Theatre Alba was a Scottish theatre company founded in 1981 by Charles Nowosielski and Richard Cherns. With the aim of promoting diversity in Scottish theatre, it produced plays in the Scots language and encouraged new Scottish writing.[1] Some of its most successful productions were works which drew on folklore or fairytale.
The company's first production was Edward Stiven's Tamlane, staged in the open air on the Calton Hill, Edinburgh, in 1981. It then moved to The Astoria, a former dance hall in Abbeymount, where it presented The Jeweller's Shop by Karol Wojtyla, The Passion, Part One by Bill Bryden, Swanwhite by August Strindberg, and the world premiere of The Shepherd Beguiled by Netta. B. Reid. Programmed to run until 28 February 1982, the production was extended until 6 March by popular demand. It was revived at the Braidburn Park open-air theatre on the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in August, and subsequently staged at the Traverse Theatre from 28 September to 2 October.[2][3]
Theatre Alba's production of The Puddok an the Princess by David Purves won a Fringe First Award in August 1985, was staged again at the Traverse Theatre in December, and was taken on national tours by the company in 1986 and 1988.[4][5][6][7] After he was appointed Artistic Director at the Brunton Theatre, Musselburgh, in 1986, Nowosielski continued to direct Theatre Alba productions at the Assembly Rooms on the Edinburgh Fringe.[8][9] The company toured Edward Stiven's Tamlane in the Borders during the Borders Festival of Ballads and Legends in the auntumn of 1987.[10] Stiven's The Cauldron was taken on tour in the spring of 1988.[11] David Purves' Whuppitie Stourie was taken on a tour of the Central Belt in the autumn of 1989.[12][13] Robert McLellan's The Carlin Moth was staged at Theatre Workshop on the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in August 1990 and toured South-West Scotland in the Autumn.[14][15]
In 1998, the company was invited to mount its Festival Fringe productions in Duddingston Kirk Gardens. Its first production there was a revival of Netta B. Reid's A Shepherd Beguiled, and it continued to use the gardens as an August venue for more than twenty years.[16] In 2002, the company introduced work for children under the direction of Clunie Mackenzie and Keith Hutcheon.[17]
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