The Scottish Society of Playwrights (SSP) is a professional member's organisation representing

theatre Theatre or theater is a collaborative form of performing art that uses live performers, usually actors or actresses, to present the experience of a real or imagined event before a live audience in a specific place, often a stage. The perform ...

playwrights in

Scotland Scotland (, ) is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a Anglo-Scottish border, border with England to the southeast ...

. It is affiliated to the

Scottish Trades Union Congress The Scottish Trades Union Congress (STUC) is the national trade union centre in Scotland. With 40 affiliated unions as of 2020, the STUC represents over 540,000 trade unionists. The STUC is a separate organisation from the English and Welsh T ...

, and party to the

Theatrical Management Association UK Theatre (formerly the Theatrical Management Association) was founded in 1894 as the Theatrical Managers Association, with Sir Henry Irving as its first president. There are however records of the activity of a Theatrical Managers Association g ...

playwright's agreement.

History

The Scottish Society of Playwrights was founded at a meeting of Scotland's playwrights held in the Netherbow Theatre in September 1973, at the instigation of Hector MacMillan,

Ena Lamont Stewart Ena Lamont Stewart (10 February 1912, Glasgow – 9 February 2006, Dalmellington) was a Scottish playwright. Life and career Stewart was the daughter of a Church of Scotland minister whose family was originally from Canada and had settled in Gl ...

, and John Hall. It was established in response to a need for a co-ordinated voice for playwrights to be heard in Scottish theatre and to act as a playwriting development and promotional agency. It was formally established, after its constitution was drafted by Ian Brown, its first Chair, Hector MacMillan and Ada F Kay in November 1973. In the first twelve years of its existence the SSP received funding from the

Scottish Arts Council The Scottish Arts Council ( gd, Comhairle Ealain na h-Alba, sco, Scots Airts Cooncil) was a Scottish public body responsible for the funding, development and promotion of the arts in Scotland. The Council primarily distributed funding from the ...

. This meant that, besides such tasks as negotiating the first national contract for playwrights with the Federation of Scottish Theatre and representing playwrights in dispute with theatre managements, the Society was able to act as a major development agency for playwrights. During this period, based on the work of the US National Playwrights' Conference at the Eugene O'Neill Center, it developed the model of playwrights' workshops that is now recognised and used throughout the UK by such institutions as North West Playwrights Workshop and the Performing Arts Lab.Ian Brown, 'Playwrights' workshops of the Scottish Society of Playwrights, the Eugene O'Neill Center and their long term impact in the UK', International Journal of Scottish Theatre and Screen, 4.2 (2011) pp. 35-50. It also published important, but neglected, texts, offered members at-cost copying and published a Newsletter which developed in time into Scottish Theatre News. It appointed administrators, firstly Linda Haase and later Charles Hart, who provided outstanding service, Linda Haase going on to help found the

Tron Theatre The Tron Theatre is located in the corner of Trongate and Chisholm Street, in what was formerly the Tron Kirk which had started as the Collegiate Church of Our Lady and St. Anne in the Trongate area of Glasgow, Scotland. The Tron Steeple still ...

and Charles Hart to be New Writing Officer of the Arts Council in England. In the mid-eighties, the Scottish Arts Council rethought its funding priorities and decided to withdraw funding from what it called 'support services' in favour of 'direct provision'. It was impervious to the fact that support for playwrights through the SSP was in fact direct provision. In 1985, the SSP had to close down its lively and wide-ranging workshop, publishing and copying activities and concentrate on its primary role representing the playwrights of Scotland. In 1986, with the Writers Guild and Theatre Writers Union, it negotiated its agreement with the

for the benefit of Scottish playwrights presenting work in England and Wales. Since then, it has represented the interests of playwrights throughout Scotland and abroad, leading a successful playwrights' strike in the early nineties and yet maintaining positive relations with theatre management organisations, north and south of the Border. The SSP continues to be more than simply a negotiating body. In recent years, it has, for example, held a conference in Inverness for northern based playwrights (1999) and produced the first authoritative directory of Scottish playwrights (2001).

Presidents of the Scottish Society of Playwrights

First Honorary vice-president,

Robert McLellan Robert McLellan OBE (1907–1985) was a Scottish renaissance dramatist, writer and poet and a leading figure in the twentieth century movement to recover Scotland’s distinctive theatrical traditions. He found popular success with plays and ...

. Honorary President, Hector McMillan Honorary President 2019 -

Liz Lochhead Liz Lochhead Hon FRSE (born 26 December 1947) is a Scottish poet, playwright, translator and broadcaster. Between 2011 and 2016 she was the Makar, or National Poet of Scotland, and served as Poet Laureate for Glasgow between 2005 and 2011. E ...

References

External links

Official websitePlaywrights' Studio
{{Authority control Trade unions established in 1973 Entertainment industry unions Scottish literature Trade unions in Scotland Theatre in Scotland Theatrical organisations in the United Kingdom 1973 establishments in Scotland