Traverse Theater
The Traverse Theater in Edinburgh is subtitled Scotland's New Writing Theater . It is played all year round and is one of the central venues of the Edinburgh Festival Fringe . It was founded in 1963. The current venue has existed since 1992.
history
The Traverse Theater was established in 1963 as a theater club in a former brothel on Edinburgh's Lawnmarket , with only 60 seats. Terry Lane, the first artistic director, gave the theater its name because of the way it was arranged. Back then, half of the audience sat on the left and right of the playing area. It was only later that he noticed that the correct name for this seating arrangement was transverse , but the name of the stage was already so well known that it seemed difficult to rename it. Initially, the Traverse also had an exhibition room. In 1966 the independent Richard Demarco Gallery developed from this .
The studio was founded by a group of theater enthusiasts who - enthusiastic about the Edinburgh Festival Fringe , which has been held at the same time as the Edinburgh International Festival since 1947 - wanted to provide a stage for the spirit of the festival throughout the year. In addition to Terry Lane, the founders included the actor John Malcolm (1936–2008), the artist Richard Demarco (born 1930) and the director Jim Haynes (born 1933), who in its first year of existence - together with the publisher John Calder (born 1927) and the theater critic Kenneth Tynan (1927–1980) - organized a drama conference during the festival season. In general, the young organization was bursting with energy and zest for action. In the first three years 110 productions were shown, in 1964 alone - now with Haynes as artistic director - 31 world premieres. Even in its founding phase, the theater was repeatedly the cause of scandal by the press and politics. For example, an actress injured herself with a real knife because there was no money for a stage dummy. In 1965 the theater was threatened by police raids because "homosexual activities", at that time still prosecuted, had taken place there. In 1967, genital costumes for Alfred Jarry's Ubu in Chains (1900) led to a complaint in the House of Commons about alleged profanity .
In the late 1960s the Traverse Theater moved to a larger hall on Edinburgh's Grassmarket . The new venue had flexible seating. The first performance in the new house took place on August 24, 1969.
In 1992 the theater was given its current venue, a new building on Cambridge Street, adjacent to the Usher Hall building . The building was built at a cost of 3.3 million pounds and consists of two theaters and a bar. In Traverse 1, with flexible seating, there is room for 216 people, in Travers 2 around 100. In September 2005 one was also opened in the smaller hall Flexible seating has been added so that a different arrangement of the seats can now be set up in both halls for each program, depending on the needs of the piece or the preference of the director. The first performance at the new home of the theater took place on July 3, 1992. According to the critic Matt Trueman, the frequent changes of direction and course in the first fifty years of its existence were beneficial for the theater because it was able to explore such different forms, styles and genres.
Since 2012, the theater has been under the direction of the award-winning director Orla O'Loughlin , who strives for the traditional openness of the Traverse for various genres - reading, concert, dance, performance and drama - and wants to set new accents for a Scottish dramaturgy. Every year in August, the theater has been the central venue of the Fringe Festival for more than fifty years and, according to Matt Trueman, benefits enormously from this in two respects: On the one hand, due to the media interest during the festival season, its own productions gain national, and in some cases international, too Attention. On the other hand, the theater can select the most promising artists for upcoming productions from the diverse Finge program. One-third of The Scotsman's 2010 Scotsman Fringe First Award went to productions shown at the Traverse Theater. In 2014 the theater presented a total of 19 productions in the month of the festival. There is a large number of national and international collaborations, which has resulted in the theater being and is regularly invited to guest performances throughout the UK and worldwide, most recently to Canada, Turkey and South Korea.
The theater is also available for other festivals such as the Edinburgh International Film Festival . It is also home to the Manipulate Visual Theater Festival and the Imaginate Festival.
Authors
The literal translation of the subtitle as “The New Scottish Writing Theater” sounds unusual, which is why the term author's theater seems more appropriate. Since the theater was founded, premieres, especially British theater texts, have been the central axis of the program. In the first three years alone there were 110 productions, including 33 world premieres and 28 British premieres. The stage represented an important stage in their careers for many young authors - including Gregory Burke , John Byrne , David Greig , Zinnie Harris , David Harrower , Liz Lochhead , Tom McGrath and Cecil Taylor . In the 2000s and 2010s, the theater introduces a number of new playwrights, including Rob Drummond, Dennis Kelly , Gary McNair, Morna Pearson, Stef Smith and Simon Stephens .
The ensemble celebrated its 50th anniversary with the world premiere of 50 Plays for Edinburgh , fifty short dramas by various dramatists that were developed in a competition.
Directors
Most of the theater's directors are of British origin and largely unknown in German-speaking countries. However, the stage was and is a springboard for numerous directing careers, for example the director David Mouchtar-Samorai , who later moved to Germany , worked at the Traverse Theater in the late 1960s. Well-known outfitters such as Alex Eales or Gerald Scarfe , or lighting designers such as Jack Knowles , also worked there at the beginning of their careers.
actor
The stage continuously recognized great acting talents and gave them opportunities to test themselves in a safe atmosphere - including the future Oscar winner Tilda Swinton and the later action heroes Timothy Dalton and Cillian Murphy . In the 1960s Richard Wilson appeared regularly in Traverse, in the 1970s for example Steven Berkoff , Simon Callow , Billy Connolly , Alexander Morton , Bill Paterson , Toby Salaman and Tamara Ustinov . The future television actor Robbie Coltrane was first noticed on a national level in 1978 in a legendary world premiere at the Traverse Theater in John Byrne's The Slab Boys , staged by David Hayman . The 1980s were marked by outstanding performances by Alan Cumming , Forbes Masson, and Tilda Swinton. Cumming shone in 1988 in The Conquest of the South Pole by Manfred Karge , directed by Steve Unwin. The Traverse also played an essential role in the careers of Michelle Gomez , Ashley Jensen and Bill Nighy , with the singer Marjol Flore performing there, as well as the dancer and actress Lili Francks .
Controversial and oppositional artists also find their place in the broad spectrum of the Traverse schedule, for example the techno artist Kieran Hurley , the stand-up comedian and book author Robert Wringham , who propagates the exit from the capitalist labor mill, or the critical theater maker Caroline Horton whose evil grotesque about tax havens under the title Islands was panned in the financial market of London.
World premieres (selection)
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Artistic Director
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Web links
- Official website (English)
Individual evidence
- ↑ Theater Design: Stage Types: Traverse , accessed August 27, 2016.
- ↑ Richard Demarco and The Demarco European Art Foundation , accessed August 27, 2016.
- ↑ a b c d e Matt Trueman: Traverse Theater at 50: A history of the Scottish theater institution , A historical overview of the Edinburgh theater that became the home of new writing, The List (Edinburgh), May 17, 2013 (updated May 22, 2013) May 2013), accessed August 27, 2016.
- ↑ a b Traverse Theater: History , accessed August 27, 2016.
- ^ Traverse Theater: New Artistic Director for the Traverse , accessed August 28, 2016.
- ↑ Lyn Gardner, critic of the Guardian , described the Traverse Theater program as “the backbone to the fringe program. What you see there will often set the tone and tenor of the rest of the fringe. ”[… The backbone of the fringe program. What can be seen there often determines the tone and tenor of the rest of the Fringe offering.]
- ↑ Travers Theater: The Traverse Fifty have landed , January 14, 2013, accessed August 27, 2016.
- ↑ Caroline Horton: Caroline Horton on Islands: audiences might ask what the uproar was about , The Guardian (London), August 20, 2015, accessed August 28, 2016.
Coordinates: 55 ° 56 ′ 51.6 ″ N , 3 ° 12 ′ 17.6 ″ W.