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Background

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?

Exploring Scottish lives

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.

Delight in language

Playwrights have always delighted in their language – by turn rhetorical, poetic, violent, and funny. Productions have often come alive with song, spectacle and dance.