Scottish theatre is and has been a vibrant art form, and Scottish playwrights have a real identity.
What connects the 12 plays we have chosen – apart from the stages they have played and the awards they have won?
Plays have explored Scottish lives in city and country, past and present. We have had a chance to see hard men and strong women, living and working together in tenements, hills, fields or war, facing life with a sense of drama, and usually the 'gift of the gab'.
Playwrights have looked further too, to the wider world beyond Scotland.
Playwrights have always delighted in their language – by turn rhetorical, poetic, violent, and funny. Productions have often come alive with song, spectacle and dance.
12 Scottish Plays:2010 © National Library of Scotland