things I had little idea what the resulting piece of work would look like. As I was writing I became embroiled in a dichotomy of language, of whether or not to make use of the rich and detailed lexicon that has developed within the trans community. These words are a way for us to assert ownership over our bodies and to begin to sculpt a tomorrow more welcoming of our identity, and not using them felt in part like bowing down. However, at the same time, I wanted the piece to be accessible to people whatever their level of knowledge and peppering the piece with terms such as neutrois and diamoric would make definitions necessary and I didn't want to make a piece about teaching cis audiences trans terminology. I was interested in the role physicality would play, without making a commitment to full-on movement sequences I wanted to maintain an awareness of it as gender can be a very physical experience. The possibilities offered by projection also interested me as it felt like the medium offered visual parallels with the thriving online trans community.

However, the final say on any of the hundreds of decisions that were made did not lie with me. I have been clear from the outset that this piece does not belong to me but rather it belongs to the community as a whole and as such the decisions that shaped the piece lay in the hands of the community. While the piece does not seek permission from wider society when I stand on stage the role consultation played within development gives me support to say the things I say.

Ink performing 147Hz Can’t Pass at Edinburgh Fringe 2018.

Chrysalis offers me a platform as an emerging artist, respecting my creative freedom and abilities, ensuring there is support available when needed but also giving me space to run free.

I am hugely excited to be bringing along 147Hz Can’t Pass after an amazing run at the Fringe where the piece was tested and grew and became overall far stronger.

I’m excited to be doing it at Chrysalis.

But I’m also excited to look back on it in five years time… I hope it will feel old and outdated… ‘cos that means it had an impact.

Dates and times Fri 16 Nov, 8.15pm Sat 17 Nov, 3.30pm BOOK NOW

Find out more about Chrysalis festival here.

[traversetheatre]

Arctic Oil - Behind the Scenes

Black paint, barbecue tongs and two very sad bears were the stars of our promo shoot for Arctic Oil.

Photography: Mihaela Bodlovic

Thu 9 - Sat 20 Oct BOOK NOW

[traversetheatre]

10 Questions with designer Ana Inés Jabares-Pita

Ana Inés Jabares-Pita is a stage designer. Her work crosses a range of genres from opera, dance and theatre to installations, concerts and film. During #TravFest18 Ana designed What Girls Are Made Of by Cora Bissett. We caught up with her to find out about the process.

Cora Bissett in What Girls Are Made Of. Image Sid Scott

1. To start things off, can you introduce yourself, what you do and what inspired you to follow a career in theatre design?

Hello, my name is Ana Inés Jabares-Pita and I am a stage and costume designer born in Spain. I have been always been interested in art and music. Actually, the story of how all the pieces came together for becoming a stage designer is quite long. Too many pieces! I used to sing in an opera choir in Spain and used to love being backstage with the make-up, costumes and all of the thrill that came with it. After that, I went to study abroad in Italy for a year and took a scenography class. Some more things happened along the way until I realised that theatre design was what I wanted to do. I wanted to help make stories come alive.

2. What did your route into designing look like? Did you study theatre design and how did you get to where you are today?

It looks like a big spider net! 

I studied Fine Arts and Opera Singing, and I didn’t have a clue that being a set and costume designer could be a job until I finished my five year degree! 

For the last year of my degree, I went on an Erasmus exchange to Palermo, Italy and I had to choose similar subjects to the compulsory ones in Spain. So I swapped out technical drawing for set design. People in their last year had the opportunity to work on a professional show but because it was my first year studying that subject and I was on Erasmus they didn’t initially allow me to be a part it. My Italian back then was very poor so I couldn’t really defend myself. The only thing I could do was draw. So I found out when the 5th year students were presenting their concepts for the show and I started to draw. 

The presentation day came, and even though I wasn’t invited, I went and showed my costume drawings for Le Carnaval des Animaux by Camille Saint Saen. They selected my concept, that meant that in a month I had to learn how to make 27 costumes, almost by myself, how to work in a team, how to position an orchestra on stage… and many other things. I was working 14 hours a day... that was my life during while all my friends were partying, but I didn’t care I was so excited! The opening day of the show arrived and I stayed backstage looking at the audience (who were children). I spent the show looking at their little faces of excitement each time a new animal appeared. 

After that day it was clear to me what I wanted to do with my life. After that I moved to London to do a Masters at The Royal Central School of Speech and Drama in Scenography. Both the city and my colleagues opened my mind…and that is me now.

3. How do you approach the process of designing a new play - is it different from working on a piece that audiences will be familiar with?

The process depends mainly on the people I work with than the piece itself. The responsibility of designing a new piece is that you are giving the visuals to something that is being done for the first time. The challenge of designing a Shakespeare is that a lot of amazing people have already tried amazing things...so the bar is set very high. Actually, at the moment I am designing Twelfth Night for The Lyceum at the same time as What Girls are Made Of.

What Girls Are Made Of. Image Sid Scott

4. What are the stages in developing a design from initial idea through to the build?

They might vary depending on the show and the team, but generally: - First is meeting the director, making sure we both get to know how each other thinks. This is what I call "mind reading or telepathy" phase.  - Then I sync brains with the director and discuss concept ideas through sharing films, music, images, books, exhibitions…anythign and everything really! - Then I go to the studio and start drawing... - Then I share these ideas with the director and introduce the concept to the wider team. - During rehearsals, things keep changing, mainly to do with props and costumes while the bigger pieces of set get built.

5. Where do you take your inspiration from and does that sometimes come from out with the theatre world?

Most of my inspiration comes from outside the theatre world from tv series, films, music, exhibitions, games, playgrounds and experiences that have nothing to do with theatre.

6. What has been the most unusual project you’ve worked on and why?

It was a piece called Incholm Island. It was a site-specific project mixed with video games. We needed to fill the Island with installations that referred to the video game and get there by boat. We only had 3 hours to set up, so everything needed to be very well prepared from early on. It was a lot more complex that it sounds, but It was an amazing experiment. Since then I’ve become very interested in how video games, augmented reality and other technologies can be brought to theatre.

Simon Donaldson in What Girls Are Made Of. Image Sid Scott

7. What advice would you give emerging theatre designers in theatre today? Be true to your self, I know cliche! But it is true, do not try to be liked by someone you don’t, that relationship is never going to work. Be open-minded. Make sure you take care of yourself, and you know where your limits are. It’s ok to stop to have proper lunch breaks. Take one day off a week at least and make sure you book holidays or days off in advance - they are the best thing to help you keep being creative. If you're working all the time, where do you get your inspiration from?

8. Can you give us an idea of what the set will look like for What Girls Are Made Of? Where did you draw your inspiration from?    Do not thing about it as a set, think about it as a stage for a concert! What I've really enjoyed about this process is having the chance to design a stage for a concert. My inspiration came from Darlingheart’s SMARTHEAD music video from the 90s, also from other indie bands as well as some contemporary bands. I've also researched different lighting installations as lighting is such a big part of concerts. It has been great having Lizzie Powell as a collaborator, she is a lighting magician!

The What Girls Are Made Of cast and creative team.

9. What are the challenges of designing a play for the festival environment?

The set needs to support the show and show it in its best light and at the same time, it needs to be put together and dismantled in 20 minutes - which is almost like an amazing piece of theatrical choreography in itself! Plus you are sharing the space with a lot more shows, so the lighting has also restrictions because you are sharing the lighting bars with all the rest of the shows. It’s a brilliant challenge!

10. What is the most satisfying part of being a theatre designer and what advice would you give to any budding theatre designers out there?

You need to truly love it because is tough work, but being able to put together stories that need to be told for the world to see is pretty amazing. In a joined effort from a big team, we make a few hours of magic and transport the audience somewhere magical.

Cora Bissett in What Girls Are Made Of. Image Sid Scott

Find out more about What Girls Are Made Of here.

[traversetheatre]

10 Questions with Simon Donaldson

‘Technicolour. Rock. Journey.’

Simon Donaldson is a Scottish actor whose recent credits include: Margaret Saves Scotland (Òran Mór); The Strange Undoing of Prudencia Hart (Eastern Angles) and Scot Squad (BBC). Over #TravFest18 Simon performed in What Girls Are Made Of by Cora Bissett. From his teenage idols to most memorable theatre experience we set Simon our 10 Questions.

Simon Donaldson and Cora Bissett in What Girls Are Made Of. Image Sid Scott

1. To kick things off, can you tell us a little bit about What Girls Are Made Of and your role in the show? 

I play, amongst many many others, Cameron who was the guitarist in Darlingheart. What Girls Are Made Of is an amazing story of growing up, with the added element of your band (Cora’s band) getting signed! It’s funny, shocking and very moving.

2. Without giving anything away, what’s your favourite line from the show?

My favourite line changes nearly every day but one that keeps on sticking with me, and this is maybe down to Grants commitment to the line, is: ‘You’re going on tour with Blur!!??! Oh my god! Oh my god! Oh my god!!!!!’

3. What initially drew you to performing in What Girls Are Made Of? 

So many things  - the script is amazing, the opportunity to work with Cora (writer and performer) and Orla (the director), playing the guitar (especially getting to play so many songs that I grew up with and that shaped me) and performing at the Traverse during the biggest arts festival in the world.

Simon Donaldson in What Girls Are Made Of. Image Sid Scott

4. How do you want audiences to feel having watched the show?

I want them to absolute join us on this journey and come away moved, entertained and wowed. I hope the story speaks them on a very personal level as although this true story is unusual, so much of it is universal and speaks to us all.

5. What song defined your teenage years? 

There are so many songs that I think define my teenage years (what I can remember of them!). I devoured music growing but I think Nirvana was probably my biggest influence, I could choose any track so let’s go with Frances Farmer Will Have Her Revenge on Seattle.

6. Who was your teenage idol and why? 

Jim Morrison... I guess that rock n roll wild frontman thing did it for me (ditto Kurt Cobain).

7. What has been your most memorable theatre experience – either as a member of the audience or as part of the creative team? 

Performing on Broadway and Sydney Opera House.

What Girls Are Made Of. Image Sid Scott

8. Can you tell us about the first play you ever performed in? 

The first ever play I performed in I can’t remember the name of...oops! It was a musical at Earlston High School, all 60s music. Can’t remember who I was either! The first professional play was The Tempest, I played Caliban.

9. What’s your favourite Edinburgh haunt? 

I’m a big fan of Carlton Hill, not too big a climb.

10. Finally, what three words would you use to sum up What Girls Are Made Of?

Technicolour. Rock. Journey.

Find out more about What Girls Are Made Of here.

Cora Bissett in What Girls Are Made Of. Image Sid Scott

[traversetheatre]

Arctic Oil by Clare Duffy

We’re dirty. We’re messy. We die. That’s life.

On a remote Scottish island, an estranged mother and daughter are at loggerheads over how best to save their children. While Ella fights for her son's future, her mother Margret is terrified that Ella’s environmental activism will her get killed. Trapped together until one of them gives in or lashes out, it quickly becomes clear that not all mothers know best.

Around them, at the mercy of the brutal North Sea and Mother Nature, their close-knit community is being pushed to the brink in a world which is changing too fast for them to survive.

Written by the award-winning 2015 IASH / Traverse Theatre Creative Fellow Clare Duffy and directed by Traverse Associate Director Gareth Nicholls, (Ulster American), Arctic Oil grapples with how trying to save the world could end up destroying those closest to us – and even ourselves.

Arctic Oil Thu 9 - Sat 20 Oct BOOK NOW

Images: Roberto Ricciuti

[traversetheatre]

10 Questions with Clare Duffy

[3 minute read]

Clare Duffy is a playwright and director. We welcome her play Arctic Oil to Traverse 1 next week. Here are her answers to our 10 Questions…

Clare Duffy. Image: Lauren McLay

1. What sparked the original idea for this piece and how has it evolved?

The original idea for Arctic Oil was the arrest of the Arctic 30 in 2013. I thought it was just so extraordinary that a peaceful protest, in international waters, was shot at and the activists arrested. They were held in prison for 3 months. I thought I was going to write a play about the group dynamics of working in a large team on a boat. Then I had my son in the middle of writing this play and when I came back to it after 6 months I had to completely re-imagined it. I still had the same concerns about how interpersonal politics play out against the global. But I couldn’t help re-thinking the context as I struggled with sleep deprivation and balancing work with parenthood. So the play became about how someone might feel ‘left behind’ from such a heroic team, watching the world through the context of nappies and sleeplessness. It became a much more personal and emotional play thanks to my son, partner and our first couple of years working out how to be parents.

2. What three words would you use to sum up the play?

BIG BIG LOVE. 3. How do you want audiences to feel having watched the show?

This is tricky because people will feel what they feel. I don’t have any idea what I want them to feel. But I do want them to feel. I would be really proud if it made people feel something.

Neshla Caplan in rehearsals for Arctic Oil. Image: Lauren McLay

4. Do you have a favourite line or moment in the play? I like really like it when the mother shows the daughter the inside of her mouth. 5. Can you tell us about your writing environment? 

It depends. Sometimes I write in bed propped up on cushions under a duvet and it’s as if I forget about my body entirely and I go into the world of the play I’m writing. Sometimes I sit on public benches and scribble in notepads with a pencil. Sometimes I like pulling a table in front of a window at home and when I’m stuck I can look at the trees, birds, cats and all things outside. I do quite a lot of writing when I’m walking too. Just pounding through the characters’ lines and actions as I walk. Then there is always a stage when the whole thing gets broken down into titles on postcards and put up in different colours on the wall. 6. If you could spend a day with the characters in Arctic Oil what would you do together?

Eat breakfast in the morning. Full Scottish for Margret and full vegan for Ella. I’d have poached eggs with smoked salmon. Then we’d go for a walk along a beach. Probably St Ninian's beach because it’s so beautiful. Then we would go for a big pub lunch somewhere good but not too expensive. We might go and see a film together in the afternoon but it would have to be a relaxed screening because Sam (Ella’s son) is only 18 months right now. He could probably have a nap. Then we’d go home and watch TV and drink wine after Sam went to sleep. I think we would have a lovely time. As long as we didn’t talk about politics.

Jennifer Black and Neshla Caplan in rehearsals for Arctic Oil. Image: Lauren McLay 7. Can you tell us about your first play?    The first full-length play I wrote was called Crossings. It was inspired by my work as an LGBTQ+ youth worker. It was about a young girl who drags her girlfriend on the hunt for the killer of her best friend. It was a ghost story and a road story. It meant a lot to me. 

8. Going on from that, what advice would you give to your younger playwriting self? I wish I could have told my younger self to have more confidence. That just turning up every day to write, to think and work is the start of everything. It would be great wouldn’t it, not to doubt or be anxious about your work. I don’t know how possible it is really. Maybe self-doubt is part of what keeps you trying again and again. My mum always says ‘nothing is ever wasted’, she’s quoting the visual artist Bill Viola and it’s so true. All the mistakes and hardest moments are also the start of all the best things.

Jennifer Black in rehearsals for Arctic Oil. Image: Lauren McLay 9. What has been your most memorable theatre experience – either as a member of the audience or as part of the creative team? I went to a workshop when I was still a student at the National Student Drama Festival. The workshop leader led a discussion about just this. Out of the whole group of about 40 there were only a couple of people who said a moment of writing was their most memorable experience. I was one of them. I saw Ian McKellen doing Richard III. His final speech was so thrilling. The workshop leader pointed out that it took Ian McKellen and Shakespeare for the most memorable theatre experience to be about writing. That’s always stayed with me. More recently I found the libation giving at the opening to The Supplicant Women hugely moving. I love theatre that makes the audience aware of its presence as an audience, as a civic entity and this gesture captured that beautifully for me.

10. Are there any websites, books or other resources that you find particularly useful as a playwright? I have loved being part of the Playwrights’ Studio, Scotland. Being a mentor has taught me huge amounts. They offer so many resources not least the chance to meet other writers. I also found being part of the Scottish Society of Playwrights massively important and helpful. The Arvon Foundation is really useful both as a participant and a course leader. I love reading about writing and writers. Most recently I read Margret Atwood’s On Writing and Writers, which was really great.

Arctic Oil Thu 9 - Sat 20 Oct BOOK NOW

[traversetheatre]

10 Questions with Faoileann Cunningham

Scotties is a powerful new play celebrating the music and languages of Scotland and Ireland.

In her responses to our 10 Questions, Faoileann tells us about her character, Molly and how they’d spend a day together. 

Faoileann as Molly in Scotties. Image Mihaela Bodlovic.

1. Tell us a bit about your character in Scotties? Molly is a young girl from Achill. She’s the youngest of two. She’s very superstitious. She loves the music and dances of home.

2. If your character had a theme tune, what would it be? The Sligo Reel as played by Flook: https://youtu.be/KUUNKG5VNtA

3. Do you have a favourite line or moment in the play? Probably when Seán Óg says: ‘I can really see the rabbit now Molly.’

4. Can you tell us about the first play you ever performed in? A production of Little Red Riding Hood - I played the big bad wolf with six pairs of my mum’s socks on my head attached to a headband.

Scotties. Image Mihaela Bodlovic.

5. If you spent a day with your character, what would you do together and what do you think they’d make of you? I’d love to go around Achill with her and go to the beach.

6. What qualities do you admire the most and the least about your character? For a girl so young she’s incredibly resilient.

7. What’s been your most memorable theatre experience – either as an audience or cast member? Watching Angels in America at the National Theatre in London.

Scotties. Image Mihaela Bodlovic.

8. Why is the story of Scotties important? It’s a story that’s not very well known and resonates hugely with our treatment of refugees today.

9. What’s going to surprise people about this show? I think the story itself is quite surprising.

10. Finally, describe Scotties in three words. Linguistic. Tribal. Current.

Scotties Thu 27 - Sat 29 Sep, 7.30pm BOOK NOW

[traversetheatre]

The Unreturning - Frantic Assembly | Production photos.

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).

Wed 24 - Sat 27 Oct, 7.30pm BOOK NOW

Images: Tristram Kenton

[traversetheatre]

The Unreturning - Frantic Assembly | Rehearsal photos.

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).

Wed 24 - Sat 27 Oct, 7.30pm BOOK NOW

Images: Helen Maybanks

[traversetheatre]

10 Questions with Muireann Kelly

Director, actor and playwright Muireann Kelly is the Artistic Director of Theatre Gu Leòr. Originally from County Mayo in the west of Ireland, she studied drama at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland and Gàidhlig at Sabhal Mòr Ostaig. Scotties is her first play. 

In her responses to our 10 Questions Murieann shares the process of co-writing Scotties and what drew her to write a play based on the story of the young, Irish potato pickers who tragically lost their lives in the Kirkintilloch bothy fire of 1937.

Scotties. Image: Mihaela Bodlovic

1. What sparked the original idea for Scotties and how has it evolved?

I am from County Mayo, where the young tattie howkers who tragically lost their lives in the Kirkintilloch Bothy fire came from. I grew up hearing this story, I came to Scotland to train and have lived here now for over half my life and I am always shocked that so few people in Scotland know this story.

It evolved after I spent some time on a writer’s retreat at Moniack Mhòr where I met Frances Poet and I approached her to co-write the piece with me. National Theatre of Scotland’s head of Development Caroline Newall, supported a research and development stage and following that co-commissioned Scotties with Theatre Gu Leòr. 2. Can you tell us a bit about your writing environment?

Frances Poet and I spent some time in Achill Island, interviewing people there who had first-hand experience of tattie howking in Scotland right up to the late 60’s. We also interviewed some of the relatives of those who had lost their lives in the fire but also some relatives of the those who survived the fire. We spent time doing research in Kirkintilloch library, where they have an extensive archive collection on the tragedy. We then worked towards a development week which took place in 2016. Finally, I worked closely after that development week with dramaturg Pamela McQueen honing several drafts post development and pre-rehearsals. Edits were completed with Pamela in the early stages of the rehearsals once we heard the cast read it.

Scotties. Image: Mihaela Bodlovic 3. Do you have a favourite line or moment in the play?

There is a moment in the play where one of the survivors comes back home to Achill and I am moved every time I watch it. 4. How do you want audiences to feel having watched the play? I would like them to be moved and also inspired by the pride in the connection to Scotland which is felt by many in Achill, a small island on the west coast of Ireland. I’d love the audience to come away asking questions about our connected languages, music and culture but also ultimately questioning how we viewed folk who came to our shores to seek a better life, who maybe didn’t sound or look like us and if this has changed at all. 5. What has been your most memorable theatre experience – either as a member of the audience or as part of the creative team?

Playing Molly Bloom in the first ever stage adaptation of James Joyce’s Ulysses adapted by Dermot Bolger, in front of a packed audience in the Project Arts Centre, Dublin, a stone’s throw away from so many of the locations referred to in the novel. It was a very moving experience.

Scotties. Image: Mihaela Bodlovic 6. Can you tell us about the first play you ever wrote? 

Scotties is my first play.  7. Going on from that, what advice would you offer your young playwriting self? Be brave. 8. Why is the story of Scotties important?

History has an ugly habit of repeating itself if we don’t tell stories like these.

Scotties. Image: Mihaela Bodlovic 9. Are there any websites, books or other resources that you find particularly useful as a playwright? I have worked a lot with Playwrights’ Studio Scotland, they have have been really really useful in terms of resources, development, and advise on finding the right dramaturg. 10. Finally, what three words would you use to sum up the play? From the heart.

Scotties Thu 27 - Sat 29 Sep, 7.30pm BOOK NOW