Back for its twelfth year, the highly successful and incredibly enjoyable A Play, A Pie and A Pint is back at the Traverse so here’s a brief look at the menu:
Heaven
by Simon Stephens, directed by Dominic Hill
Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh: 2 – 6 March
Heaven is about a chance encounter in an airport departure lounge. A young man, heading for Turin, is stopped in his tracks by an elderly man. Is it divine intervention or does it come too late? What is the young man running from? First staged as a rehearsed reading at the Traverse breakfast series at the 2009 Festival Fringe, this full production is directed by Dominic Hill and features actors Sean Scanlan, of BBC series River City and Two Thousand Acres of Sky, and Robbie Jack from BBC sitcom Gary: Tank Commander.
Simon Stephens is an Olivier Award winning writer whose previous plays include Pornography (Birmingham Rep/Traverse Theatre Company) and one of the sell-out hits of the Traverse Festival 2009, Sea Wall (Bush Theatre).
The Shattered Head
by Graham Eatough and Maggie Rose
Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh: 9 – 13 March
Inspired by the life and work of Edinburgh born artist Eduardo Paolozzi, The Shattered Head, explores his groundbreaking artwork and the radical ideas that influenced it, as well as his personal battles with illness towards the end of his life.
Graham Eatough is best known as co-founder of experimental theatre company Suspect Culture for whom he directed 19 shows. Graham has also created work for visual art spaces and two short films. Maggie Rose has worked on various collaborations in Scotland and the UK, including editing monologues I Confess (The Arches). Maggie has also run playwriting and theatre translation workshops all over Europe.
Soup
by Ella Hickson, directed by Natalie Ibu
Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh: 16 – 20 March
Ella’s first play for the A Play, A Pie and A Pint programme, Soup, is an absorbing story about the return of a young man to his comfortable Morningside home and the confusion his presence brings to his insecure film-critic father.
Ella Hickson is the Traverse Theatre’s inaugural Emerging Playwright on Attachment. Her first play, Eight, won a Fringe First Award, The Carol Tambor Best of Edinburgh Award in 2008 and went on to on to play in New York, Florida and London’s West End. Her first full-length play, Precious Little Talent, is being adapted for a film.
Battery Farm
by Gregory Burke, directed by David MacLennan
Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh: 23 – 27 March
Gregory’s new short play, Battery Farm, is a comedy about the future of care for the elderly and infirm, and those who have to look after them, in a society running out of time, space and resources.
Gregory Burke is an award winning playwright His play 2006 Black Watch (National theatre of Scotland, world tour) won widespread critical acclaim and was hailed as a 21st century cultural landmark.
The Garden
Written and directed by Zinnie Harris
Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh: 30 March – 3 April
Zinnie’s short play The Garden premiered at the Traverse breakfast series as a rehearsed reading during the 2009 Festival Fringe. This full production is set in a dystopian future on the brink of climate collapse, and tells the story of a loving couple stranded in a residential block of a research facility.
Click here to see an interview about the season with Artistic Director of the Traverse Dominic Hill