Dogstar Is Back with New Two Part Project Arctic Winds

Two thematically linked new plays from the Scottish Highlands, Nightlands, written and directed by Jack MacGregor and The Fallen Angels of the Moine by George Gunn, directed by Matthew Zajac, make up the project Arctic Winds.

The plays will be rehearsed, produced and filmed for screenings in venues across Scotland and online with part 2 taking place later in 2022 or early 2023 when the productions will tour Scotland in repertoire.

Nightlands is a metaphor for hubris and self-destruction in the face of mighty natural forces – an environmental thriller taking place in the ex-Soviet ghost town of Pyramiden on the Svalbard Archipelago during a ferocious Arctic winter. Set in 1999 in the twilight of a decade of capitalist chaos in Russia and the dawn of the Putin autocracy, the ghost town’s caretakers, an old man and a young woman, play out a generational conflict.

The Fallen Angels of the Moine is a tragicomedy about ordinary people grappling with the epic changes shaking our world as governments and business increasingly compete with nature and the implications this brings for human survival. In the beautiful and delicate bog of the Moine on Scotland’s North Coast, a scientist, a crofter, and a councillor, Cianna, Cait and Robbie, are confronted by military-industrial companies wanting to build a rocket launching site close to the nuclear dump.

Directed by the filmmaker Brian Ross (Circling A Fox, No One But Me, Shetland Lone Star), filming of the productions will take place during February at Universal Hall, Findhorn.

Continuing their relationship with Profilteatern Umeå, Northern Sweden, Dogstar is working in partnership to deliver the Arctic Winds Creative Learning Programme to secondary schools. The programme will explore the themes and content of the plays with a series of drama and discussion-based workshops, assisted by the filmed productions and our Creative Learning Resources Pack, providing avenues for further study. Creative and academic work produced by students will be shared, with an emphasis on exchange between the participating schools in Scotland and Sweden. There is positive expectation that this will lead to the establishment of longer-term relationships between these schools.

Arctic Winds Part 1 is supported by Creative Scotland and the Arctic Winds Creative Learning Programme is supported by the Scottish Government’s Arctic Connections Fund.

Irene Brown