Alan Cumming to run Pitlochry theatre. What can we expect?

Audience reactions will be no different, whether they are regular theatregoers or not. Alan Cumming is box office, and when you’re in the bums-on-seats business, that matters. A lot. He’ll also be great at fund-raising, which also matters.

But flip the script and, even as the dust settles and Pitlochry Festival Theatre’s Executive Director Kris Bryce congratulates himself on his coup, it looks like a no-brainer for Cumming as well.

For a start, he’s a populist who knows the power of popular theatre and is gleefully unembarrassed about promoting it. Pitlochry is the perfect place for that. And of course he’s a Scot. More than that he was born in nearby Aberfeldy, grew up close to Carnoustie and has always shown a commitment to the land of his birth whether though becoming involved in political debates or (as he did recently) backing campaigns to ensure proper government funding for the arts.

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In 2007, a decade after he first hit Broadway and Hollywood, he chose to return home to bare his bum playing Dionysus in John Tiffany’s Edinburgh International Festival (EIF) production of The Bacchae. Since then he has continued to perform here regularly – most recently in the 2022 festival, when he teamed up with Mercury Music Prize-nominated Scottish composer Anna Meredith and award-winning choreographer Steven Hoggett for Burn, a revisionist take on our national Bard.

Will he bring some of that pizzazz to Pitlochry? Let’s assume he will.

The word is Cumming applied for the Pitlochry Festival Theatre job of his own volition and went through the same selection process as everybody else. Assuming that’s correct, there’s no question of preferential treatment or of this being any kind of vanity project for him.

He may have been emboldened by seeing Nicola Benedetti take over as director of the EIF – may even have spoken to her about it – but he clearly wants the job and has landed it because he has demonstrated to the selection panel that he has the chops.

He certainly has the contacts, passion, commitment and reputation clout to make his tenure a successful one. And he will also find the theatre in good fettle when he arrives for his inaugural season in 2026.

Alan Cumming with Forbes Masson from their Victor and Barry partnership (Image: free)

Outgoing Artistic Director Elizabeth Newman has injected new life into the place since her arrival in 2018. She has nurtured relationships with other theatres in Scotland and beyond, solidified Pitlochry’s place as a repertory rather than a receiving theatre, and augmented mainstream (though brave) programming choices with new work, much of it mounted in the Studio space which opened in 2022. This weekend the curtain goes up there on The Brenda Line, the debut play by queer, non-binary author Harry Mould, whose work has been championed by rapper Stormzy.

As for the energetic Newman, she’s leaving to take up a prestigious position as head of Sheffield Theatres. Her predecessor there, Robert Hastie, is heading to London’s National Theatre as Deputy Artistic Director.

With its growing reputation, Pitlochry Festival Theatre is clearly a significant stepping stone for any dramaturge. If Cumming has his eye on a move to an even bigger job – the National Theatre of Scotland, perhaps? – it may also explain his decision to swap his Manhattan zip code for a PH postcode. And as Edinburgh’s Royal Lyceum Theatre casts around for a new director following the news that David Greig is to leave at the end of the current season, are we seeing the start of a trend?

There is certainly precedent for this sort of appointment. In 1944, seven years before Pitlochry Festival Theatre opened, Laurence Olivier and Ralph Richardson took over the running of London’s Old Vic. Olivier then become the first Artistic Director of Pitlochry’s southern counterpart, Chichester Festival Theatre, when it opened in 1962.

Alan Cumming has been a vocal supporter of independence (Image: free)

Decades later Angus-born actor Ian McDiarmid followed his success as Emperor Palpatine in the Star Wars films with a 12 year stint running London’s Almedia Theatre from 1990. Still in London, Mark Rylance became the first Artistic Director of The Globe in 1995, while Melbourne-born A Lister Cate Blanchett spent five years running the Sydney Theatre Company. And of course there’s Kevin Spacey, whose tenure as Artistic Director at the Old Vic is now tainted but was hailed as a coup at the time.

That’s not to say there aren’t questions buzzing around the appointment of Alan Cumming. First and foremost, will he perform at all? It will be expected, by audiences at least. Will he direct shows, and if so how will that happen given that he is based primarily in New York?

Here’s another: how will he fit in the Pitlochry Festival Theatre position with his lucrative filming commitments? His job hosting the American version of The Traitors won’t take him too far from Highland Perthshire – like the UK version it’s filmed at Ardross Castle near Inverness – but he is also attached to a Disney series currently in production and two more projects which have yet to start filming. And beyond any personal contributions, does he have robust programming ideas which can build on Newman’s good work – ideas which can propel the venue into the forefront of the British repertory theatre scene? Are there concrete proposals or just wish-lists and maybes?

Time will tell, though the hope has to be that his appointment will open bold new chapters for him, his new place of work and for Scottish theatre in general. For the moment, though, the word is still ‘Wow’ – to which we might also add: ‘Brace for impact.’