Redheads take centre stage at Byre

The director, who grew up in the town and attended St Leonards, is inviting people to explore discrimination and feminism in this dark, funny, fresh piece of Scottish theatre.

She said: “I’m delighted to be bringing REaD to St Andrews. The Byre was where I did my first assistant director job, aged 18, and so in a way it gave me my start in professional theatre. It feels really wonderful to be bringing my own company’s touring show to the same theatre all these years later.”

Although not from a family of artists Allie was inspired by reading Beckett and Shakespeare and seeing new productions.

“My first memories of theatre are going to see The Magic Flute and A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Those productions and the excitement I felt are imprinted on my memory forever,” Allie explained. “It completely opened my mind and started to shape my thinking about what kind of work I wanted to create.”

She explains the motivation for this play: “REaD began life through a series of personal anecdotes told to me by red-haired female performers. Now it’s a mysterious cabaret-noir set in an alternate version of reality. We play with this setting and classic cabaret to explore what it means to be part of a minority – and proud.”

A cabaret within a play, REaD plunges the audience into a world where redheads are strictly segregated and under curfew.

They become a group of society, who are persecuted and ghettoised to the point that some of them decide to form secretive cabaret clubs as an act of self-expression and resistance.

Catch the REaD on May 20 at the Byre at 8pm. Tickets cost £12/£10.