Brand new play The Bus Stop debuts at Traverse Theatre’s online festival

Gavin Yule of Lung Ha Theatre Company will debut his brand new play on disability hate crime: The Bus Stop as part of the Traverse Theatre’s online festival, which will be available to watch worldwide from 10 November - 8 December.

The rehearsed reading will also feature Emma McCaffrey and Scott Davidson (both Lung Ha TC performers) and Ryan Duncan (a member of Lung Ha TC’s support team). The Bus Stop saw writer Gavin Yule work alongside playwright Andrew Edwards as part of Lung Ha TC’s new mentoring programme.

The reading is produced by Lung Ha Theatre Company, Scotland’s leading Theatre Company for people with learning disabilities, and is directed by Nicola Tuxworth, making her directorial debut, also as part of the mentoring programme, working alongside the Company’s Artistic Director, Maria Oller.

Inspired by real life events, The Bus Stop introduces us to a young wheelchair user Jack (Yule), who experiences a disability hate crime. He struggles with his anger, both at the situation and at a world that left him without his dad just months earlier. He decides to keep it all secret from Julia, his mum, who is harbouring a secret of her own.

Speaking of the piece and the incident that inspired it, Yule said: “For a while after the incident happened to me, I was angry at the world and angry at the society that we still live in a world where disability hate crime is so common.

“One day, one of my friends suggested writing my thoughts down to help with the healing process. The same night I sat down and wrote a short script which in the end became the second scene of the play. You could say the play was inspired by my own anger.”

Traverse Theatre Executive Producer, Linda Crooks, said: “We are absolutely thrilled to welcome our longstanding good friends Lung Ha, and Gavin’s new play, to Traverse 3. We applaud Lung Ha’s mentoring programme, developing Gavin as a writer, and Nicola with her first directing gig, culminating in this presentation of The Bus Stop. This excellent initiative loudly chimes with the Traverse’s determination to seek out and nurture new and diverse voices for our stages and bring them to the world.”

Tickets for The Bus Stop are available for £3 from here