Mission, Vision and Values

Our Vision

To be an inspiration for artists, audiences, participants and communities, instilling a lifetime of memorable experience that empowers a cultural voice through storytelling.

Our Mission

To nurture and strengthen engagement in trailblazing new writing creativity, to develop shared experience that bring joy, explore the world around us, connect with the lives of others, and spark a vital curiosity in what it is to be human.

Our Values

The Traverse is guided by six central pillars.

These values express the way we will work to deliver our vision. They are the qualities that outline the character of the company for staff, artists with whom we work with, and audiences. We expect the successful candidate to be the embodiment of these values.

Creativity

We celebrate and champion imaginative thinking, and believe in the creative potential of everyone. We seek to discover and nurture fresh voices by providing a platform for breakthrough directors, writers and theatre makers.

Innovation

We embrace change and champion enterprising thinking within the cultural sector. We aim to push boundaries, think out of ‘our’ box, stretch possibility, drive new developments and be bold in our practice.

Inclusivity & Respect

We welcome everyone to be part of the Traverse experience, to hear and value their opinions and inform our decisions. We provide safe spaces to enable artists, theatre- makers and audiences to ask questions and seek answers.

Engagement

We tell stories for, with and by our communities in Edinburgh, Scotland, and globally. Our commitment to identifying talent from across society nurtures self-expression, cultural identity and inspires fulfilling experiences.

Sustainability

We recognise our climate emergency and exercise a duty of care to our planet, the artists we work with, our audiences, partners, and participants across our operations, building and productions.

Collaboration

The Traverse team works in collaboration with one another, and all of our external partners, to create, curate, and deliver the best possible programme and experience for audiences and artists alike.

Inclusivity and Representation

Threaded throughout the Traverse’s work is a commitment to inclusivity and representation. This is rooted in our programme, our organisation and our enduring promise to serve our audiences. We uphold that everyone has a right to see themselves represented on our stages and beyond; we seek to produce work that speaks to and is generated from all the people of Scotland. We are committed to delivering on our responsibility to recalibrate representation imbalances throughout our organisation, our work and talent development opportunities, in terms of class, disability, race, gender, age, and sexuality. We work in regular collaboration with organisations to provide further engagement opportunities to local young people and communities, linked to elements of our programming.

We are proud of our track record but remain aware that there is much more to be achieved in making sure that the Traverse and its work is truly representative of modern Scotland, and the diversity of its citizens’ experiences.

Our Climate Emergency

The Traverse is an active member of the Green Arts Initiative; a proactive green arts network run by Creative Carbon Scotland. We are committed to engaging staff, audiences and stakeholders to embed sustainability at the heart of decision-making and raise awareness of each individual's needed contribution towards achieving a carbon-neutral future. We are constantly working to improve our carbon management plan and policies through an appointed Sustainability Working Group, who utilise our Carbon Management Plan and the Theatre Green Book to inform and evaluate our progress.

If you would like more detail, please find our Environmental Policy and our Carbon Management Plan below.