It's been a busy year at the Traverse!
TravFest24 this summer was a vintage season of work presenting performances from across the world spanning stories of love and coming together, bringing vast recognition to our work, and that of our valued partner companies, through sell-out performances, award wins aplenty, forty-six 5 star reviews and more than 34,200 tickets sold. An unprecedented proportion of the programme won the coveted Scotsman Fringe First Award, with five of the ten shows on our stages picking up the accolade.
Our co-production with Raw Material Arts and the Citizens Theatre, Douglas Maxwell's So Young directed by Traverse Artistic Director, Gareth Nicholls, was one of the many to be awarded a Fringe First this August. This new play charted growing friendships through times of hardship and was described as "masterful" by WhatsOnStage, resulting in a sell-out run.
TravFest24 also saw the return of Robbie Gordon and Jack Nurse's Same Team, directed by Bryony Shanahan, which had initially premiered in December 2023. This "unmissable" (All Edinburgh Theatre) production was created with the community of women at Street Soccer Scotland through a collaborative process with the creative team, resulting in an authentic and powerful portrayal of their stories on stage.
We were proud to also team up with Dundee Rep and Soho Theatre during the festival to present co-productions, A History Of Paper and My English Persian Kitchen, two shows that quickly sold out and stole the hearts of all that saw them. Both of these shows went on to delight audiences elsewhere as they ventured across the country - and they weren't the only ones! Other TravFest24 hits have been continuing on including Natalie Palamides: WEER which was down in Soho this past November, Cyrano by Virginia Gay which is currently playing the Park Theatre in London, and both In Two Minds by Joanne Ryan and A Knock On the Roof by Khawla Ibraheem are heading to New York in 2025. With more to be announced soon...
This year we have been proud to partner with numerous local, national and international partners to present the very best of new work right here on our stages. Throughout the year we have strengthened our partnerships with other key players within the Scottish theatre industry including the Tron Theatre for Escaped Alone, Dundee Rep for A History Of Paper and No Love Songs, the Lyceum for This Is Memorial Device, Birds of Paradise for Don't. Make. Tea., Pitlochry Festival Theatre for The Brenda Line, Sleeping Warrior for To Save The Sea and Dogstar Theatre for The Tailor Of Inverness, plus many more. Enabling work from across the country to visit Edinburgh is integral to what we do, presenting stories from communities on our doorstep and beyond.
We brought twelve new plays across our Spring and Autumn seasons in partnership with A Play, A Pie & A Pint which saw a mix of new and returning playwrights bringing their work to our stages. A highlight for us was welcoming back Liam Moffat with his play JACK which he developed with us during our Breakthrough Writers project in 2022/23. What more, but we sold a grand total of 4,688 pies - talk about tasty, pastry heaven!
We've also hosted six of Scotland's leading festivals throughout 2024 including Manipulate Festival, TradFest, Edinburgh International Children's Festival, Edinburgh Jazz & Blues Festival, Soundhouse Winter Festival and our very own TravFest!
Our flagship education project, Class Act, has made leaps and bounds this year with an extraordinary six showcases presenting brand new plays written by 255 young people from across Scotland. We took the project to the Highlands, Mull and Dumfries & Galloway as part of Class Act On Tour, as well as running two iterations based in Edinburgh and Class Act Ukraine in Scotland which worked with displaced young people living in Scotland. In total we ran 129 workshops across 18 schools resulting in a grand total of 129 scripts!
Young people's voices also took to the stage for all to hear in Letters To Our Future Government, an opportunity during TravFest24 for them to express their thoughts and feelings on the current state of politics. We were also proud to launch our new strand of work, Immersive Creatives, as well as Positive Stories For Negative Times season 4 which is currently running with young people internationally, providing the opportunity for them to access theatre and creativity for free through youth group settings.
We have worked with a brilliant array of artists this year including Morna Young and Isla Cowan who have been writing new plays with the support of the Traverse Artistic team as well as Fergus Morgan who we collaborated with to create a new podcast series, A History Of Scottish Drama In Six Plays, which charts the story of Scottish drama from the sixteenth century to today featuring insights and memories from playwrights, performers, academics, critics and more - with all episodes now available to listen to on demand!
In recent weeks we were delighted to kick-off our fundraising efforts to improve the Traverse 1 seating bank such that it's more comfortable and accessible for all in years to come. At the start of December we raised more than £20,000 through the Big Give's Christmas Challenge, which places us in good stead to launch our fundraising campaign fully in 2025. See more about supporting our fundraising efforts here.
Which leads us to today, as we reflect on a bustling year of new work we continue to celebrate with the December Sessions, a bespoke programme of work which is centring early career artists and work in progress performances, offering the opportunity for audiences to get a first look at the next big hit and artists the chance to grow and develop further.
Thank you to everyone who made 2024 such a terrific year for the Traverse, with none of it being possible without the audiences, artists, partners and supporters that make us who we are. We wish you all a happy and restful festive season and look forward to welcoming you back in 2025!