A RESPECTABLE WIDOW, PRONOUN & More Set for Traverse Theatre's Spring 2014 Season

The Traverse announces its Spring season today, presenting the best of world-class theatre, dance and music to ring in the New Year. The theatre welcomes back hit breakfast plays A Respectable Widow Takes to Vulgarity and Clean as a double bill and the ever popular A Play, A Pie and A Pint series will once again take up residence in Traverse 2.

Following on from their hit runs, directed by Traverse Artistic Director, Orla O'Loughlin during the Traverse Festival in August, A Respectable Widow Takes to Vulgarity and Clean will be presented as a double bill from 26 - 29 March. The 5* review winning pair will be back for a third Traverse outing in advance of their transfer to New York in April.

In April and May, the much acclaimed A Play, A Pie and A Pint series will return to Traverse shores for its seventh season in a joint Òran Mór and Traverse presentation. With weekly shows from 01 April - 03 May, the season features pieces from Iain Heggie, Johnny McKnight and Gerda Stevenson.

The Traverse's commitment to supporting and nurturing new talent is sewn through the Spring season, with no fewer than ten events embracing emergent voices, starting with Traverse Theatre Company's Class Act, two evenings of exciting new work from the Traverse's next generation of playwrights (22 - 23 January).

Words, Words, Words, the Traverse's scratch platform returns for two outings in Spring with a Valentine special (14 Feb), and is followed up with the Traverse's award-winning Channel 4 Writer-in-Residence, Morna Pearson overseeing the proceedings on 20 May. Morna will be centre stage once more for Directors' Cut when her 10 minute play will have a number of individual interpretations by multiple directors, inviting the audience to feed into the process (15 February).

The Lyceum Youth Theatre makes a welcome return in March with Pronoun by Evan Placey, a powerful story about transition, testosterone and James Dean (13 - 15 March). There is further new talent support with the world premiere of Village Pub Theatre's Best of The Village Pub Theatre as they take over Traverse 1 with a week of readings in development, culminating in an evening of the very best from the VPT repertoire (31 March - 05 April).

Rounding off the exciting new talent pool, The Arches present the Platform 18 Award Winner The Forbidden Experiment by Enormous Yes, an eye-opening exploration of the British Army's activities on Inchkeith during World War Two (01 - 03 May).

Fringe Festival 2013 hits get extra outings at the Traverse this Spring. Fringe First award-winning Dark Vanilla Jungle by Philip Ridley stars A Game of Throne's Gemma Whelan and centres around one girl's craving for family and home (27 Feb - 01 March). Fresh from their hugely successful West End run, Many Rivers Productions bring The Confessions of Gordon Brown, a candid portrait of life inside Downing Street with Ian Grieve starring in this one man exposé (11 - 15 March).

Chalk Farm by award-winning playwrights Kieran Hurley and AJ Taudevin, received critical acclaim during the 2013 Fringe. It's an explosive play about love and blame in the aftermath of the 2011 London riots (20 - 22 March). Finally in Captain Amazing, Britain's only part-time super hero will be exploring how all parents strive to be heroes in the eyes of their children in this Fringe sell-out one man show (3 - 5 April).

The manipulate Visual Theatre Festival enters its seventh year, presenting some of the most avant-garde physical theatre, puppetry and animation to be seen anywhere in the UK this year. Highlights include work from Austria, Germany, the Netherlands, Russia, the USA as well as artists a little closer to home (31 Jan - 05 Feb). Later in the season, the Imaginate Festival, celebrating its 25th anniversary, returns to the Traverse to showcase the best new international work for children and young people (05 - 12 May).

Other Spring highlights include the return of nabokov and Soho Theatre's Blink, bringing their own take on dysfunctional love back to the Traverse stage following their visit in 2012 (20 - 22 Feb).

Scottish Dance Theatre will bring three pieces of work in Spring, starting with a double bill of Yama/Kingdom (28 Feb - 01 Mar) and followed by Fleur Darkin's interactive piece Innocence, where 0 - 7 year olds and adults will explore the bountiful imagination of William Blake on the Traverse 1 stage (01 March).

Made In China return to the Traverse stage, following We Hope That You're Happy (Why Would We Lie?) in 2012 with Gym Party, a dark comic exploration of our universal desire to win (04 - 05 March). Women in Theatre Scotland present an International Women's Day Event (08 March), an evening of discussion and readings to raise funds for Women's Fund for Scotland and Womankind Worldwide.

Stellar Quines returns in collaboration with Fife Cultural Trust to present Dare to Care by Christine Lindsay, a former employee of the Scottish Prison Service whose experience inspired her to write this piece about the issues facing women behind bars (19 - 21 March). Never Try This At Home , a world premiere from Told By An Idiot last seen at the Traverse when they presented The Dark Philosophers with National Theatre of Wales in Festival 2011, is a disturbing homage to Saturday morning TV (26 - 29 March).

Out of Joint, and the Octagon Theatre Bolton present the Scottish premiere of Stella Feehily's surreal new piece This May Hurt A Bit, questioning the prognosis for the much-loved and fiercely debated NHS (08 - 12 April). Keeping with the medical theme, Factor 9 by Hamish MacDonald is a visceral horror story of human survival in the face of a medical industrial nightmare, a European premiere brought to the Traverse by Dogstar Theatre Company in association with Profilteatearn and UMEA 2013 European Capital of Culture (24 - 26 April).

Vanishing Point and the National Theatre of Scotland join forces with Eden Court this Spring to celebrate the eccentric world of Scottish icon and exile, Ivor Cutler in The Beautiful Cosmos of Ivor Cutler (29 Apr - 03 May). Tobacco Factory Theatres and The Sum present Banksy: The Room in the Elephant, directed by the Traverse's new Associate Director Emma Callander, starring Eastenders' Gary Beadle about one man's unfortunate run in with a Banksy mural (16 and 17 May).

The Scottish premiere of Pests by Vivienne Franzmann, a Clean Break, Royal Court Theatre and Royal Exchange Theatre co-production is the winner of multiple awards and received the Pearson Playwright Bursary in 2012 (22 - 24 May). MONEY the Game Show by Clare Duffy invites the audience to play a series of high stake games with £10,000 in real pound coins, demonstrating the on-going impact of the financial crisis in the UK (23 and 24 May).

An explosive mix of political thriller and passionate love story, HEART by Steven Gaythorpe is a dynamic cocktail of physical theatre and performance poetry brought to us by Zendeh (29 and 30 May). CHORALE - A Sam Shepard Roadshow, from Presence Theatre and Actors Touring Company in association with Belgrade Theatre Coventry, brings together three plays, two films, a night of music and a workshop over two intensely Shepard-shaped days (30 and 31 May).

Some familiar faces round off the Spring season, as Blue Raincoat present First Cosmonaut, following on from their popular The Poor Mouth in the Traverse's Spring Season 2013, First Cosmonaut tells the story of the first man in space, Yuri Gagarin (5 - 7 June). Plutôt la Vie close the season with La Tragedie Comique, inviting the audience to 'stare down the devil and face the perils and joys of life' (6 and 7 June).

Out with the theatre spaces, the contemporary classical music evening Noisy Nights from Red Note Ensemble is back in the Traverse Bar Café (03 March) and the Traverse's own music and spoken word nights Sessions return to the Traverse Café Bar throughout the Spring.

Booking for all shows on www.traverse.co.uk or 0131 228 1404.

To post a comment, you must register and login.