A new adaptation of Whisky Galore, a play based on one of Muriel Spark's greatest works, a comedy about a voracious Granny and a hard-hitting drama addressing Female Genital Mutilation are all part of a new programme of work by the National Theatre of Scotland (NTS).
From January to June next year the NTS will produce nine world premieres in a season being brought to the public under the title of "Belong".
As well as premieres of new plays in Scotland, previous successes, Let The Right One In and Dunsinane, are to receive their premieres in the US.
Compton Mackenzie's Whisky Galore is to be adapted as a Gaelic play, Uisge-Beatha Gu Leor, by Iain Finlay MacLeod, artistic director of Robhanis, and it will be staged as part of Glasgow's popular A Play, A Pie and a Pint season, before touring village halls and art centres in Scotland from April 9 to May 15 next year.
Robhanis is a Gaelic language theatre company based on the Isle of Lewis, and the play, in both Gaelic and English, will have English surtitles.
Rites, created by Cora Bissett and Yusra Warsama, and directed by Bissett, will tour to Glasgow, Manchester and Edinburgh from May 5-30 next year, opening at the Tron Theatre in Glasgow on May 6.
The "powerful and provocative" production will explore the practice of FGM and is based on true stories and verbatim testamony from girls affected in Scotland and the rest of the UK, mothers who feel under pressure to continue the practice and the experiences of midwives, lawyers, police officers, teachers and health workers trying to "effect change."
It is a co-production with Contact, an award winning theatre and arts venue in Manchester and Bristol.
FGM is illegal in the UK, and a recent campaign by a young British-Somali student, Fahma Mohammed, has increased awareness of the practice.
Ms Bissett said: "More than 125m women and girls alive today have been 'cut' in 29 countries in Africa and the Middle East where FGM is concentrated.
"This practice is so deeply ingrained in certain cultures.
"So FGM is recognised internationally as a violation of human rights, and it reflects a deep rooted inequality between the sexes and for me it is the most potent means of control of women.
"We are working with organisations in Scotland, Manchester and also in Bristol where some remarkable work has been going on.
"There is a groundswell of activity that is happening among young girls of dual heritage, they are born to families from Somalia, from the Sudan, from Gambia, but who are Scottish, British girls and this howl of defiance is coming right now which is one thing I am finding heartening, exciting and invigorating."
Yer Granny is a Scottish take on the most popular play in Argentina, La Nona by Roberto Cossa.
Yer Granny has been adapted into English by Douglas Maxwell and re-set at a fish and chip shop, the Minerva Fish Bar, in 1977 as the Queen visits Scotland to celebrate the Jubilee.
The plot is based around the 100 year old granny "literally eating the family out of house and home."
It will be premiered at the King's Theatre in Glasgow on May 27, and tour to Greenock, Edinburgh, Inverness, Dundee, and Belfast.
It is being directed by Graham McLaren, who said: "When I first read Douglas Maxwell's version of Argentina's greatest comedy, I laughed so violently that my ten year old daughter rose from her bed, convinced I was being attacked. If you imagine the satire of Dario Fo with the humour of Rab C Nesbitt, you will get a feel for Yer Granny."
The artistic director of the NTS, Laurie Sansom, is adapting and directing The Driver's Seat by Muriel Spark, which will be premiered at the Lyceum Theatre on June 23 and also play in Glasgow.
It is the first adaptation for the stage for the book, which was turned into a 1974 film, Identikit, starring Elizabeth Taylor.
Ms Spark said it was her won favourite novel, a book which follows the journey of Lise's journey to an unnamed European city.
Samnsom previously directed an acclaimed production of Muriel Spark's The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in 2009.
He said: "I'm thrilled to be adapting the work of one of Scotland's finest writers, and The Driver's Seat is one of her most perfect and idiosyncratic books. It combines her razor sharp wit and crisp narrative voice with an enigmatic central figure that slips in and out of focus until its final, shocking conclusion.
"Capturing Spark's voice on stage is always a challenge, but this has to be one of her most dramatic and mysterious stories, lending itself to theatrical reinvention. I'm proud that the National Theatre of Scotland can help to bring people's attention back to her wonderful body of work and this book in particular."
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