Rapture Theatre finds winning recipe for lunchtime theatre

Robin Kingsland in rehearsals for The Browning Version

Last year was not a good one for Rapture Theatre, the Glasgow-based Scottish touring company founded back in 2000 by artistic director Michael Emans, and his partner and co-artistic-director Lyn McAndrew. After the relative security of three years as one of Creative Scotland’s regularly funded organisations, or RFO’s, Rapture was one of the touring companies brusquely informed, back in January 2018, that their hard-won RFO status was being ended, and that after a year of transitional support they would be expected to switch their funding applications to a new Creative Scotland touring fund.

During their three years of regular funding, Rapture had developed a signature repertoire of solid, respectful productions of mighty 20th century classics, taking plays by Arthur Miller, Edward Albee, Tennessee Williams and Michael Frayn to main stages across Scotland, and scoring a particular success with their impressive 2017 production of Who’s Afraid Of Virginia Woolf. The loss of the company’s RFO status was therefore a blow; and like the other touring companies affected, Rapture had to take stock of their new situation. Some companies fought back fiercely, and had their RFO status restored; others decided to shut up shop for good. Rapture, though, is dedicated to touring as part of its core mission, and therefore felt that it could work with the new Touring Fund, given time; and the company decided to use its year of transitional support to experiment with a new kind of touring.

“It occurred to us that although lunchtime theatre has been a huge success in Scotland over the past 15 years, it’s not a form of theatre that generally goes on tour,” says Emans. “I’d seen a lot of lunchtime theatre when I was training in London in the 1990s, I’d seen lunchtime weekend theatre at East Kilbride Arts Centre when I was a kid growing up there, and of course I’ve been a huge admirer of what A Play, A Pie And Pint has achieved since 2004, both at Oran Mor and in transferring some of its shows to other venues.