:: Encore Theatre Magazine ::

Encore Theatre Magazine

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::Front Page::

:: Tuesday, January 25, 2005 ::

New Writing Appointments at the National Theatre of Scotland

Good news reaches Encore that the post of Dramaturg for the new National Theatre of Scotland (NToS) will be filled by David Greig. One of the most prolific and internationally-respected of that glorious generation of new Scottish writers who emerged in the mid-1990s, Greig has experience writing for many kinds of audience: children's theatre, live art, new writing, translation, adaptation, monologue and epic, he's worked successfully in them all. This year he has a high-profile revival of Cosmonaut at the Donmar, and new plays Pyrenees and The American Pilot opening with Paines Plough and the RSC, respectively. His version of Ubu comes to the Barbican later in the year.

His internationalism is also welcome, and adds to the sense that the NToS is shaping up to be a very exciting experiment in Scottish Nationalism, one that takes its cue from the broadest horizons, and widest outlook, not narrowly fixated on a few museum relics of the past. In his work you can see the traces of Vinaver and Koltès, Brecht and Barker. He's produced translations of classical Greek tragedy (Sophocles), early surrealism (Jarry), classic naturalism (Strindberg), and contemporary French drama (Gaudé). It is good news for the NToS.



Greig will work well alongside John Tiffany, newly-appointed Associate Director of New Writing, re-establishing, with Vicky Featherstone, the team that worked so well at Paines Plough and has been responsible for the excitement of their new 'This Other England' season (right), a programme of new work that easily outclasses far more heavily-subsidised new writing institutions in the capital and looks set fair to provide one of the theatregoing highlights of 2005.

It looks likely that the NToS will make an initial announcement of its plans in the late Summer, maybe during the Edinburgh Festival, with perhaps some workshops and other development activities in the Autumn, but commissioning fully-realized work for 2006.

:: posted by Theatre Worker at Tuesday, January 25, 2005

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