A Gambler's Guide to Dying


Book Description

What are the odds of living an extraordinary life? This is the story of one boy’s granddad who won a fortune betting on the 1966 World Cup and, when diagnosed with cancer, gambled it all on living to see the year 2000. An intergenerational tale of what we live for and what we leave behind. Gary McNair and director Gareth Nicholls return to the Traverse after last year's award-winning, fivestar showDonald Robertson Is Not A Stand-Up Comedian.




Ulster American


Book Description

Would you mind if I asked you a troubling question? Jay is the Oscar-winning actor taking the lead in a new play that connects with his Irish roots. Leigh is the ambitious director who will do anything to get noticed. Ruth is the Northern Irish playwright whose voice must be heard. The stage is set for great success, but when the three meet to discuss the play's challenges and provocations, a line is crossed and the heated discussion quickly escalates to a violent climax. Exploring consent, abuses of power and the confusions of cultural identity, Ulster American is confrontational, brutally funny and not for the faint of heart. David Ireland's recent plays include Cyprus Avenue which won the James Tait Black Award 2017 and Best Play at the Irish Times Theatre Awards 2017. This edition is published to coincide with the world premiere at the Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh, in summer 2018.




St. Teresa of Avila: The Book of Her Foundations a Study Guide


Book Description

The Book of Her Foundations is the least read, the least quoted, the least known of St. Teresa's works. Why this is so is probably because people do not think it is a spiritual book. But as you read on, you find that St. Teresa grew in holiness, not in spite of obstacles such as being entangled in lawsuits, mired down in disputes over dowries, tied up in interminable bureaucratic red-tape, and having to deal with unscrupulous businessmen, but because of these difficulties. None of these challenges impeded her spiritual growth. This study guide will help us to see how Teresa grew in holiness in the marketplace as much as in the cloister, perhaps even more so. None of us has been called to found convents, but like Teresa all of us are called to practice virtue and grow in holiness within the fray of daily life.




Grain in the Blood


Book Description

Twelve years ago, from the mouth of a great sacrifice, a child was born. And they called her Autumn. Isaac returns to his family home with a chance to atone for the terrible mistake that claimed his childhood. Autumn is a little girl whose time is running out. With three sleeps left before her birthday, she can only hope for a miracle, or an unexpected act of selflessness. Her grandmother, Sophia, brings them together in a desperate attempt to save her family, at any cost. Set against the eerie backdrop of an isolated rural community and steeped in the folklore of the harvest, Grain in the Blood is a noir-ish thriller exploring a timely moral dilemma: how much are we prepared to sacrifice for the greater good? The play received its world premiere at the Tron Theatre, Glasgow, on 18 October 2016, before opening at the Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh, on 1 November 2016.




Edinburgh's Festivals


Book Description

In August 1947, an émigré Austrian opera impresario launched the Edinburgh International Festival of Music and Drama to heal the scars of the Second World War through a celebration of the arts. At the same time, a socialist theatre group from Glasgow and other amateur companies protested their exclusion from the festival by performing anyway, inventing the concept of 'fringe' theatre. Now the annual celebration known collectively as the Edinburgh Festival is the largest arts festival in the world, incorporating events dedicated to theatre, film, art, literature, comedy, dance, jazz and even military pageantry. It has launched careers – from Peter Cook and Dudley Moore in Beyond the Fringe to Phoebe Waller-Bridge with Fleabag – mirrored the political and social mood of its times, shaped the city of Edinburgh around it and welcomed a huge all-star cast, including Orson Welles, Grace Kelly, Yehudi Menuhin and Mark E Smith's The Fall and many many more. This is its story.




Crocodile Fever


Book Description

Northern Ireland, 1989. A farmhouse window smashes, and rebellious Fianna Devlin crashes back into the life of her pious sister Alannah. Together for the first time in years, when they're forced to confront their tyrannical father's hideous legacy, all hell breaks loose. Fuelled by Taytos, gin, 80s tunes and a chainsaw, Meghan Tyler's surreal Crocodile Fever is a grotesque black comedy celebrating sisterhood whilst reminding us that the pressure cooker of The Troubles is closer than we imagine.




What Girls Are Made Of


Book Description

It's 1992. In a small town in Fife, a girl is busting to get out into the world and see what's on offer. And an ad in the local paper declares: Band Seeks Singer. Grunge has just gone global, scruffy indie kids are inheriting the earth, and a schoolgirl from Glenrothes is catapulted to a rock star lifestyle as the singer in a hot new indie band. Touring with Radiohead, partying with Blur, she was living the dream. Until she wasn't. What Girls Are Made Of is the true story of Bissett's teenage years, based on her meticulously detailed, pull-no-punches diaries, which she found after the death of her father. It's a rollercoaster journey from the girl she was to the woman she wanted to be: rocketed into teenage stardom, suddenly dropped by their manager, and then the following of years of becoming an actor, writer and director. Described by Miro Magazine as "a glorious mixture of harrowing and life-affirming messages", the script also includes a play list of female-led soundtracks, that were played in the production.




How to Disappear


Book Description

When Helen Daniels from Neighbours died, Robert shut his door on the world. And he's not opened it since. Now his only connection to the outside world is through his younger sister Isla, who looks after them both whilst their father is away in Ibiza on 'business'. With only a strange menagerie of creatures (including an iguana called Scott and a corn snake called Charlene) to keep them company, each day looks pretty much the same as the last – until their quiet lives are interrupted by a visit from Jessica, a benefit assessor, determined to prove that Robert is fit for work. But Jessica soon realises that one size certainly does not fit all, as she suddenly stumbles across a secret about Robert that catapults her head first into a universe of infinite possibilities. Merging biting social commentary and fantasy in unexpected ways, How to Disappear is a pitch-black comedy which gives a voice to those who often go unheard.




I Can Go Anywhere


Book Description

Anyone can learn maps and battles. Geezer, I feel it! I live it! I'm giving everything to this beautiful, wild, absolutely pure British thing. Like, do you know what it took to get here, man? Stevie is a disillusioned academic who once wrote an unfashionable book on youth movements in Britain, now struggling to cope after a painful break-up. His misery is interrupted by Jimmy who lands unexpectedly on his doorstep beaming with excitement. Jimmy is 100% Mod: oversized military parka, fitted Italian suit, dessy boots, pork pie hat. The full package. Jimmy is seeking asylum in the UK. With just a few days before the substantive interview that's going to decide his fate, the stakes are high. So he came up with a brilliant plan. A plan that's going to work against all odds. It has to work. He can't go back. And Stevie has an important part to play.




VL


Book Description

Shortlisted for the Popcorn Writing Award 2024 Here, you. Are you a VL? Max and Stevie are just two wee guys trying to survive in an ordinary Scottish secondary school. But to survive, sometimes you need to hide. And there's no hiding when you're a VL. A VL is a Virgin Lips. It means you've never kissed a lassie, or a laddie. But it's so much more than that. And the longer you stay a VL, the more of a VL you become. Kieran Hurley and Gary McNair, the Fringe First Award-winning writers of Square Go, team up again for another raucous and riotous comedy about status in a chaotic hormonal pressure cooker... This edition was published to coincide with the world premiere at Paines Plough's Roundabout, produced by Francesca Moody Productions at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in August 2024.