Traverse Theatre

For this episode, the final in the series, our Co-Artistic Director, Gareth Nicholls walks you through the process of pitching your play to theatres, from research right through to building an ongoing relationship with a company.

Content warning: Contains sounds of explosives and armed combat

Who knows how long more the arse will be dragged out of this? It’s 2048 and the end of the world is nigh. Actually, it’s not that nigh – it’s been going on for flipping ages and everyone’s a bit over it, to be honest. Liam and his long-suffering wife Edel have been up all night trying to get their chaotic affairs into some kind of order, surrounded by dozens of empties from last night’s raging party. They feel rough, they’re on edge, and they’re blasting music to drown out the cataclysmic noise outside as cities start to disappear and the world’s animals go haywire. Liam is hammering furiously at his typewriter, finishing the memoirs that no-one will ever read. Edel is wrangling with her laptop, desperately trying to say a final goodbye to their beloved kids. And they’re both reflecting on past regrets - and trying to put them right in sometimes bloody, messy, outrageous ways. As tempers fray, family secrets are outed and their behaviour becomes ever more questionable, Liam and Edel try to work out what really matters as they career towards a bickering end - while the world literally falls apart around them. John Morton’s brutally comic Denouement - presented as an audio recorded reading - has been nominated for the inaugural Popcorn Award for playwriting. A co-production between the Traverse Theatre and Lyric Theatre Belfast stars real-life couple Ian McElhinney (Game of Thrones, Derry Girls) as Liam and Marie Jones (In the Name of the Father) as Edel, is directed by the Traverse’s award-winning Co-Artistic Director Gareth Nicholls (Crocodile Fever, Ulster American) and features sound design and composition by Michael John McCarthy.

A failed politician and carer are showing Kev, a young lad on academic probation, the in’s and out’s of running a polling station. The splendour of democracy in action! Except no one’s coming to vote, so there isn’t much in the way of action, that is, until they discover a forgotten ballot on the floor. The Breakfast Plays: New Tracks are generously supported by the Noël Coward Foundation and the Turtleton Charitable Trust. The Traverse Theatre is funded by Creative Scotland and The City of Edinburgh Council, with additional support from The Scottish Government Performing Arts Venues Relief Fund.

Debbie Hannan, Co-Artistic Director Designate at the Traverse Theatre speaks to Lorn Macdonald, the BAFTA award-winning actor who is making his directorial debut at Traverse Festival 2020 with Declan - a new short film taking on class, culture and appropriation - based on original text from Traverse smash-hit Mouthpiece by Kieran Hurley.    Last week during an interview with Janice Forsyth, host of BBC Scotland’s The Afternoon Show, Lorn was unfortunately cut off several times due to WIFI problems. In this podcast, Debbie and Lorn pick up the conversation where they left off.