The Traverse & New Scottish Writing

The Traverse's founding, founders, original and subsequent venues, and its connection to specific notable playwrights are documented in the theatre's own institutional records, published theatre histories, and extensive press coverage over six decades, and are treated as established. Its characterisation as "Scotland's new writing theatre" and as central to Fringe theatre culture is a widely and consistently repeated description, treated here as traditional, reflecting durable reputation rather than a single formal designation. The precise share of credit the Traverse deserves, relative to other institutions and individual writers, for the broader health of contemporary Scottish playwriting is presented as disputed, since this kind of institutional-influence question cannot be definitively isolated from other contributing factors.

Founded in a former brothel, by design as much as necessity

The Traverse Theatre Club's origins in 1962 reflect the resourceful, low-budget improvisation typical of countercultural arts ventures of the period. A group of theatre enthusiasts and organisers — including the publisher John Calder, the American expatriate Jim Haynes, the artist and impresario Richard Demarco, and Sheila Colvin among others — established the theatre in a cramped first-floor room at 15 James Court in Edinburgh's historic Lawnmarket, a building that had previously served as a converted doss-house and, before that, a brothel. The space was genuinely tiny by any theatrical standard: reportedly around 15 feet wide and 8 feet high, fitted with roughly 60 salvaged cinema seats arranged on either side of a central playing area — the "traverse" staging configuration (audience on two opposing sides rather than facing a single stage front) that gave the theatre its name. The theatre's first public performance, on 2 January 1963, was Fernando Arrabal's Orison, signalling from the outset an appetite for adventurous, often European avant-garde work rather than conventional West End fare.

A reputation built on accident as much as mission

In its early years, the Traverse built its reputation substantially on programming choices reflecting its founders' own cosmopolitan, countercultural connections — staging new European and experimental work alongside new British writing — rather than on an explicit, formally stated mission to champion specifically Scottish playwriting, which developed and sharpened as an institutional identity over subsequent decades rather than being present in full form from the theatre's founding moment. Structural concerns at the original James Court premises forced a move in 1969 to 112 West Bow in the Grassmarket, a larger but still modest venue that the theatre occupied for over two decades while its programming identity, and particularly its relationship to new Scottish writing, became increasingly central to its public reputation.

A permanent home, and an increasingly Scottish focus

In 1992, the Traverse moved to its current purpose-built home at 10 Cambridge Street, a roughly £3.3 million facility offering two flexible performance spaces — a significant upgrade in scale, technical capacity, and institutional permanence compared to its improvised earlier venues. By this point the theatre had increasingly consolidated its identity around new Scottish writing specifically, developing and premiering work by a succession of playwrights who would become central figures in the modern Scottish stage, including John Byrne (best known for The Slab Boys trilogy and later television work), the poet and playwright Liz Lochhead, and later David Greig and David Harrower, both of whom developed major early and breakthrough work at the theatre before achieving significant national and international recognition. This consolidated identity — "Scotland's new writing theatre," as the Traverse itself frequently describes its mission — reflects a institution that had, by the 1990s, moved decisively from its founders' broader countercultural European focus toward a specific, sustained commitment to developing new Scottish dramatic voices.

A backbone of the Fringe, and a year-round producing theatre

Beyond its core identity as a new-writing house, the Traverse occupies a distinctive dual role within Edinburgh's wider theatrical ecology: it operates as a producing theatre with its own year-round artistic programme, while also serving, every August, as one of the most consistently significant venues within the sprawling, famously unjuried Edinburgh Festival Fringe — a role sufficiently central to the Fringe's theatrical reputation that one description characterises the Traverse as "the backbone of theatre on the Edinburgh Fringe." This dual function distinguishes it from many Fringe venues, which exist primarily as rented spaces for visiting companies during August alone; the Traverse's own curated, commissioned programming during the Fringe period reflects its broader identity as a producing new-writing theatre rather than simply a venue for hire.

How much credit does one theatre deserve?

It is reasonable, and consistent with this publication's editorial standard, to note a genuine limit to what can be claimed on the Traverse's behalf. The theatre has unquestionably developed and premiered work by many of modern Scotland's most significant playwrights, and its reputation as a launching pad for new Scottish dramatic talent is well earned and widely acknowledged. However, the broader health and visibility of contemporary Scottish playwriting over six decades reflects the contributions of numerous other institutions — including the National Theatre of Scotland (founded 2006, with no fixed home of its own, and responsible for major successes such as Black Watch), other Scottish repertory and touring theatres, funding bodies such as Creative Scotland, and of course the individual talent and career choices of the writers themselves. Theatre historians reasonably differ on how to apportion credit across this wider institutional landscape, and this publication treats the question as genuinely open rather than crediting the Traverse alone for developments with many likely contributing causes.

A living institution into its seventh decade

More than sixty years after its founding in a converted Lawnmarket brothel, the Traverse Theatre continues to operate as a year-round producing theatre at its Cambridge Street home, commissioning and premiering new Scottish and international work and maintaining its position as a central, continuously operating institution within Scottish theatre — a notably long institutional life for a venture that began as an improvised, under-resourced countercultural experiment with uncertain prospects for survival.

• The Traverse Theatre's original 1962 premises had previously been a doss-house and, before that, a brothel.
• The theatre takes its name from the "traverse" staging configuration used in its original cramped space, with audiences seated on two opposing sides.
• The original venue seated only around 60 people, on salvaged cinema seats.
• The theatre's first public performance, in January 1963, was a play by the Spanish avant-garde playwright Fernando Arrabal.
• A 1969 move was prompted by structural safety concerns at the original James Court building.
• The theatre's current, purpose-built Cambridge Street home, opened in 1992, cost around £3.3 million to build.
• Playwrights John Byrne, Liz Lochhead, David Greig, and David Harrower all had major work developed or premiered at the Traverse.
• The theatre operates as both a year-round producing house and a key Edinburgh Festival Fringe venue every August.

• Myth: the Traverse was founded specifically and exclusively to champion new Scottish playwriting. Its early-1960s programming reflected its founders' broader European and countercultural connections; its Scottish new-writing focus developed and sharpened over subsequent decades.
• Disputed: how much credit the Traverse deserves. Its share of credit, relative to other Scottish theatres, funding bodies and individual writers, for the health of contemporary Scottish playwriting has no single definitive answer.
• Two separate institutions. The Traverse and the National Theatre of Scotland have different structures — a fixed venue versus a touring company with no fixed home — though both are significant to contemporary Scottish theatre.