27 November 2024

ANNOUNCING JEMIMA LEVICK’S INAUGURAL SEASON AS TRON THEATRE ARTISTIC DIRECTOR

Tron Theatre is delighted today to announce Artistic Director Jemima Levick’s inaugural season for 2025 – an artistic programme that champions bold and contemporary work; placing the Tron at the forefront of creating and presenting high quality and ambitious theatre that represents and reflects the diversity of the world, both locally and globally. Jemima’s artistic vision is underpinned by four strands – transformation – reimagining and reinvigorating classic plays to ensure they speak to the here and now; rediscovery – breathing new life into the Scottish canon; originality – commissioning the very best writers and artists to create new plays and pantomimes; and national pride – connecting and presenting work to our local communities, working with national partners and co-producers to serve the touring circuit, thus extending the Tron Theatre’s reach and touching more lives. 

Each of the Tron Theatre Company productions for 2025 will allude to how a sense of place and self are defined by feelings of home and belonging – the theme for the season – whether that’s an immigrant seeking the right to remain, an obsession with a flag or finding your way home after an adventure down a rabbit hole.  First up in 2025 will be Jemima’s directorial debut – a re-visioning of Arthur Miller’s A View From The Bridge (21 Feb – 15 Mar 2025, Press Performance: Tues 25 Feb, 7.30pm). Originally produced in 1955 and not staged in Scotland for over ten years, the story in this classic drama about deep-rooted and dangerously illicit desire pivots on questions of citizenship, immigration and the right to remain and has a strong resonance with what’s happening in both Glasgow and the world now.

This will be followed by the Studio3 season, presenting new work from some of the most exciting playwriting voices working in Scotland today. The three plays forming this mini-rep season were all first commissioned by A Play, A Pie & A Pint and will now get a Changing House Studio revival.  Each play, the thriller Alright Sunshine by Isla Cowan, directed by Debbie Hannan; absurdist comedy Fleg by Meghan Tyler, directed by Dominic Hill in association with the Citizens Theatre; and rom-com Fruitcake by Frances Poet, directed by Jemima Levick will be presented as stand-alone performances; and we will host event days where all three shows will be performed across a single afternoon (Wednesdays and Saturdays) for the theatre die-hards, with special food offers available from our café-bar to keep audiences sustained throughout the day (24 Apr – 17 May 2025, Press Performance: Wed 30 May, 2pm).  As part of Tron Theatre’s commitment to connecting with communities in our locale to reach new audiences across the city, Fruitcake will also embark on a 6-venue tour in partnership with Glasgow Life from 22-31 May, visiting venues in Barlanark, Barrowfield, Whiteinch, Barmulloch, Knightswood and a special performance at the Lodging House Mission.

The Tron Theatre Company summer production will be Douglas Maxwell’s Man’s Best Friend (19 Jun – 12 July 2025, Press Performance: Tue 24 Jun, 7.30pm).  Undisputedly one of Scotland’s leading playwrights, Jemima first encountered a Douglas Maxwell play, Our Bad Magnet at the Tron in the year 2000 as a drama student, and it felt only fitting that she should direct one of his plays in her first season. Jordan Young will play Ronnie in the one-man show that has a universality to it – a heart that speaks to dog lovers, to people living with loneliness and loss and to anyone who needs to settle into where they belong. Man’s Best Friend will then embark on a national tour in the Autumn of 2025, visiting cities and towns across Scotland including Aberdeen, Ayr, Dundee, Edinburgh, Greenock and Inverness.

In the autumn, Tron Theatre Company and Traverse Theatre Company will co-produce Uma Nada-Rajah’s Black Hole Sign (19 Sept – 4 Oct 2025, Press Performance: Tue 23 Sept, 7.30pm) in association with National Theatre of Scotland.  Set in a crumbling and understaffed A&E department in Glasgow, Black Hole Sign takes a razor-sharp scalpel to the absurdities, tragedies and hilarity within one of our most beloved but besieged institutions, the NHS. Originally commissioned by the Traverse Theatre and directed by Gareth Nicholls, Black Hole Sign will move to the Traverse Theatre for a two-week run (8-17 October) following its world premiere and run on the Tron’s main stage.

The 2025 pantomime will be another refresh of one of Johnny McKnight’s early works – this time from 2017, Gallus in Weegieland (22 Nov 2025 – 4 Jan 2026, Press Performance: Tues 25 Nov, 7pm). Directed by Sally Reid, it’s a wild adventure down a mysterious pothole to a land full of strange-talking creatures and a maniacal power-hungry Queen, packed full of all the usual Tron panto trademarks – irreverence, hilarity and on-the-nose cultural references.

In the main auditorium, the visiting programme opens with Scottish Opera’s, The Story of Healing: Breath Cycle on Stage (1 Feb), an interactive evening of music and storytelling.  This is followed by a revival of Jonny Donahoe’s Every Brilliant Thing (5-8 February), first presented ten years ago and a hit at the 2024 Fringe, about depression and the lengths we will go to for the ones we love. In March, Wonder Fools in association with D&G Arts Live, present their brand new work The Kelton Hill Fair (25 – 29 March) a riveting journey through time to mysterious fair led by the legendary Billy Marshall. This will be followed by the National Theatre of Scotland’s Through the Shortbread Tin (4 & 5 April), the story of the greatest literary hoax of all time and an oral odyssey exploring Scottish culture, myths, history and identity. The Royal Conservatoire of Scotland’s BA Performance students present Frank Wedekind’s explosive play Spring Awakening (7 – 10 May) in a mixture of BSL and English and Gilded Balloon bring top-tier comedy and the hottest new talent in the form of their Big Comedy Roadshow (21 May). We also welcome cult multi-award-winning musical-comedians Jonny & The Baptists with The Happiness Index (24 May) – their personal and political show about our desire, and the country’s struggle, to just be happy and our visiting programme for the first half of the year concludes with another Wonder Fools project – the Positive Stories for Negative Times Festival (7 & 8 Jun).

In the Changing House studio space, the visiting company season opens with Your Sexts Are Shit: Older Better Letters (7 & 8 March), an intimate, funny, filthy, and moving solo show from Rachel Mars that triangulates the sex and love letters of long-dead artists, contemporary sexts and a meditation on the construction of the queer female body; Daniel Bye’s Imaginary Friends (14 & 15 March), a wild hallucinatory ride through the looking glass of twenty-first-century culture; Liam Rees with The Land That Never Was (21 & 22 March), blending confessional stand-up, storytelling, and a whole lot of bullshit in a show that looks to the past to examine where we come from, where we are now, and what the future may look like; Penguin (22 & 23 May), Hamzeh al Hussien’s extraordinary story of his life both outside and within his head – filled with music, dancing, fantasies and marbles and closes with a mini-festival from Royal Conservatoire BA Acting students, Off Kilter (3-5 June).

Alongside work for both the main auditorium and the studio space, there will be a continuation of our Tron Creative and Community Engagement programmes, with opportunities for Scotland’s thriving freelance community of artists and creatives to engage with us; and a series of exciting new projects for young people, our local communities and schools to get involved with.  We will also pilot a new Associate Artist programme, to support a project with a specific enquiry that is both connected to and embedded in the East End of the city.  Victoria Beesley will be the Tron’s first community-based Associate Artist, working with the Marie Curie Hospice in Springburn. In another partnership, with Tom Piper and Caroline Hall, the Tron’s former visionary artistic director Michael Boyd is commemorated in a photographic exhibition (from June 2025) celebrating the work of theatre photographers, including Sean Hudson.

Says Jemima of her 2025 season: ‘We want to take audiences on a journey – entertaining, challenging and celebrating stories that encapsulate all perspectives of life. We invite them to forge ahead with us towards an exciting new future for the Tron Theatre and I’m delighted to present a season of bold and contemporary work that, I believe does just that, offering something for everyone.’

Tron Theatre Company’s programme of work* for the 2025 season, and the visiting programme for the first half of the year, will go on-sale on Wednesday 27 November at 11am with all performances available to book online (http://www.tron.co.uk), by telephone on 0141 552 4267 or in person at our Box Office.  (*excluding Gallus in Weegieland, which will go on-sale in early February 2025).

DOWNLOAD THE TRON THEATRE 2025 SEASON BROCHURE FROM THIS LINK