The Tron: Correction and Amendments

I was wrong and Andy Arnold is right: my recent post about the character of the Tron's programme was a bit off... Andy Arnold made a very generous response and rather than leave it in the comments, I'll reprint it here. Besides, it is a really good description of the theatre's output and I can pretend it was an interview or something...


Andy Arnold:  contrary to the statement that we stage mainly classic texts...in six and a half years Tron Theatre Company has staged one classic text - Three Sisters in a newly commissioned adaptation...

That is the one by John Byrne that I wrote a song about. I ought to have said 'contemporary classics'... that would have been closer.

There have been two Shakespeare's as co-productions..but that's it. You say Ulysses was a rarely commissioned piece and it's true - we would commission more if we could afford to. 

That is the one that was a success, too: went to the Fringe, pleased Joyce fans and enthusiasts for richly textured theatre, too. 


However, apart from Dermot Bolger's Joyce adaptation, we have commissioned a reasonable number - Plume, Sea Land and Sky (not an existing text as you infer)...

That wasn't just a new play - the Tron had this big competition to discover a new play - I was just grumpy because they didn't discover me. The competition - which I think the NTS also supported, drew attention to new writing and got people writing.

 Edwin Morgan's Dreams and Other Nightmares, Six Acts of Love, A Slow Air...and a few more. Apart from new work it has all been Scottish premières of contemporary and largely unknown plays - The Drawer Boy, Defender of the Faith, Valhalla, This Wide Night, That Face, Bliss, Mud, Cooking With Elvis, Crazy Gary's Mobile Disco, Address Unknown, An Arab Woman Speaks, and more besides. 

I am just going to shut up... he could added the variety of tones, moods and genres here, which undermines my attempt to simplify the Tron's identity.

He could also have added that it has a cabaret space in the bar, too, and that I liked to take dates to the Tron for a coffee (back in my romantic days), or that the front of house staff are lovely and put up with my nonsense when I demand a ticket in the back row.