A new audio-digital venture called Sound Stage is launched by the Royal Lyceum Theatre Edinburgh and Pitlochry Festival Theatre, in collaboration with Naked Productions. Designed by theatre makers and leading technologists, the project will run monthly from March to October 2021.
Opening the season in late March will beAngela,the first autobiographical play from Mark Ravenhill, whose previous plays include Shopping and F***ing. Angela examines the way culture high and low had impacted both his mother’s and his family’s lives.
This immersive audio theatre will premiere 8 new plays which The Lyceum and Pitlochry Festival Theatre hope to produce on stage in the future. They feature writers such as Roy Williams (Death of England and Sing Yer Heart Out For The Lads, National Theatre); Jaimini Jethwa (The Last Queen of Scotland, Dundee Rep); Timberlake Wertenbaker (Our Country’s Good, National Theatre and Broadway); Frances Poet (Ghost Light, National Theatre of Scotland); Gary McNair (Locker Room Talk, Traverse) and Lynda Radley (Interference, Edinburgh Fringe and Futureproof, Traverse Theatre and Dundee Rep) and includes the first new play since his Nova Scotia at the Traverse in 2008 from Paisley born writer John Byrne, who is known and loved for The Slab Boys and Tutti Frutti.
Eloise Whitmore, Managing Director and Lead Sound Designer, Naked Productions said “Naked Productions Limited has a long track record of making work with theatres for BBC radio. We loved working with David Greig, Elizabeth Newman, and the team at Pitlochry Festival Theatre on the BBC Radio 3 debut of David’s new play Adventures with Painted People in 2020. From that collaboration, Sound Stage was born. Working with our colleagues to design and build a new digital performance space for theatre audiences to access PFT and The Lyceum’s work is an exciting new departure for audio too. We are delighted to be working with Sound Stage on so many fantastic dramas, celebrating new writing in the UK, in a dynamic new fusion of theatre and audio skills. We are proud to be collaborating with our theatre colleagues to make great audio drama, delivering for the national audience, to the highest standards in these difficult times”
Sound Stage, that has been made possible through support from Creative Scotland and Resilience Funding from the Scottish Government, will operate an online booking system from Sunday 14th February for all productions that allows audiences to book ahead for a performance date and time of their choice.
Irene Brown
Radio Summerhall Arts 