Gate Theatre’s new season centres on American Lives

The season opens with Grounded (28 August –21 September), a new play by George Brandt which debuts at the Traverse Theatre as part of the Edinburgh Fringe before coming to the Gate.

It provides an insight in the life of a female fighter pilot who, when she begins to settle down and start a family, must make the difficult transition from flying F16 jets to piloting remote-controlled drones over Pakistan.

Next up is Ethan Lipton’s No Place to Go (15 November-14 December), billed as a “heartbreaking look at life since the crash”, which centres on a man has lost his job after his office relocates to Mars.

Originally produced by The Public Theatre in New York, the play, which stars Ethan Lipton & his Orchestra and is directed by Leigh Silverman, has toured America and comes to the Gate for its first major UK run.

Completing the season is Body of an American by Dan O’Brien (16 January-1 February 2014), winner of the Edward M. Kennedy award for Drama as well as the L. Arnold Weissberger Award.

The play looks at the unlikely bond formed between a struggling American playwright and a Canadian photojournalist who travels from Mogadishu after taking a Pulitzer Prize-worthy photo.

Christopher Hayden, artistic director at the Gate, said: “Each [play] takes an acerbic, political and highly entertaining look at the different ways we make a living. For many people, a job is far more than a way of warding off the bailiffs and filling the hours between nine and five. It becomes an integral part of our identity – driving and shaping our whole life. So at a time when financial meltdown has caused unemployment to soar, it feels right to take a closer look at the answers we give when asked that perennial question: so what do you do?”

– Anna Fanelli