Dominic Hill, artistic director of the Traverse Theatre in Edinburgh, wanted to preserve the theatre's 50 year international reputation as a champion of contemporary playwriting. He commissioned five leading writers for a half hour play, unapologetically reliant upon text, performed in what is now regarded as a 'hybrid' platform for new plays: the 'staged reading'.
The studio atmosphere of the smaller space, Traverse 2, affords an intimacy that allows the spectators a privileged insight into the work of five of Britain and Ireland's great playwrights, and powerful access to the way actors shape text and dialogue.