Tron Theatre Launches Mayfesto 2019: A Season Of Escapology

Mayfesto is the Tron's mini-festival of edgy and provocative new work and with the world around us seemingly forever on a knife-edge, we present a cavalcade of escape artists. Fierce woman at home and abroad tear apart their societal constraints, lone adventurers strike out in environs new and dreamers carry us down the rabbit hole and off to karaoke.

Eve Nicol and Andy Edwards are our Resident Artists for the festival, with Eve directing a brand-new work for Scotland, The Mistress Contract (1-11 May: Press Night Thu 2 May, 8pm), which sets out to establish clear cut rules of engagement between the sexes in a complicated world of blurred lines and grey areas. Inspired by the memoir of real-life couple, SHE and HE, Abi Morgan's play is bruisingly candid. Andy Edward's work-in-progress piece, Arketype (24 & 25 May, 8pm) is a tragic-comic revisioning of Noah's Ark - a retelling of the famous flood myth against a contemporary world of rising sea levels and men whose boats we don't need.

Amid the current political climate, Johnny McKnight reworks Dario Fo's hilarious 70s farce, Can't Pay? Won't Pay! as Low Pay? Don't Pay! (2-11 May: Press Night Fri 3 May, 7.45pm) where the action moves to Glasgow and a group of women lose patience with low pay and rising prices and take direct action. Gav Prentice, fresh from a residency with the National Theatre of Scotland presents his first play, Turn the Night (10 & 11 May), bringing the sounds of a real night out into the theatre. Apphia Campbell's Woke (15 & 16 May), set against a powerful soundtrack of original music and traditional gospel and blues, focuses on two women, 42 years apart who become involved in the struggle for human rights and Electrolyte (15 -18 May) is WILDCARD's multi-award-winning piece of gig theatre that powerfully explores mental health.

We're delighted to have a piece for younger audiences this Mayfesto, in the shape of Imaginate and Stellar Quines' This Girl Laughs, This Girl Cries, This Girl Does Nothing (17 & 18 May). This new play suitable for ages 7yrs+ is an empowering contemporary fairytale about determination, friendship and the ups and downs of growing older. We've also got the Fringe First-winning Status (24 & 25 May), scratch performance from ThickSkin, AWOL (30 & 31 May), the latest rehearsed reading in Fire Exit's Pyromania programme, Tomorrow, Under Snow (28 May) and a visually sumptuous version of Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland (29 May - 1 June) from Ireland's longest running theatre ensemble Blue Raincoat (Shackleton, The Third Policeman).

In the words of our resident artist Andy Edwards:
'This Mayfesto is a programme of dreams, plots and plans. Chances to escape what you already know, what you already think.you can only escape to come back, but can we return with fresh purpose, open hands, new ideas - ready to go again?'

This year's Mayfesto is a brilliant opportunity to escape and enjoy the very best in new engaged and engaging work that the Tron and our visiting company partners have to offer.