Today we’re delighted to announce our first co-production with the National Theatre of Scotland, on the debut stage adaption of HOME patron Jackie Kay’s memoir Red Dust Road.
Poet, Scotland’s Makar and novelist Jackie Kay’s beautiful soul-searching memoir Red Dust Road is brought to the stage for the very first time. Adapted for the stage by award-wining writer Tanika Gupta, Red Dust Road will perform as part of the 2019 Edinburgh International Festival, before visiting Stirling, Inverness, and here at HOME later in the year.
From the moment when, as a little girl, she realizes that her skin is a different colour from that of her beloved mum and dad, to the tracing and finding of her birth parents, her Highland mother and Nigerian father, Jackie Kay’s journey in Red Dust Road is one of unexpected twists, turns and deep emotions.
First published in 2010, the book has been hailed for its warmth and candour, winning the Scottish Book of the Year Award in 2011. Navigating the challenges of growing up as a mixed race adopted Scot, Jackie discovers that inheritance is about much more than genes: that we are shaped by songs as much as by cells, and that what triumphs, ultimately, is love.
This stage production will be brought to life by a dynamic creative team, including playwright Tanika Gupta, the winner of the 2018 James Tait Black Prize for Drama, and director Dawn Walton, the founder and Artistic Director of Eclipse Theatre, one of the UK’s foremost black-led theatre companies.
Jackie Kay is a celebrated poet and writer who has picked up numerous awards for her novels and story collections, as well as writing extensively for television and the stage. She was awarded an MBE in 2006, and made a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 2002. She was named Scots Makar—the National Poet for Scotland—in March 2016.
Red Dust Road has been developed with the support of Macrobert Arts Centre.
