In 2015, the Citizens Theatre celebrates 70 years in its historic Gorbals home in Glasgow. Today, the theatre announces details of its Spring 2015 season which celebrates the work of some legendary figures in Scottish theatre, while providing a platform for new writing and some of the most exciting touring companies working in the UK today.
Announcing the new season Artistic Director Dominic Hill said:
“This season honours the Citizens’ long-standing tradition of bold and daring work that speaks to Glasgow audiences. As well as welcoming back old friends and showcasing some exciting new talent, I’m particularly looking forward to directing Douglas Maxwell’s new work, set in the Southside of Glasgow and exploring universal themes of parenthood, community and belonging.
That the Citizens Theatre is considered as much a vital asset to Scotland’s cultural life today as we have been throughout our 70 year history in the Gorbals, is testament to the talent and commitment of the many actors, writers, theatre practitioners and participants who have worked with the company over seven decades. But most of all, it’s down to our audiences who over and over again come to enjoy the exciting, accessible and relevant work that we strive to produce.”
I feel very privileged to be working at the Citizens in a landmark year in the theatre’s history and I’m looking forward to celebrating 70 years in our home and the beginning of a whole year of world-class theatre in Glasgow.”
John Byrne and David Hayman, the original creators of The Slab Boys reunite to present a new production for the Citizens which will tour to King’s Theatre, Edinburgh. Glasgow-based writer Douglas Maxwell’s new play brings the streets of the city’s Southside on to the stage in Fever Dream: Southside. Into That Darkness revives a stage adaptation by former Citizens Artistic Director Robert David MacDonald of a harrowing but vital work by Gitta Sereny.
Productions by Headlong, Filter Theatre, David Leddy, Irish theatre company Dead Centre programmed as part of The Arches’ Behaviour Festival, John and Zinnie Harris, as well as two weeks of Glasgow International Comedy Festivalgigs complete the season.
Founded in 1943 by James Bridie, the Citizens moved to its current home on Gorbals Street in September 1945. 2016 will see the beginning of a major re-development of the building, the most comprehensive since it was constructed. Plans cover a range of improvements to the public facilities including renovation of the Victorian auditorium and new bar and cafe facilities as well as new rehearsal, learning and studio spaces that are accessible to all. This project will transform the experiences of audiences, performers and staff and secure the future of one of Scotland’s most iconic buildings.
FILTER’S MACBETH (20 – 31 January)
Filter, one of the most dynamic young theatre companies touring the UK, return to the Citizens Theatre with another entirely fresh approach to Shakespeare following their irreverent and contemporary recreation of Twelfth Night in 2014.
Playful, kaleidoscopic and horrific, Filter’s radical version of Macbeth fuses Shakespeare’s corrosive, psychological thriller of ambition, power, witchcraft and sanity with innovative sound and music to take a strange, funny and scintillating journey to the epicentre of The Scottish Play.
Founded in 2001, Filter are actors Oliver Dimsdale, Ferdy Roberts and musician Tim Phillips who work with a trademark fusion of performance with integrated live music and sound.
THE SLAB BOYS (12 February – 7 March)
Written by playwright and artist John Byrne in 1978 as the first installment of a trilogy, The Slab Boys is a semi-autobiographical play set in the claustrophobic slab room of a Paisley carpet factory in 1957.
Focusing on a day in the life of a bantering pair of adolescent factory workers, Byrne’s realistic depiction of working-class youth culture in post-war industrial Scotland is regarded as a landmark play in Scottish theatre, and was named by the National Library of Scotland as one of the 12 key plays of the last 40 years.
As with the original, this new production designed by Byrne will be directed by actor and director David Hayman. Hayman has a long association with the Citizens Theatre, appearing as a regular member of the company during the 1970s and recently returned to the Citizens’ stage as King Lear in 2012. Hayman will also join the cast as Mr Currie, the gaffer of the slab room.
THE ABSENCE OF WAR (31 March – 4 April)
In the weeks leading up to the UK general election, Headlong return to the Citizens Theatre with a new production of David Hare’s political commentary The Absence of War.
Hare, whose screenplays for The Hours and The Reader have earned him two Academy Award nominations, created The Absence of War in 1993 having been granted access to the inner councils of the Labour Party in the run-up to the 1992 general election. As the UK prepares to elect a Westminster government at a time of huge political uncertainty,
Headlong’s new production of Hare’s witty and stinging drama examines Labour’s recent history and the politics of style over substance.
Headlong are regular visitors to the Citizens Theatre, bringing productions of 1984, The Seagull and co-producing Medea in recent years.
LIPPY (8 – 11 April)
A hit at the 2014 Edinburgh Festival Fringe, Lippy by young Irish theatre company Dead Centre, is a compelling, powerful and haunting piece of interpretative theatre based on real events.
In 2001 in County Kildare, the bodies of four female relatives were discovered at their home, having apparently died in a starvation pact. Lippy asks why we tell stories in the face of tragedy, while leaving explanations as ambiguous and mysterious as the women’s deaths.
Lippy premiered at Dublin Fringe Festival 2013 where it was awarded the Irish Times Theatre Award for Best Production and was widely acknowledged as the most extraordinary piece of theatre to emerge from Ireland in 2013. The play was first presented in the UK in 2014 as part of the Traverse Theatre’s Edinburgh Festival Fringe programme, winning Fringe First, Herald Angel and Total Theatre awards
FEVER DREAM: SOUTHSIDE (23 April – 9 May)
Set in Glasgow’s Southside, the play follows a hallucinatory journey to unravel the tangled lives of a disparate group of recognisable Glaswegian characters. As fantasy and reality become blurred, the community is forced to confront its monsters.
Imagining a colourful, larger-than-life version of the Citizens’ own neighbourhood, Fever Dream: Southside gives an account of the trials of bringing up children today and the tensions, conflicts and community spirit that come from living in a city. Directed by Dominic Hill, Fever Dream: Southside is a surreal comic thriller and major new production by Glasgow-based writer Douglas Maxwell, best known for the award-winning Decky Does A Bronco.
INTO THAT DARKNESS (18 – 29 May)
SS-Obersturmführer Franz Stangl was convicted in 1970 of the deaths of nearly 1 million people in Nazi extermination camps. Historian, biographer and journalist Gitta Sereny interviewed Stangl in prison to understand how an individual rationalises their actions in the face of a crime of such magnitude.
Into That Darkness is a shocking and at times uncomfortable look into the very heart of evil and asks the essential question, how, 70 years after the end of the Second World War, we can prevent atrocities of this scale from happening again.
Sereny’s account was adapted for the stage by Robert David MacDonald, one of the three artistic leaders of the Citizens Theatre from 1971 – 2003 during the period when the Citizens first became famous around the world for innovative productions of classic texts and challenging new works.
Gareth Nicholls, Main Stage Director in Residence, directs his first work on the main stage as part of his two-year residency with Citizens Theatre and Untitled Projects.
THE GARDEN (22 – 24 January)
Husband and wife collaborators composer John Harris and writer Zinnie Harris bring their opera The Garden, based on Zinnie’s Fringe First Award-winning short play of the same name, to the Citizens Theatre Circle Studio in January.
Originally commissioned by the sound festival of new music in Aberdeen, and performed at the Tête à Tête opera festival and NeuKöllner Oper, Berlin, The Garden is a gentle tale of love and hope set in a high rise flat in the last days of the world. A dysfunctional couple discover a strange plant growing through the floor of their kitchen. The more they pull up its roots the more it grows back, its soft insistence reminding them of emotions long-forgotten.
John Harris is Chief Executive and Artistic Co-Director of Red Note Ensemble which specialises in finding new spaces and new ways of performing contemporary music to new audiences. Zinnie Harris’ writing credits include the acclaimed The Wheel, Further than the Furthest Thing, Midwinter, Fall, an adaptation of Miss Julie, which was directed by Dominic Hill at the Citizens in 2014, and the BBC’s Spooks. Amongst other projects, John and Zinnie have previously collaborated on Death of a Scientist, presented as part of Scottish Opera’s Five:15 project.
LONG LIVE THE LITTLE KNIFE (24 – 28 February)
Long Live The Little Knife is a dynamic, absurd and uplifting theatre piece about forgery, castration and blind drunkenness by multi award-winning writer, director and performer David Leddy.
The play follows the fortunes of small-time con artists Liz and Jim and their attempts to raise £250,000 by becoming the world’s greatest counterfeiters in the face of their lack of painting skills. Developed with support from Royal Shakespeare Company and British Museum and having won critical acclaim at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in 2013, the play has played at Brighton and Norfolk and Norwich Festivals and now comes to the Citizens Theatre’s Circle Studio as part of a UK tour.
Filed under: News Tagged: Anniversary, Citizens Theatre, Glasgow, Season 2015
