Andy Arnold: audio June 9
Friday, July 4th, 2008The recent appointment of Andy Arnold as artistic director of the Tron Theatre in Glasgow (audio interview for theatreVOICE conducted June 9) comes at an important time for Scottish theatre. Like the Tron, the Traverse Theatre in Edinburgh (where Dominic Hill was recently appointed as artistic director) appears to be re-energised by a change in leadership. Arnold’s first Tron production, the Scottish premiere of Canadian playwright Michael Healey’s The Drawer Boy, received a warm reception from critics and audiences.
After more than two years of the National Theatre of Scotland, Scottish theatre is, broadly (if not universally), growing in confidence. Even the Scottish Government (run, since last year by the Scottish National Party) seems to enjoy more respect from the theatre community than did previous administrations at Holyrood.
On the debit side, the crisis of Queen Margaret University College in Edinburgh threatens to leave the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama in Glasgow (itself recently embroiled in a cash-related crisis) as the only conservatoire for acting in Scotland.
There are few figures in Scottish theatre better placed to comment on these issues than Arnold, who created and led the Arches Theatre Company in Glasgow from its birth in 1991 to his departure for the Tron this year.