Tron Theatre Launches Autumn 2019 Season

Tron Theatre's Autumn-Winter 2019 season promises to deliver another very varied, controversial and dynamic collection of work. Brand new pieces sit alongside adaptations of classic texts that have been given a contemporary twist. Highlights will include:

• Tron Theatre Company's own production The Alchemist, Ben Jonson's brilliantly comic farce given a modern-day Glaswegian rendering by Gary McNair.
• ThickSkin's painful yet uplifting true story How Not To Drown about an unaccompanied 11-year old asylum seeker and his journey to the UK and through the British Care system.
• Northern Stage's adaptation of Sherlock Holmes' most infamous case, The Hound of the Baskervilles.
• The tenth anniversary staging of Jo Clifford's The Gospel According to Jesus, Queen of Heaven, hugely controversial in 2009 and still fueling powerful emotions in 2019.

Tron Artistic Director Andy Arnold has commissioned Gary McNair to adapt Ben Jonson's Jacobean farce The Alchemist (4-19 October, Press Night: Tue 8 October, 7.45pm) as the centerpiece of our Autumn season. With the action relocated from London to Glasgow, and the text written in rhyming couplets, the artful Subtle (Grant O'Rourke) and conniving Face (Louise McCarthy) set themselves up as confidence tricksters to fleece gullible victims of their cash in what promises to be a brilliantly comic caper.

The main auditorium programme opens with the powerful, political and lyrical Black Men Walking (5-7 Sept), as part of the Eclipse movement spearheading the largest ever delivery of new Black British stories. This is followed by award-winning theatre company ThickSkin, with their action-packed, highly visual production How Not To Drown (11-14 Sept), the painful yet uplifting true story of an eleven-year-old unaccompanied asylum seeker, his journey to the UK and through the British care system. Scotland's acclaimed Company Chordelia are embarking on a world premiere tour of The Chosen (19 & 20 Sept), an intensely moving dance show about dying and embracing the art of living.

We celebrate ten years since the first, controversial staging of Jo Clifford's The Gospel According to Jesus, Queen of Heaven in our Changing House, with a week of performances, opening with O Evangelho Segundo Jesus, Raihna do Ceu (30 Oct), the Brazilian reimagining of the play where Jesus is embodied as a travesti woman from the fringes of Sao Paulo that has become too dangerous to perform in that country. This is followed by three performances of The Gospel According to Jesus, Queen of Heaven (31 Oct - 2 Nov), where audiences are invited to join a revolutionary queer ritual in which bread is shared, wine is drunk and familiar stories are reimagined by a transgender Jesus. The mini-season concludes with Untitled 2009 (2 Nov), where a controversial GOMA exhibit from ten years ago has been used as the source of a brand-new work performed by a collective of LGBTQ performers

Part performance lecture, part karaoke party, Power Ballad (12-14 Sept) in the Changing House, is an angry, feminist, live art investigation of language and its sometimes-hidden ideologies. Also in the Changing House, Sherlock Holmes' most infamous case, The Hound of the Baskervilles (25-28 Sept) from Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's gothic classic is given a contemporary adaptation by Northern Stage; National Theatre of Scotland present Hanna Lavery's beautiful story of love, loss and bereavement The Drift (11 & 12 Oct), a searingly honest portrayal of growing up mixed-race in Scotland and Fallen Fruit (17-19 Oct) is Two Destination Language's captivating story of love, breaking free and Europe set against the fall of the Berlin wall. The Changing House season ends with Tron Young Company's brand new production All the Time in the World (24-26 Oct) directed by Martin O'Connor, which takes a closer look at how we perceive time moving, how we wait for something to happen and the gulf between presence and absence.

In our Vic Bar all the regular music sessions are back including Sunday Jazz, The Seven Song Club and An Evening Of... and Tandem Writing Collective, a bold new writing and eclectic live music event was such a hit last season that we've brought it back for two more shows and our own community choir present a night of awesome tunes with some choir-ee-oke thrown in at their annual Song Party (25 Oct).

Our Autumn-Winter programme wouldn't be complete without Tron Theatre Company's festive offering - this year Cinderfella (27 Oct '19 - 5 Jan '20) in the main house, written by Johnny McKnight, will once again subvert the genre and gender stereotypes in its usual glitter-drenched and outrageous fashion; and in our Changing House, Andy Arnold will direct Ramesh Meyyappan in Ali the Magic Elf (29 Oct - 31 Dec '19) a fun-filled, visual treat for wee ones aged 3-6 years with live music.

Tron Creative and Participation programmes continue to thrive, providing opportunities to engage with the Tron in a range of ways for artists, audiences and the community, and we're ever-proud of our ability to be accessible and welcoming to everyone who wants to connect with us.

Andy Arnold says of the upcoming season: 'Autumn-Winter 2019 at the Tron will once again be a dynamic season - with works that are vibrant, diverse, brilliantly farcical and powerfully feminist. Being relevant and connecting with audiences is important to us and I'm confident our new season will fulfil this.'

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