GAELIC language theatre, land ownership in Scotland and the lifetime experiences of an elderly stuntwoman are among the topics chosen for a new development for Scottish artists.

The initiative called Starter for 10 has been launched to mark the National Theatre of Scotland’s 10th birthday and offers aspiring theatre-makers a funded residency of £2,500 to help them develop their skills, networks, or explore a new idea for a piece of theatre.

The 10 commissions were chosen from more than 170 applications and each artist will be given the chance to work in Rockvilla, the company’s new purpose-built facility in Glasgow.

Artists will have guaranteed access to a working space, technical equipment, and the expertise of staff, in order to enhance their residency.

Those who wish to work in other locations across the country will be supported by the company, working in partnership with venues and organisations.

Those chosen to participate in the project are Sam Rowe, Matt Regan, Elspeth Turner, Mariem Omari, Steven Fraser, Kate Bowen, MJ Deans, Lucy Conway, Katy Dye and Aby Watson, Iain Beggs and Fiona MacNeil.

WHAT ARE THE PROJECTS?

ROWE is a theatre-maker currently based in Edinburgh who trained at the University of Glasgow, East 15 Acting School and The Russian University of Theatre Arts. His one-man show Denton And Me was presented at the 2016 Edinburgh Fringe as part of the Made In Scotland showcase and he is currently developing a new psychological thriller.

“Pino Kio is a dark and very adult fairy-tale/horror story that draws parallel between Carlo Collodi’s infamously nightmarish children’s story, The Adventures of Pinocchio, and the experiences of a gay man seeking asylum in the UK,” said Rowe.

Conway has lived on the Isle of Eigg since 2004 and works on theatre, dance, music and digital programmes as a project manager for organisations across Scotland and the UK.

‘The Boob Cruise’ is the first theatre project she has been solely responsible for creating and is based on the name island women give to the boat they charter to take them to the mainland to attend the breast screening clinic.

“For some, this collective experience is a day trip out, a chance to share a laugh and gossip,” said Conway. “For others it’s a life-changing, life-defining experience. Boob Cruise will be a piece of popular theatre where female actors aged 50+ talk about breasts and cancer.”

ANY MORE?

MJ Deans is a Gàidhlig speaking actor and drama facilitator from Cumbernauld. Since graduating from Motherwell College in 2013 with a first class honours degree in acting, she has worked with Fèisean nan Gaidheal, NTS, Bard in the Botanics and Horse and Bamboo.

She is now developing an accessible piece of contemporary Gàidhlig theatre for young adults with the script adapted and translated into Gàidhlig from a short story by Kirsty Logan, the acclaimed Scottish writer of The Gracekeepers and A Portable Shelter.

Public Service Announcement is the collaborative work of Watson and Dye who want to question what the future of intimacy is in an age of globalisation.

“Through our new piece Technophile we are interested in finding out what happens when our personalities become commodities to be bought and sold, and when a human being becomes data.”

Another collaborative project is from Beggs and MacNeil who will be researching the stories of the Vatersay Land Raids from the early 1900s to develop an idea of how they are connected with today’s story of land ownership.

Beggs plays a recurring character in BBC Alba’s drama ‘Bannan’ and has featured in the comedy ‘Gaol @ Gael’. MacNeil is from the Isle of Vatersay in the Outer Hebrides and trained at the Manchester Metropolitan School of Theatre, graduating in 2014.

WHAT ELSE?

REGAN makes music/theatre under the name Little King and has been nominated for a Total Theatre Award, Scottish Arts Club, CATS award, Carol Tambor Award and won Summerhall’s Lustrom Award. Through mental health charity Theatre Nemo, he has worked in hospitals, community centres and prisons across Scotland. Fresh from performing his show ‘Greater Belfast’ at the Edinburgh Fringe ‘16 at the Traverse, he’s currently working on his second show ‘At The Barbers’.

“At The Barbers is an exploration of men’s mental health and care seen through the prism of a barber’s shop, and the act of cutting hair,” he said.

A graduate of AADA, New York, Turner is an actor and writer living in Edinburgh. She has won a Tom McGrath Award and an award for playwriting from the Peggy Ramsay Foundation and is now exploring the connection between Gaelic psalm singing and African American music.

“Working in Gaelic and English, I hope to ask questions about the celebrated pioneering spirit, the volatility of living in a black body today, and how history’s winners might better understand the cost of their empowerment,” she said.

AND THE REST?

OMARI is an activist, playwright and performer who lived in the Middle East and North Africa for five years where she worked with some of the most vulnerable people in the region.

Her first play, ‘If I had a girl...’, opened in Glasgow in April 2016 to sell-out audiences and four-star reviews across Scotland. It will tour in February-March 2017. Her solo show, ‘Staring out of windows’, will be produced by the Street Theatre in Australia in 2017.

The new play she is developing under Starter for 10 focuses on men, shame, and the impact of their silence on their mental health.

“The suicide rate among British men is at the highest level for more than a decade, and parts of Scotland have the highest levels in the country,” she said.

Bowen’s first play Shutter Speed gained her the 2012 annual New Writer’s Award (Playwright’s Studio Scotland).

This year Out of Joint commissioned her script Entrenched which is slated for production in 2018.

Her project for Starter for 10 is a solo theatre piece about a film stunt woman. “Written for a performer in her sixties, it will be about the real nature of courage and risk and how women imagine and plot the stories of their lives,” said Bowen.

Fraser is an Edinburgh-based writer, animator and theatre-maker who is planning a new short form play that incorporates interactive puppetry.