
Author: Suse Coon Read all articles by Suse Coon
Monday, June 15th, 2009 at 5:56 pm
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Interiors Picks up Critics’ Awards

At last night’s Critics’ Awards for Theatre in Scotland, Interiors picked up Best Director (Matthew Lenton) Best Ensemble and Best Production. With the Traverse shortlisted for no fewer than 11 awards nd winning 4, we spoke to Mike Griffiths to see what he thinks makes a successful theatre production.

“We’ve not had many nominations for the last couple of years,” he concedes. “This year, we had Midsummer which was a musical and so opened up a few more possibilities. I think our production was very successful. Ive seen a German one which ran the monologues as monlogues and it was very linear. We broke ours up which made it more interesting.

“The other thing that’s new is that we are not just commissioning our own work. We’ve been more open to different ways of collaborating (with for example Teatro or Birmingham Rep or the National Theatre) and that has given us a wider range and spread of possibilities. We spend so much money on our own commissions – we have around 20 in production at any one time and 6 – 8 every year, it’s nice to be able to take other bits from other theatres.

“Collaborations always bring something new, enabling us to do things we couldn’t do on our own, for financial reasons or other reasons and these are very important.

“I work party as a sales person, inviting people here to see our productions and it’s wonderful when they are then picked up by English and International Theatres for further tours. For example Vanishing POint is at the Naples Festival now and they are discussing a tour of Italy. It’s an amazing piece. The two actors are English and Italian so the English actor does the voiceover in English speaking countries and the Italian actor does the voiceovers in Italy.

The Traverse has always been committed to developing new writers, from its free readings to the Debut Season with the National Theatre. Scotland is now very strong for new young writers, so much so that the S.R.C. believes it should look to Scotland for its commissions.

“It’s all driven by the writers,” Mike says, ”and we’ve had a political theme for a while, although Vanishing Point was more artistic. For a country of just 5 and a half million people, we certainly punch above our weight as regards writers.”

Mike still feels huge excitement on the opening night of a brand new theatre productiuon, particularly if it’s going in to rep. Some of these productions have been years in the making and, while he enjoys the Classics, “it’s not the same buzz as you get from your own new production. That gives you huge pride, especially when your work is taken to other countries.”

And Mike’s favourite production? “Of all the performances I’ve seen this year, Cockroach, written by Sam Holcroft, still intrigues me.”

The winners were