Pitlochry Festival Theatre have announced the postponement of their Summer Season, prioritising the health and wellbeing of all audiences, artists, and employees during the COVID-19 pandemic. The season, which has been moved to 2021, will be replaced by a series of digital works as part of Shades of Tay. Twenty-five new pieces of writing by playwrights, poets, and performers from Scotland and beyond will be part of #PFTLightHopeJoy, the Theatre’s online series, which was created to respond to the uncertain and isolated world in which we now find ourselves.
These commissions for Shades of Tay, originally announced in late 2019 as an ambitious 3-year project, have been brought forward in response to the need for artists and audiences to be in dialogue during this difficult time.
Inspired by the River Tay and its surrounding landscape, the work will be performed as audio dramas, podcasts, short films and more by the Theatre’s Summer Season actors including much-loved Scottish talent Kirsty Stuart and Deirdre Davis, and later in a live festival after the Theatre reopens.
With original writing from a wealth of Scottish talent including Peter Arnott, Jo Clifford, Olly Emmanuel, Stephen Greenhorn, Lesley Hart, Hannah Lavery, Douglas Maxwell, Nicola McCartney, Linda McLean, Martin McCormick, Michael O’Neill, Frances Poet, Sally Reid, Ellie Stewart, May Sumbwanyambe, and Morna Young; and from further afield, including Daniel Bye, Hannah Khalil, Chinonyerem Odimba, Timberlake Wertenbaker, and Abi Zakarian – with more artists still to be announced – the project promises to be uplifting, hopeful and embracing in this time of confusion and separation.
Speaking of the project, Jo Clifford said:
I used to spend a lot of time in a house right beside the River Tay, and was struck by its incredible power.
Right now I’m living in isolation – also because of the incredible power of nature.
I look out of my window and I see how, regardless of the turmoil and suffering in the human world, the power of nature is still making everything grow in this extraordinary spring.
It’s a privilege and a joy to reflect on these things as I reach out from my solitude to the new audiences this opportunity opens up to me.
Released online in the coming weeks, all new works will be captioned, free to access and share, and intended as gifts to those isolated by the COVID-19 pandemic, and those who feel isolated from Theatre in general. Whilst the postponement of the Summer Season is heart breaking, Pitlochry Festival Theatre will use this time to approach commissions, performances, engagement practices and audiences in new, creative, and inclusive ways.
Pitlochry Festival Theatre’s summer season, now postponed to summer 2021, includes Gypsy, Private Lives, Kiss Me Quickstep, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Adventures of the Painted People, and Sense and Sensibility. New dates can be found in the notes to editors below.