Traverse Theatre
Encyclopedia
The Traverse Theatre is a theatre in Edinburgh
Edinburgh
Edinburgh is the capital city of Scotland, the second largest city in Scotland, and the eighth most populous in the United Kingdom. The City of Edinburgh Council governs one of Scotland's 32 local government council areas. The council area includes urban Edinburgh and a rural area...

, Scotland
Scotland
Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...

. It was founded in 1963.

The Traverse Theatre commissions and develops new plays or adaptations from contemporary playwrights. It also presents a large number of productions from visiting companies from across the UK. These include new plays, adaptations, dance, physical theatre, puppetry and contemporary music. ^[1]

The Traverse is a pivotal venue in Edinburgh and this is particularly the case during the Edinburgh Festivals in August – positioned as it is between the Edinburgh Festival Fringe and the Edinburgh International Festival
Edinburgh International Festival
The Edinburgh International Festival is a festival of performing arts that takes place in the city of Edinburgh, Scotland, over three weeks from around the middle of August. By invitation from the Festival Director, the International Festival brings top class performers of music , theatre, opera...

. The Traverse is also the home of the Manipulate Visual Theatre Festival, the Bank of Scotland Imaginate Festival and the Traverse’s own Autumn Festival.

Artistic Directors

Terry Lane (Dec 1962 – Jan 1964)

Callum Mill (Jan 1964 - Aug 1964)

Jim Haynes (Aug 1964 – July 1966)

Gordon McDougall
Gordon McDougall
Gordon McDougall was an Australian-based theatre and television actor.McDougall trained at the Glasgow Athenaeum and began acting in 1936, working in various facets of the entertainment industry...

 (July 1966 - Dec 1969)

Max Stafford-Clark
Max Stafford-Clark
Maxwell Robert Guthrie Stewart Stafford-Clark is an English Theatre Director.-Life and career:He went to school at Felsted and Riverdale Country School in New York City. He has worked as a theatre director since he left Trinity College, Dublin.His directing career began as associate director of...

 (Dec 1967 - Dec 1969)

Michael Rudman
Michael Rudman
Michael Rudman is an American theatre director.In 1960, he graduated from Oberlin College cum laude in Government and in 1964 he received an MA in English Language and Literature at Oxford where he was President of the Oxford University Dramatic Society....

 (Feb 1970 – Feb 1973)

Mike Ockrent
Mike Ockrent
Mike Ockrent was a British stage director, well-known both for his Broadway musicals and smaller niche plays. He was educated at Highgate School. Through directing Educating Rita and Follies, he became an established figure in London theatre...

 (Mar 1973 – Sep 1975)

Chris Parr
Chris Parr
Chris Parr is a British theatre director and television executive.In the late 1960s and early 1970s Parr was Fellow in Theatre at the University of Bradford. In the mid 1970s he became Artistic Director of the Traverse Theatre....

 (Sep 1975 – Mar 1981)

Peter Lichtenfels (Apr 1981 - Aug 1985)

Jenny Killick (Sep 1985 - Dec 1988)

Iain Brown
Ian Brown (theatre director)
Ian Brown is artistic director and chief executive of the West Yorkshire Playhouse in Leeds, West Yorkshire, England. He took up this post in 2002, succeeding Jude Kelly. He was previously artistic director of the TAG Theatre Company in Glasgow and the Traverse Theatre in Edinburgh . He trained...

 (Jan 1989 - Aug 1996)

Philip Howard (Sep 1996 - Dec 2007)

Dominic Hill (Jan 2008 – 2011)

Orla O'Loughlin (2011 - Present)

History

The Traverse Theatre began as a theatre club in 15 James Court, Lawnmarket, Edinburgh, a former doss house and brothel also known as Kelly’s Paradise and Hell’s Kitchen. It was “a long, low-ceilinged first-floor room barely 15ft wide by 8ft high” [2] with 60 seats salvaged from the Palace Cinema placed in two blocks on either side of the stage. The theatre is named because Terry Lane mistakenly believed that the staging arrangement is called ‘traverse’; he later realised that it is ‘transverse’ but it was already too well known to change it. In its first year of operation, a Theatre Conference was organised by director Jim Haynes, John Calder
John Calder
John Mackenzie Calder is a Canadian and Scottish publisher who founded Calder Publishing in 1949.-Biography:John Calder was a friend of Samuel Beckett, becoming the main publisher of his prose-texts in Britain after the success of Waiting for Godot on the London stage in 1955-56...

 and Kenneth Tynan
Kenneth Tynan
Kenneth Peacock Tynan was an influential and often controversial English theatre critic and writer.-Early life:...

 and including a Happening
Happening
A happening is a performance, event or situation meant to be considered art, usually as performance art. Happenings take place anywhere , are often multi-disciplinary, with a nonlinear narrative and the active participation of the audience...

 involving Allan Kaprow
Allan Kaprow
Allan Kaprow was an American painter, assemblagist and a pioneer in establishing the concepts of performance art. He helped to develop the "Environment" and "Happening" in the late 1950s and 1960s, as well as their theory. His Happenings - some 200 of them - evolved over the years...

 among others. The first performance was on 2 Jan 1963. ^[3]
By the end of the 1960s, following a surveyor’s report in March 1969 which stated where the internal floors of James Court were unsafe, the Traverse moved to a former sailmakers’s loft at 112 West Bow, Grassmarket
Grassmarket
The Grassmarket is an historic market square in the Old Town of Edinburgh, Scotland.In relation to the rest of the city the area is a hollow, well below surrounding ground levels.-Location:...

, in the east end of the Grassmarket. This larger space had a 100 seat theatre with flexible seating configurations. The first performance in this venue was on 24 Aug 1969. In its early days the theatre included exhibition space for the visual arts, until 1966 when the administrators for that space - including Richard Demarco
Richard Demarco
Richard Demarco, CBE is an Italian Scottish artist and promoter of the visual and performing arts.-Richard Demarco Gallery:...

 - moved away to establish what became the Richard Demarco Gallery. ^[4]

Current Traverse Theatre Building

In 1992, the Traverse moved to its current location, 10 Cambridge Street. A £3.3 million purpose-built two theatre space with bar café created as part of Saltire Court development on Castle Terrace. The theatre’s first performance at this location was on 3 July 1992.

Traverse 1 is the larger space with flexible seating that can be moved to create many different configurations (e.g. transverse, end on, in the round, etc.). The most common configuration is ‘end on’ and has 216 seats. Traverse 2 is the smaller studio space. New flexible seating was installed in September 2005 to allow for different staging configurations and the average capacity is approximately 100 seats.

The Traverse and the Edinburgh Festivals

The Traverse Theatre was founded in 1963 by John Calder
John Calder
John Mackenzie Calder is a Canadian and Scottish publisher who founded Calder Publishing in 1949.-Biography:John Calder was a friend of Samuel Beckett, becoming the main publisher of his prose-texts in Britain after the success of Waiting for Godot on the London stage in 1955-56...

, Jim Haynes and Richard Demarco
Richard Demarco
Richard Demarco, CBE is an Italian Scottish artist and promoter of the visual and performing arts.-Richard Demarco Gallery:...

 with the mission of continuing the spirit of the Edinburgh Festivals all year round.

During the Festivals in August, the Traverse continues to present cutting edge new writing, as well as new work of all kinds to an international audience. The Traverse is occasionally referred to as 'The Fringe venue that got away', reflecting its current status as a permanent and integral part of the Edinburgh arts scene throughout the year.

Today the month of August remains the busiest time for the Traverse. During the 2010 Edinburgh Festival Fringe, the Traverse played host to 18 shows. In a first for Scottish theatre, a series of specially commissioned rehearsed readings by Enda Walsh
Enda Walsh
Enda Walsh is an Irish playwright born in Dublin and currently living in London. Walsh attended the same secondary school where both Roddy Doyle and Paul Mercier taught. Having written for the Dublin Youth Theatre, he moved to Cork where he wrote Fishy Tales for the Graffiti Theatre Company,...

, Linda McLean, David Eldridge
David Eldridge (dramatist)
David Eldridge is an English dramatist, born in Romford, Greater London, United Kingdom in 1973.His plays have been performed at major new writing institutions in the UK, including The Royal Court Theatre, the Bush Theatre, the Finborough Theatre and the National Theatre...

, Simon Stephens
Simon Stephens
Simon Stephens is an English playwright.Hailing originally from Stockport, Greater Manchester, he is now an increasingly significant voice in English theatre. His plays are often humane explorations of family life...

 and Marina Carr
Marina Carr
Marina Carr is an Irish playwright.Born in Tullamore, County Offaly, Carr attended University College Dublin before holding posts as writer-in-residence at the Abbey Theatre and Trinity College Dublin. She served as Heimbold Professor of Irish Studies at Villanova University in 2003...

 were broadcast live on the 23 August 2010 to cinemas across the UK. One third of 2010 Scotsman Fringe First Award Winners were shows performed at the Traverse.

The Guardian
The Guardian
The Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...

 theatre critic Lyn Gardner has described the Traverse’s programme as, “The backbone to the Fringe programme. What you see there will often set the tone and tenor of the rest of the Fringe.”

Notable Associations

From its conception in 1963, the Traverse Theatre has launched the careers of many of Scotland’s best-known writers including John Byrne, Gregory Burke
Gregory Burke
Gregory Burke is a Scottish playwright from Rosyth, Fife, Scotland.-Life:His family moved to Gibraltar in 1979 and returned to Dunfermline in 1984. He attended St John's Primary in Rosyth, St Christopher's Middle School in Gibraltar, Bayside Comprehensive, Gibraltar and St Columba's High School,...

, David Greig
David Greig (dramatist)
David Greig is a Scottish playwright and theatre director.Greig was born in Edinburgh in 1969 and was brought up in Nigeria. He studied drama at Bristol University. He has been commissioned by the Royal Court Theatre, the Royal National Theatre and the Royal Shakespeare Company amongst others.His...

, David Harrower
David Harrower
David Harrower is a Scottish playwright who lives in Glasgow.His agents are Casarotto Ramsay.-Career:...

 and Liz Lochhead
Liz Lochhead
Liz Lochhead is a Scottish poet and dramatist, originally from Newarthill in North Lanarkshire.-Background:After attending Glasgow School of Art, Lochhead lectured in fine art for eight years before becoming a professional writer....

.

During the 1960s Richard Wilson was a regular performer. Throughout the 1970s the Traverse Theatre became a mecca for actors, including Timothy Dalton
Timothy Dalton
Timothy Peter Dalton ) is a Welsh actor of film and television. He is known for portraying James Bond in The Living Daylights and Licence to Kill , as well as Rhett Butler in the television miniseries Scarlett , an original sequel to Gone with the Wind...

, Billy Connelly, Robbie Coltraine, Simon Callow
Simon Callow
Simon Phillip Hugh Callow, CBE is an English actor, writer and theatre director. He is also currently a judge on Popstar to Operastar.-Early years:...

, Bill Patterson and Stephen Berkoff. In 1978 David Hayman
David Hayman
David Hayman is a Scottish film and television actor and director, best known for his role as DCS Mike Walker in ITV drama Trial and Retribution. He also a prominent supporter of the SNP's call for Scottish independence....

 famously directed John Byrne’s Slab Boys which featured Robbie Coltraine.

Tilda Swinton
Tilda Swinton
Katherine Mathilda "Tilda" Swinton is a British actress known for both arthouse and mainstream films. She has appeared in a number of films including The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Burn After Reading, The Beach, We Need to Talk About Kevin and was nominated for a Golden Globe for her...

 and Forbes Masson
Forbes Masson
Forbes Masson is a Scottish actor and writer. He is best known for his classical theatre roles and comedy partnership with Alan Cumming...

 memorably performed during the 1980s and Steve Unwin directed Alan Cummings in a 1988 production of The Conquest of the South Pole. Ashley Jensen
Ashley Jensen
Ashley Jensen is a Scottish actress who is best known for her roles in the television series Extras for which she was nominated for an Emmy, and ABC's Ugly Betty...

 and Bill Nighy
Bill Nighy
William Francis "Bill" Nighy is an English actor and comedian. He worked in theatre and television before his first cinema role in 1981, and made his name in television with The Men's Room in 1991, in which he played the womanizer Prof...

 began their acting careers at the Traverse.

Many of the theatre’s sponsored seats have personalised plaques, including Robbie Coltrane’s “This is a no farting zone” and Tom Conti
Tom Conti
Thomas "Tom" Conti is a Scottish actor, theatre director and novelist.-Early life:Born Thomas Conti in Paisley, Renfrewshire, he was brought up Roman Catholic, but he considers himself anti-religious...

’s “In memory of my longest dry”.

Controversies

  • At the second Traverse performance, on 3 January 1963, lead actress Colette O’Neill was accidentally stabbed on stage. The knife, which was real, had caught in the folds of her costume and had gone into her side. The actress went on with the rest of the performance and was seen to at the end by a doctor who had been in the audience and later taken to Hospital. John Martin (co-founder of the Traverse and an early chairman of the board) says that the real knife was used because the space was so small and the audience sat so close to the stage a fake knife would have been detected. Richard Demarco says it was because they had no money and couldn't afford a paper one.

  • Throughout 1965 the Traverse Theatre Club was threatened with police raids due to open homosexual activity in a time when it was illegal.

  • At the 1967 Edinburgh Festival, twenty-two Traverse Theatre shows were performed; including Futz which the Daily Express
    Daily Express
    The Daily Express switched from broadsheet to tabloid in 1977 and was bought by the construction company Trafalgar House in the same year. Its publishing company, Beaverbrook Newspapers, was renamed Express Newspapers...

     described as “Filth on the Fringe” and Jarry’s Ubu in Clains which featured Ma and Pa Ubu as 6’ tall sexual organs.

  • At a meeting in 1971 Artistic Director Michael Rudman persuaded the Edinburgh Corporation to increase the Traverse grant but refused to give any assurances on the ‘decency’ of future productions. ^[5]

Class Act, Young Writers' Group and Scribble

The Traverse’s work with young people encourages playwriting through its flagship education project Class Act, as well as the Young Writers’ Group. Class Act celebrated its 21st year in 2011 and gives school pupils the opportunity to develop their plays with professional playwrights and work with directors and actors to see the finished piece performed on stage at the Traverse. A new project, Scribble, offers an after-school playwriting and theatre skills workshop for 14–17 year-olds. Both programmes are led by professional playwrights.

The Young Writers Group is open to new writers aged 18–25 and runs for cycles of two years, and writers who have graduated from the group to write professionally include Sam Holcroft, Morna Pearson and Catherine Grosvenor
Catherine Grosvenor
Catherine Grosvenor is a Scottish playwright and translator.-Early life:Grosvenor was born in Edinburgh, Scotland in 1978. During her teens she developed a passion for languages, which began with the films of Krzysztof Kieślowski. In 1997 she entered the University of Cambridge, where she studied...

.

External links

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