LOCKER ROOM TALK Returns for Traverse Festival 2017

The Traverse Theatre is thrilled to announce the World Premiere of Locker Room Talk by award-winning playwright and Traverse Associate Artist Gary McNair during Traverse Festival 2017. Following its sell-out Work in Progress rapid response performances in February, the show returns for a one day, two performance event on Monday 21 August. The cast for these performances will be Jamie Marie Leary, Rachael Spence, Joanna Tope and Maureen Carr.

Directed by Traverse Artistic Director Orla O'Loughlin, Locker Room Talk is a provocative piece of event theatre. Inspired by Donald Trump's leaked sexually aggressive comments, the show is a confronting exploration of the phenomenon the then presidential candidate later dismissed as 'locker room banter'.

McNair uses these comments as a creative catalyst, provoking and gathering hundreds of conversations with men and boys about women. These recordings are relayed via headphones and performed verbatim by a cast of women. A vital part of each performance is a post-show conversation, inviting the audience to examine the issues raised: Just how prevalent is this misogynistic language? And how much ownership of the current situation do we need to take before seeing change?

Due to the overwhelming audience response and industry interest generated in February, Locker Room Talk has been invited to play as a Work in Progress at the Abbey Theatre, Dublin, 18-20 May (with an Irish cast) and Latitude Festival, 15 July ahead of its performances at Traverse Festival 2017. It will be the first time the Traverse has shown work at either venue.

Tickets for all Locker Room Talk performances are on sale now.

Gary McNair, Writer, says:

"The Traverse is my favourite theatre in the world and I'm particularly thrilled to give Locker Room Talk its Festival premiere there. The work feels important and urgent and I can't wait to share it with the international audience that the Traverse attracts in August. It's also brilliant to be able to get another couple of chances to develop aspects of the piece before August. First, it's an honour to be invited to the National Theatre of Ireland and join in the amazing work that's going on there, and then on to arguably the coolest music festival in the UK - Latitude Festival. Having performed there in 2011 I've been really keen to get back since, so I'm delighted that we can be there."

Orla O'Loughlin, Artistic Director, Traverse Theatre says:

"Though initially shown as a 'rapid response' piece, events both local and international prove that Locker Room Talk has only grown in agency: as an act of resistance, a means of provocation and a rallying call to arms. I am especially proud that Locker Room Talk has been invited to both the Abbey Theatre and Latitude Festival ahead of its World Premiere in August. Both are organisations whose fearless commitment to championing provocative contemporary theatre absolutely chimes with that of the Traverse. It is heartening to know that the work of the Traverse continues to have such powerful resonance at home and further afield."

LISTINGS:

Traverse Theatre

Monday 21 August 2017, 2:45pm and 7pm (both Press Performances)

Box Office: 0131 228 1404 / online here

Abbey Theatre, Dublin, 18-20 May 2017 (tickets here)

Latitude Festival, Henham Park, 15 July 2017 (tickets here)

WRITER BIOGRAPHY, Gary McNair

Gary McNair is a playwright, director and performer based in Glasgow. His aim is to make work that will entertain and challenge audiences in equal measures.

After graduating with first class honours in Contemporary Theatre Practice from the RSAMD (now RCS) in 2007 he has produced work with, and for, many of Scotland's major theatre companies and his work has been translated into several languages and performed around the world.

His most recent work includes A Gambler's Guide to Dying, which enjoyed a successful run at the Traverse Theatre during the 2015 Edinburgh Festival, a subsequent world tour and was part of the Adelaide Festival in 2016. The show received huge critical acclaim, was the recipient of a Fringe First and the Holden Street Theatres' award and was featured in the BBC's best solo shows of the Fringe.

Gary's other recent writing credits include Let The Bitch Burn (RCS), After the Cuts (Oran Mor), Fess Up (Company of Angels), Donald Robertson is Not a Stand-Up Comedian (Traverse/NTS) and How to Choose and What You Don't Know (Trigger).

DIRECTOR BIOGRAPHY, Orla O'Loughlin

Orla is Artistic Director of the Traverse Theatre. Prior to taking up post at the Traverse, she was Artistic Director of Pentabus Theatre and International Associate at The Royal Court Theatre.

Directing work for the Traverse includes: Girl in the Machine, Grain in the Blood, Tracks of the Winter Bear, Milk (Tom Erhardt Award), The Scotsman Fringe First and Scottish Arts Club Theatre award-winning Swallow, The Scotsman Fringe First award-winning Spoiling, The Scotsman Fringe First, Herald Angel and CATS award-winning Ciara, The Devil Masters, Clean, Fifty Plays for Edinburgh, The Arthur Conan Doyle Appreciation Society, the Herald Angel award-winning Dream Plays (Scenes From A Play I'll Never Write) and the CATS nominated A Respectable Widow Takes to Vulgarity and The Artist Man and the Mother Woman.

Other directing work includes: For Once (Hampstead Theatre, National Tour); Kebab (Dublin International Festival/Royal Court Theatre); How Much is your Iron? (Young Vic); The Hound of the Baskervilles (West Yorkshire Playhouse/National Tour/West End); Tales of the Country, Origins (Pleasance/Theatre Severn); Relatively Speaking, Blithe Spirit, Black Comedy (Watermill Theatre); Small Talk: Big Picture (BBC World Service/ICA/Royal Court Theatre); A Dulditch Angel (National Tour) and The Fire Raisers, sob stories, Refrain (BAC).

Orla is a former recipient of the James Menzies Kitchin Award and the Carlton Bursary at the Donmar Warehouse. She was also listed in the Observer as one of the top 50 cultural leaders in the UK.

Her upcoming projects include Locker Room Talk by Gary McNair which will play at the Abbey Theatre, Dublin in May and the Traverse Festival in August, and the world premiere of Meet Me at Dawn by Zinnie Harris which will premiere at the Traverse as part of the Edinburgh International Festival in August.

More information about the Traverse: here.

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