Vicky Featherstone & John Byrne at NTS launch
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Scottish NT Kicks off First Season in 2006, 25 Feb

At a press conference held yesterday in Glasgow, details for the first-ever National Theatre of Scotland (NTS) were unveiled (See News, 29 Jun 2005). Unlike the London-sited National Theatre (for all of Great Britain), the NTS is not building based and has a specific remit to spread its productions far and wide.

In keeping with that, the inaugural programme will launch on 25 February 2005 with nine new productions, all inspired by the theme ‘Home’, opening simultaneously around Scotland. The free, site-specific pieces (still to be announced) will be performed in streets, schools and other non-theatrical venues for up to two weeks each in Shetland, Stornoway, Caithness, Inverness, Aberdeen, Dundee, Edinburgh, Glasgow and the Borders.

The 2006 programme will then continue with a dozen full-fledged productions, a mixture of new stagings as well as reprisals of previously acclaimed pieces now being co-produced with their original companies. They are:

AALST - by Pol Heyvaert, a co-production with Tramway and Victoria of Belgium.

Speaking at yesterday’s launch, Featherstone said: “This is a historic occasion, representing a new beginning for theatre in Scotland which places us firmly on the world stage. We are proud to be continuing the tradition of excellence in Scottish drama, which has had such a profound impact on our culture over the past 50 years and more.” Of the programme itself, she said: “The common thread uniting all the productions is excellence, innovation and entertainment. This is an ambitious programme offering the breadth of experience that epitomises what theatre should be about.”

- by Terri Paddock

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