Booking Tickets
In person
10 Cambridge Street,
Edinburgh EH1 2ED
By phone
0131 228 1404
Online
Opening Times
Monday to Saturday: 10am-6pm (or until performance start time)
Group Bookings
To arrange a group booking, please email
Groups receive one complimentary ticket for every 10 tickets bought (i.e. 11th ticket free). Valid on concessions, subject to availability.
School Bookings
To arrange a school booking or for more information, please email
Refunds
Tickets can only be refunded in the event of a show cancellation or change to performance date and time.
Latecomers
Latecomers may not be admitted. Please arrive in plenty of time for the start of the performance.
Ticket Prices & Fees
The Traverse Theatre does not charge a booking or transaction fee. Tickets can be collected free of charge from the box office, or can be posted at a cost of £1 per booking transaction.
Concession Tickets
Exclusions or conditions may apply to all discounts. Please check with the Box Office when booking.
Standard Concessions are available for:
- Students
- Under 18s
- Over 60s
- People with disabilities
- YoungScot Cardholders
- Members of Entertainment Unions
Other Concessions:
- Unemployed (Proof of current Job SeekersAllowance or Employment SupportAllowance must be shown)
- Schools (See School Bookings)
@traversetheatre
0131 228 1404
Welcome to the Traverse Spring programme 2015
The Traverse is committed to supporting writing talent and to producing world-class new plays on both national and international stages.
Now in our 52nd year, we continue to provide a place in which writers and theatre practitioners can experiment, collaborate and create new work. This Spring you’ll see this reflected in our programme of thrilling performances.
Always a platform for new talent, our annual Class Act production kicks off our season, as we challenge senior students from across Edinburgh to create brand new stories for our Traverse stage.
We also look forward to another season of our A Play, A Pie and A Pint series in March, encompassing the best of Ukrainian, Welsh, English and Scottish writing talent. We are especially delighted that three of these plays are Traverse commissions from former Traverse Fifty writers.
Our flagship Spring production, Right Now, is a timely example of the Traverse’s international reach and outlook. Written by Québécois writer Catherine-Anne Toupin, it had its English language premiere with us here in November 2014, as part of our ongoing cultural exchange with our sister venue, Théâtre La Licorne in Montréal. Buoyed by a hugely popular audience response, we now bring a full production to the stage. Join us for a strange and surprising new comedy that will hold you spellbound from beginning to end.
As ever, our visiting companies bring a vibrant selection of work, and we welcome both returning Fringe Festival favourites and those new to the Traverse stages. In keeping with our year-long festival ethos, manipulateFestival will brighten our days in February, while younger fans will burst through the doors for the Imaginate Festival in May.
These are just a few of the events you can look forward to this season. Please dip into the brochure to discover the many worlds to be found on our stages. We hope you’ll discover a story that will resonate with you long after you’ve left the building. And, of course, don’t miss out on the many opportunities to participate in one of our writing groups, if you fancy trying your hand at writing your own play.
The Traverse continues to be an incomparable national asset – one to be cherished and enjoyed. It belongs to us all. Come and be a part of our continuing journey.
Executive Producer Linda Crooks and Artistic Director Orla O'Loughlin.
GET INVOLVED
We want to hear from you!
Share your thoughts on our work; tweet us your reviews or like us on
Facebook. Watch our trailers on YouTube or listen to our exclusive TravCasts on Soundcloud. Keep up-to-date with the latest Traverse news and announcements by signing up to our enewsletter. Our website also offers full show information, booking details, photo galleries, reviews and videos.
Workshops and Post-Show Discussions Our series of workshops and post-show discussions provide an ideal opportunity to dig a little deeper into the productions on stage and enhance your experience.
Workshops
Jekyll & Hyde Fri 20 Mar Matinée
12.30 – 1.30pm (Ticket for workshop & show £6)
Before the show explore the story and the sounds created by Lung Ha’s performers and Drake Music Scotland’s musicians; perform a short scene and play music using accessible music technologies. The workshop is targeted toward people with a learning disability.
For more information contact
Mermaid
Check our website for confirmed date
Shared Experience are looking for young women aged 14-20 years old to create a mythic chorus for Mermaid. To get involved, contact
Post-Show Discussions
Sanitise Fri 20 Feb
Beating McEnroe Thu 12 Mar
Pioneer Thu 2 Apr
Blood Wedding Wed 8 Apr
Cuckooed Thu 16 Apr
The Straw Chair Thu 23 Apr
Mermaid Wed 6 May
Right Now Thu 7 May
Rites Women's Only Event Wed 27 May
Rites Thu 28 May
TRAVERSE THEATRE COMPANY
Class Act
21 – 22 January
This season, Traverse 1 hosts two evenings of exciting new work from the next generation of Traverse playwrights – the Class Act 2015 graduates.
Class Act is the Traverse Theatre’s flagship schools project, challenging senior pupils from schools across Edinburgh to become playwrights; creating brand new scripts to be premiered on the Traverse stage.
This year acclaimed professional playwrights – John McCann, Nicola McCartney, Morna Pearson, Gerda Stevenson and AJ Taudevin - have been working with pupils from Firrhill High School, Gracemount High School, Holyrood R.C High School, Portobello High School and St Thomas of Aquin’s High School.
Begin the spring season with an array of fresh new talent.
@traversetheatre
Dates & Times
Wed 21 – Thu 22 Jan, 7.30pm
Tickets
Full Price £6
Standard Concessions £4
T1 14+
SCOTTISH DANCE THEATRE
YAMA
18 February
Choreographer Damien Jalet
Set Design Jim Hodges
Music Winter Family (Rosenthal/Klaine)
Following its debut last year as one half of a double-bill,Damien Jalet’s critically acclaimed YAMA returns to the Traverse in its new, exciting full length form.
Inspired by the pagan and animist rituals practised among the mountains of Tohoku in Japan, YAMA explores the mythology of these summits in an awe-inspiring piece that gathers energy as it grows. Jalet’s hypnotic choreography has earned him numerous accolades, including the Laurence Olivier Award for Babel.
/ @SDTDance
Dates & Times
Wed 18 Feb, 8pm
Tickets
Full Price £16
Standard Concessions £13
Other Concessions £8
Ticket Offer
Buy your tickets for both shows and enjoy great savings. Both shows for £25 / £15 Concessions.
Note: Contains instances of semi-nudity
T1 12+
“Mesmerising brilliance."***** The List
SCOTTISH DANCE THEATRE
Double Bill:
Winter, Again / Dreamers
19 February
Scottish Dance Theatre presents two contrasting and bold new works by internationally acclaimed choreographers Jo Strømgren and Anton Lachky.
Winter, Again
Choreographer Jo Strømgren
Radical Norwegian choreographer Jo Strømgren’s beautifully poised dance tells the story of a community struggling to hide its dark misdemeanours beneath winter’s snowy blanket. Punctuated with the devastatingly fragile songs of Schubert’s Winterreise, let Scottish Dance Theatre take you on a journey through the cycle of the coldest, darkest season.
Dreamers
Choreographer Anton Lachky
Dreamers are people who dare to dream while not being asleep. Anton Lachky enjoys making sense from nonsense and exploring links between reality and surrealism. His work is developed around the unique physicality of the performers, highlighting the beauty and power of the moving body and intertwining it with his quirky and humorous style.
@SDTDance
Dates & Times
Thu 19 Feb, 8pm
Tickets
Full Price £16
Standard Concessions £13
Other Concessions £8
Ticket Offer
Buy your tickets for both shows and enjoy great savings.
Both shows for £25 / £15 Concessions.
T1 12+
On Winter, Again
****The Herald ****The Scotsman ****The Sunday Times
MELANIE JORDAN & CAITLIN SKINNER
Sanitise
20 – 21 February
Director Caitlin Skinner
Performer Melanie Jordan
One woman alone in her bathroom; a private sanctuary and a somewhat unusual venue for self-expression. But there is something dark living beneath the bath and, as her inner and outer lives are revealed, we discover a woman torn between fantasy and fear.
Fringe First Award winner, Sanitise is a playful and original production without words combining physical theatre, dance, music and multimedia to explore our mostintimate insecurities and fantasies. What is clean and what is dirty?
Winner of a 2014 Scotsman Fringe First Award and an Arches Brick Award nominee.
Post-show Discussion Fri 20 February
/ @Sanitiseplay
Dates & Times
Fri 20 – Sat 21 Feb, 8pm
Tickets
Full Price £16
Standard Concessions £13
Other Concessions £8
T2 14+
"Sharp, witty and vivid.” **** The Scotsman
"Smart, accomplished physical theatre." ***** All Edinburgh Theatre
DRYWRITE AND SOHO THEATRE
Fleabag
By Phoebe Waller-Bridge
26 – 28 February
Director Vicky Jones
Cast Maddie Rice
“Today I am going to be a new person. No more slutty pizzas.
No more porny wanks. Lots more lovely threesomes. Go!”
Welcome to the world of Fleabag where the rules have gone out the window. She’s angry, pervy, cruel but undeniably honest. And you can’t help but love an honest person. Let her show you the world through her eyes as we follow her quest for rediscovery over a frenzied 48 hours.
It may not be pretty but it's funny as hell. The Fleabag bites back. A rip-roaring account of some sort of a female living her sort of life.
/ @DryWrite / @sohotheatre / #fleabag
Dates & Times
Thu 26 – Sat 28 Feb, 8pm
Tickets
Full Price £16
Standard Concessions £13
Other Concessions £8
Note : Contains adult themes, strong language and sexual content (no nudity)
T2 18+
“Sucker punch funny… I’ve never seen a play quite like it.”
***** The Scotsman
“Devastatingly good.” ****The Times
KAM-RI DANCE THEATRE
The Typist
By Kerieva McCormick
27 – 28 February
Co-Directors Kerieva McCormick & Ben Harrison
Choreographer Javier Latorre
Video Design Tim Reid
Lighting Design Colin Grenfell
Cast & Musicians Raúl Prieto, Kerieva McCormick, Pablo Suárez, Andrew Robinson, Mario Caribe, Olayo Jiménez
Narrator Alexei Sayle
A flamenco dance theatre production with film and live music.
In 1937, during the Spanish Civil War, 4,000 children – known as 'Los Niños de la Guerra' - were evacuated to the UK. This story follows one of their number. Twenty years later, Esperanza is a typist in post-war Britain, embarking upon a dangerous journey back to her past and Franco’s Spain.
Inspired by interviews with several of the ‘Niños’, now in their nineties, The Typist is an exhilarating story of courage, passion and identity. Co-directed by Kerieva McCormick and Ben Harrison (Grid Iron) and narrated by Alexei Sayle, it features choreography by flamenco Gran Maestro Javier Latorre, breathtaking special effects, and a specially commissioned score. The latter will be performed by a live band including legendary jazz pianist Pablo Suarez and Scottish virtuoso flamenco guitarist Andrew Robinson.
Dates & Times
Fri 27 – Sat 28 Feb, 7.30pm
Tickets
Full Price £16
Standard Concessions £13
Other Concessions £8
T1 U
“Kerieva McCormick is a talent to be reckoned with. Her new dance theatre work The Typist soars." **** The Scotsman
LAKIN MCCARTHY PRESENTS
Susan Calman – Lady Like
4 March
Award-winning comedian Susan Calman is currently on her first UK tour.
If you’ve seen her before, Lady Like will be a reassuring couple of hours spent with the woman her neighbours call ‘the madcat lady’. If you don’t know who she is, Lady Like will, at the very least, make you feel better about your own life. This is a show about being older, wiser and liking yourself whatever anyone else might say.
You might have seen or heard Susan on The News Quiz, Calman is Convicted (Best Radio Comedy 2013 – Writers GuildAward), QI, HIGNFY, Fresh Meat and Would I Lie To You.
@SusanCalman
Dates & Times
Wed 4 Mar, 7.30pm
Tickets
Full Price £16
Standard Concessions £13
T1 16+
“Confident, compact… cracking.” ****Evening Standard
“Feisty Scot Calman is one of the best female comics to ever come out of the land of bagpipes and haggis. She’ll make you chuckle your pants off.” Time Out
LYCEUM YOUTH THEATRE
Hacktivists
By Ben Ockrent
5 – 7 March
Director Christie O’Carroll
Designer Paul Rodger
New girl Beth is introduced to the Hackerspace, a place of freedom and integrity (which also happens to be a disused portacabin, transformed into an IT suite manned by a group of nerdy hacker friends). Although the group call themselves hackers their activities are entirely harmless... until, that is, their self-proclaimed leader is humiliated by the school bully, and Beth inspires the group to use technology to avenge him!
Hacktivists is a dark comedy that explores the delicate balance between freedom of information and invasion of privacy.
@lyceumtheatre
Curtain Raisers: Scribble
Before each performance of Hacktivists, members of the Lyceum Youth Theatre will be showcasing rehearsed readings of brand new work by the Traverse Theatre Scribble group.
LYT returns to the Traverse for the 5th year with its contribution to National Theatre Connections 2015.
Dates & Times
Thu 5 – Sat 7 Mar, 7pm
Sat 7 Mar, 2.30pm
Tickets
Full Price £12 for the Double Bill (with Scribble)
T2 PG
Note: Contains some strong language
LYT Bursary places supported by The Morton Charitable Trust, The Stevenston Charitable Trust and The Turtleton Charitable Trust
T2 PG
FIRE EXIT
Long Live The Little Knife
By David Leddy
7 March
Writer and Director David Leddy
Cast Neil McCormack, Wendy Seager
Stage Manager G McDermott
Designer Ali Maclaurin
Lighting Designer Nich Smith
Written and directed by a ‘theatrical maverick’ (Sunday Times), David Leddy's Long Live The Little Knife is a dynamic, absurd and uplifting theatre piece about forgery, castration and blind drunkenness.
Liz and Jim are small-time con artists who need £250,000 to buy their way out of a turf war. Their mission is to be the greatest art forgers in the world. There’s only one problem. They can’t paint...
/ @FireExitCo
Dates & Times
Sat 7 Mar, 7.30pm
Tickets
Full Price £16
Standard Concessions £13
Other Concessions £8
Note: Contains strong language. Originally developed with support from Royal Shakespeare Company and British Museum.
T1 16+
“Dazzling… wild… hugely enjoyable.” ****The Guardian
“Fantastic … brilliant … coup de théâtre." ****The Scotsman
JAMIE WOOD
Beating McEnroe
By Jamie Wood
12 – 14 March
Co-Directors Wendy Hubbard, Ellie Griffiths & Jamie Wood
Sound Designer Dominic Kennedy
Cast Jamie Wood
1980. Wimbledon. Bjorn Borg and John McEnroe face each other across the net: the self-controlled champion and the impassioned upstart. An epic rivalry comes to a head. A six-year-old boy watches and learns.
Bjorn Borg epitomised tennis cool. He was everything Jamie and his brother wanted to be. Then John McEnroe came along and Jamie was beaten, along with his boyhood hero. Thirty years of torment and self-questioning later, Jamie is ready to face his greatest opponent in this hilarious solo show.
Post-show Discussion Thu 12 March
@Jamieofthewood
Dates & Times
Thu 12 – Sat 14 Mar, 8pm
Tickets
Full Price £16
Standard Concessions £13
Other Concessions £8
Note: Involves audience interaction
Supported by Arts Council England, Pilot and Camden Peoples Theatre
T2 12+
“Beating McEnroe is as funny as the best comedy, supertheatrical,
and entirely unlike anything else.” The Guardian
“Spending an hour in the company of his imagination is dizzying… always unpredictable, utterly hilarious and often giddily uplifting…” Exeunt Magazine
LUNG HA’S THEATRE COMPANY AND DRAKE MUSIC SCOTLAND
The Strange Case of Jekyll & Hyde
By Morna Pearson
Inspired by RL Stevenson
19 – 21 March
Director Caitlin Skinner
Composer / Drake Associate Musician Greg Sinclair
Designer Becky Minton Lighting Designer Simon Hayes
Edinburgh, 1886; a time of murky, narrow streets, scientific innovation and seemingly endless haars - and where the city’s Old and New Towns are separated by more than just the North Bridge. In the New Town we meet the Jekyll family. Dr Jekyll longs for just one of his experiments to go right. Daughter Miriam longs to attend University. Son William is never far from his needlework, and wife Jane never far from the bottle. While seemingly a world away in the Old Town, a murky figure known as Hyde roams the moonlit streets.
Featuring a cast of actors and musicians of over twenty, Lung Ha's Theatre Company and Drake Music Scotland bring to life Morna Pearson’s dramatic re-working of the classic story, by Robert Louis Stevenson.
Drake Music Scotland continues to support and nurture young children and adults with disabilities; showing disability is no barrier to making music. Lung Ha’s Theatre Company aims to be a leading theatre company for people with learning disabilities, in Scotland and internationally.
Preview
Thu 19 Mar, 7.30pm
Preview Tickets
Full Price £12
Concessions £7
Dates & Times
Fri 20 – Sat 21 Mar, 7.30pm
Matinée on Fri 20 Mar, 2.30pm
Tickets
Full Price £16
Standard Concessions £13
Other Concessions £8
T1 12+
ACCESS: CAP Performance 20 Mar Matinée
Workshop
Join the Lung Ha's team for a workshop before the Friday 20 March matinée. Full details on our Get Involved page.
Ticket Offer: Workshop and performance £6.
A PLAY, A PIE AND A PINT PRESENTED BY TRAVERSE THEATRE
“The best value cultural event in the country.” The Sunday Times
A Play, A Pie and A Pint £12 Tickets
17 March – 18 April