The pipeline for new Scottish theatre is currently running on fumes and sheer stubbornness. Finding a producer willing to take a punt on an untested script is an increasingly rare phenomenon. That makes Dundee Rep and Scottish Dance Theatre’s Rep Stripped Festival less of a developmental luxury and more of an industry lifeline.
The four-day event returns for its third edition from April 22 to 25, designed to put raw, early-stage work in front of a live audience.
If you want proof of concept, look no further than A History of Paper. Oliver Emanuel and Gareth Williams’s musical found its early footing at previous editions of this very festival. It subsequently went on to win a Fringe First, alongside a CATS award for Best Director, and is now being retooled for a massive co-production starring Alan Cumming and Shirley Henderson. That is the specific trajectory on offer here: from a bare-bones studio sharing to a fully-realised mainstage hit.
This year’s programme, split across two distinct blocks, feels aggressively pertinent. Scottish Dance Theatre marks its 40th anniversary this year, and the festival officially folds dance into its multi-genre lineup alongside theatre, spoken word, and music.
The 2026 Cohort
- SCAB by Ryan Hay: A new musical tackling the 1993 Timex strikes in Dundee. For a city built on an industrial backbone, the eight-month dispute—characterised by a fierce, female-led picket line, violent clashes with police, and the ultimate closure of the factory—remains a raw nerve. To pitch that level of local, working-class defiance as musical theatre is a massive, fascinating swing.
- Modern Woman by Hayley Scott: Historical excavation continues with a musical built around the life of pioneering Scottish surgeon and suffragist Elsie Inglis.
- Route by Kiki Oladapo: A hip-hop theatre piece that dissects migration, power, and belonging through rhythm and movement.
- Manual/Automatic by Milly Sweeney: An intimate look at sisterhood, trauma, and the autistic experience.
The rest of the slate refuses to settle into a single groove. There is dark comedy via Alex Medland’s Juney McCloud and the Zombie Apocalypse, and comedy-drama in Matt Anderson’s Fans. Eve Nicol brings MASTER, Katya Searle delivers the monologue A Peg or Two, and Niamh O’Loughlin provides dance-theatre with Woman Above Water. Local duo Elfie Pickett Theatre also return to the festival, staging a spoken-word piece titled Mither/Daughter.
Crucially, the festival demands audience complicity. This is not passive viewing; public workshops and panels are baked into the schedule, allowing ticket-buyers to look behind the curtain and directly feed back to the artists.
Festival Director Fraser Scott is blunt about the necessity of the exercise.
“In a landscape where making theatre is increasingly difficult for freelancers, supporting artists to get their work on stage and in front of audiences is more vital than ever,” Scott notes. “That’s the idea behind Rep Stripped, and it’s a huge honour to direct this year’s festival. We wanted to programme work that feels bold and surprising, with a clear sense of future life, by artists who will benefit from the space and support the festival provides.”
The Scottish arts sector might be weathering a brutal financial storm, but the ideas have clearly not dried up. If you want to see what will be dominating the main stages in a few years, book a ticket for Dundee.
Featured Image: Insert Credit
By
By
By
