Tron Theatre Announces Autumn/Winter Season 2024

Tron Theatre continues to deliver some of the most inspirational, innovative and exciting theatre being staged in Scotland at the moment - with our Spring production of Escaped Alone by Caryl Churchill, directed by Joanna Bowman picking up three awards at the annual Critics' Awards for Theatre Scotland last month. As our new Artistic Director, Jemima Levick settles into post, and we await business critical news on future funding from Creative Scotland, we bring together an eclectic season of work for Autumn-Winter 2024.

We are delighted to support Danny Krass (who created the six Earwig podcasts for us during lockdown) on another immersive audio drama project, The Loved One - which will be available to stream from 2 September. With a series concept by Oliver Emanuel and directed by Lu Kemp, The Loved One sees Pink (Sharon Duncan-Brewster), a private investigator from LA come to Glasgow in search of her missing daughter. With reality and fiction blurring and insomnia threatening to distort every clue, will Pink hold onto her sanity long enough to find Billie? Six Scottish writers, led by Oliver, who wrote the first and last episodes, alongside Isla Cowan, James Ley, Linda Radley, Owen Whitelaw and Sara Shaarawi, unravel the truth across seven brilliant, wild sound-tales.

Pantomime this year will be refresh of one of Johnny McKnight's early works for Tron Theatre Company - this time from 2013, Peter Panto and the Incredible Stinkerbell (22 Nov 2024 - 5 Jan 2025, Press Performance: Tues 26 November, 7pm).  With McKnight himself donning the diaphanous wings of Stinkerbell, and a stellar supporting cast, we venture into the rambunctious and radgey Riverland - where Peter Pan and West End Wendy face vengeful crocodiles with teeth sharper than Gordon Ramsey's tongue; mermaids who sell chips with salt 'n' sauce (the indignity) and come face to face in a battle to the death against the evil Captain New Look and bumbling side kick Chai Tea in a bid to get Wendy back to her beloved Byres Road.

In the main auditorium, the visiting programme opens with Dundee Rep Theatre and Traverse Theatre's A History of Paper (10-14 Sept) - Oliver Emanuel and Gareth Williams musical love story about a man and a woman and the little bits of paper that make up their life. Part of the 2024 Made in Scotland Showcase, this piece, directed by Andrew Panton, comes to us fresh from the Fringe.  This will be followed by the world premiere of To Save The Sea (25-28 Sept, Press Performance: Thu 26 Sept, 7.30pm), from Sleeping Warrior Theatre Company, Andy McGregor and Isla Cowan's epic adventure story about standing up for what you believe in, inspired by a real-life 1995 protest by Greenpeace activists.

In October, we welcome the return of Raw Material and Vanishing Point with Ramesh Meyyappan's beautiful, tender and visually creative Love Beyond (3-5 Oct) about a man whose dementia leaves him in a unique world where he must confront the only thing that remains - himself; and we close the main auditorium visiting programme with another Dundee Rep Theatre production, No Love Songs (24-26 Oct), the critically acclaimed musical exploring the emotions of young parenthood based on the real-life experiences of Kyle Falconer (The View) and his partner Laura Wilde.

In the Changing House studio space, the season opens with Up (Sat 14 Sept, 2pm & 7pm), Visible Fictions' new fantasy table-top object theatre piece exploring themes of luck and choice, fate and coincidence; Ben Harrison and David Paul Jones' Last Night I Dreamt That Somebody Loved Me (Thu 19- Sat 21 Sept), a re-interpretation of classic 80s songs interwoven with stories of that wonderful, troubled exhilarating and oddly innocent decade; rather aptly in the year of a general election, Hacks present After Party (Fri 4 & Sat 5 Oct), an autobiographical performance of personal and political comedowns growing up in the aftermath of New Labour; and we close the studio programme on-site with The Thelmas and Pleasance acclaimed production Santi & Naz (Wed 16 & Thu 17 Oct), exploring female friendship, coming-of-age and coming out in pre-partition India.  We are also supporting a touring fund project from Shaper/Caper off-site at the Polo Lounge in Wilson Street.  Small Town Boys (Tue 8 - Sun 13 Oct), where Thomas Small choreographs a company of professional dancers and community performers is the Scottish premiere of a work that delves into the joy and tragedy of the 80's club scene and the AIDS crisis.

With our new Artistic Director now in situe, Tron CREATIVE is undertaking a period of reflection and redevelopment and this season will take stock of work done to date - revisiting programme strands to ensure we continue to deliver opportunities and points of access for the creative community. The LabWeek WINTER residency will open for applications in October, and we're delighted to present a reading of new work from our SSP@50 Fellow, May Sumbwanyambe, entitled James McCune Smith (9 Oct). Created with support from the Scottish Society of Playwrights' SSP@50 Fellowship, May's work tells the true story of McCune Smith, the first known African-American to receive a medical degree.  Denied entry to American-based schools because of his race, he was welcomed at the University of Glasgow, going on to become a doctor, intellectual, abolitionist and social justice advocate.

In a similar vein, Tron Participation will also scale back work this Autumn to undertake a review and refresh, ahead of the launch of Jemima's brand new vision for the theatre in 2025. There will still be opportunities to take part in building-based workshops for 14 to 17 year olds, as well as activities for those 18 years old and over linked to the programme of visiting work and we'll be piloting a community-based project and an exciting schools project in December.

Says Jemima of the new season:
'This theatre has so much magic, vitality and possibility, it's like no other theatre in Scotland and I'm buzzing to explore what a new future for the Tron might look like.  Despite everything going on in the sector at the moment, we continue to see a plethora of artists formulating brilliant ideas and stories that don't shy away from asking difficult questions or that make us laugh, cry and think, so it felt only right to invite some of those artists and their exciting work into the building this autumn, while we wait on news about our funding.'

The Autumn-Winter 2024 season will go on-sale on Tuesday 23 July at 11am with all performances available to book online (http://www.tron.co.uk), by telephone on 0141 552 4267 or in person at our Box Office.  

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