One of the most-loved elements of our annual Traverse Festival programme, the Breakfast Plays, return this year as a series of podcast episodes, Breakfast Plays: New Tracks.

Traditionally taking place at 9am during the Traverse Festival (and enjoyed with a breakfast roll), the bite-sized Breakfast Plays are a key element of the Traverse’s talent development programme for writers, bringing brand new short plays by early career writers, who are often alumni of the theatre’s Young Writers Group, to the world and showcasing the best new Scottish writing talent to the international audiences who flood Edinburgh in August.

Though a selection of previous Breakfast Plays have been broadcast on the BBC World Service, 2020 marks the first time that the plays have been written specifically for an audio format and been made available to global audiences on demand, so that Breakfast Plays: New Tracks can become the Lunch Plays, or Dinner Plays, or be enjoyed at any other time you, the listener, would like.

As in 2018 and 2019, several of the 2020 plays will be by writers who have previously been part of the organisation’s acclaimed Young Writers Group programme. Each will tell a different story of the next step after an earth-shattering event occurs, ranging from a former cult leader whose past comes back to haunt them, a murdered young woman who seeks revenge from the afterlife, and the very breakdown of time itself, amongst others.

The Breakfast Plays: New Tracks are generously supported by the Noël Coward Foundation and the Turtleton Charitable Trust. The Traverse Theatre is funded by Creative Scotland and The City of Edinburgh Council, with additional support from The Scottish Government Performing Arts Venues Relief Fund.

Image: Mihaela Bodlovic