It has been announced today that Pitlochry Theatre and the Royal Lyceum Theatre Edinburgh have joined forces with the award-winning audio production company Naked Productions to launch Sound Stage: a new audio-digital theatre. 

Sound Stage’s premiere season will feature eight new plays, one each month from March to October 2021, offering audiences the chance to have an “at home theatre experience” designed by theatre makers. The launch of this new company has been made possible through investment from Creative Scotland and Resilience funding from the Scottish Government. 

The new immersive audio digital theatre will premiere new works from John Bryne, Timberlake Wertenbaker, Roy Williams, Mark Ravenhill, Lynda Radley, Jaimini Jethwa, Frances Poet and Gary McNair. The season will open in late March with Angela – Mark Ravenhill’s first autobiographical play exploring the way culture high and low had impacted his mother’s life and that of his family. 

Artistic Director of Pitlochry Festival Theatre Elizabeth Newman said: “Pitlochry Festival Theatre is thrilled to share the news about Sound Stage. The original idea came from my experience last year making the audio premiere of Adventures with the Painted People with David, Polly and the rest of the Naked Productions team. The quality we could produce remotely blew me away and made me think this is how we can make great work during lockdown. However, this did not solve the problem of how much audiences and the theatre industry as a whole were missing the experience of going to the theatre itself… and so Sound Stage was born. With Sound Stage audience members can come together for the experience of ‘attending’ a virtual theatre. From entering the theatre itself and being ushered to your seat, to meeting people in the interval and staying afterwards to listen to a post-show discussion, Sound Stage will be an exciting new theatrical experience for everyone.”

Soundstage will operate an online booking system, allowing audiences to book ahead for a performance and time of their choice. It launches on Friday 26 March with Mark Ravenhill’s Angela, with tickets going on sale here on Sunday 14 February.