Andy Arnold is a Scotland-based theatre director and the former artistic director of the

Tron Theatre The Tron Theatre is located in Glasgow, Scotland. The theatre was formerly known as the Tron Kirk. It began as the Collegiate Church of Our Lady and St. Anne. The Tron Theatre building is home to the Tron Theatre Company and serves as a prod ...

in Glasgow.

Career

Arnold was the major force behind setting up The Arches, Glasgow's long running multi-arts venue, which was open from 1991 to 2015.

The Arches

The site of the venue was a previously derelict area below the Glasgow Central railway station, which was converted to house the exhibition ''Glasgow's Glasgow'' during the city's year as European City of Culture. In 1991, after the exhibition had ended, the space was obtained by Arnold for the purposes of creating a theatre. Realising that theatre productions required substantial funding, Arnold decided to stage nightclub events to support his projects, and this practice continued until the venue's closure, the clubbing revenues helping to fund what became one of Europe's leading cultural venues. Arnold set up The Arches Theatre Company to perform site specific interpretations of work by playwrights including

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and two unperformed works by the novelist

James Kelman James Kelman (born 9 June 1946) is a Scottish novelist, short story writer, playwright and essayist. His fiction and short stories feature accounts of internal mental processes of usually, but not exclusively, working class narrators and their ...

. He was also inspired by the size and atmospherics of the space to put on unusual productions such as

Arthur Miller Arthur Asher Miller (October 17, 1915 – February 10, 2005) was an American playwright, essayist and screenwriter in the 20th-century American theater. Among his most popular plays are '' All My Sons'' (1947), '' Death of a Salesman'' (1 ...

's ''

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'' in the building's damp, dark basement with the audience seated on church pews, ''

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- The Theatre Cut,'' a promenade version of

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's film featuring a cast of 100, and a staging of

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's translation of the epic poem ''

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'' . For the building's fifteenth anniversary in 2006, Arnold conceived and directed the critically acclaimed production ''Spend A Penny'', a series of one-on-one monologues staged in the venue's toilet cubicles, featuring work by playwrights including

Liz Lochhead Liz Lochhead Hon FRSE (born 26 December 1947) is a Scottish poet, playwright, translator and broadcaster. Between 2011 and 2016 she was the Makar, or National Poet of Scotland, and served as Poet Laureate for Glasgow between 2005 and 2011. ...

James Kelman and David Harrower. He received an Honorary D. Litt degree from Strathclyde University for his work at the Arches.

Tron Theatre

Arnold was appointed Artistic Director of the

in 2008. His first production for the Tron Theatre Company, '' The Drawer Boy'', was highly acclaimed and since then he has also directed '' That Face'', '' Cooking with Elvis'', ''Bliss'', ''Mud'', 'Shall Roger Casement Hang?' by Peter Arnott, the world premiere stage adaptation of James Joyce's '' Ulysses'', which toured to Ireland as well as four cities in China
BBC Two - James Joyce Goes to China
In 2016 he staged a production of The Tempest in Beijing - performed in mandarin. Most recent work has included directing David Ireland's Cyprus Avenue, John Byrne's Underwood Lane, Ramesh Meyyappan in 'Off Kilter - Singapore, Glasgow, Paris, and Shanghai, The Lonesome West at the Tron and in Perm, Russia, the Scottish premiere of The Lying Kind by Anthony Neilson, a new play by Martin McCormack called Ma, Pa, and the Little Mouths, and the first British production of Ballyturk by Enda Walsh. In May 2019 he directed The Selfish Giant for Beijing Children's Theatre Company and returned to China in 2020 to direct Chinese Actors from Shanghai Dramatic Arts Centre. His tenure at Tron Theatre ended in November 2023 with the staging of Gary McNair's adaptation of Charles Dickens' Great Expectations, entitled Nae Expectations.

Other productions

Arnold directed Trafalgar Theatre's production of ''

Death of a Salesman ''Death of a Salesman'' is a 1949 stage play written by the American playwright Arthur Miller. The play premiered on Broadway in February 1949, running for 742 performances. It is a two-act tragedy set in late 1940s Brooklyn told through a ...

'' which toured the United Kingdom in the spring of 2025 with

David Hayman David Hayman (born 9 February 1948) is a Scottish film, television and stage actor and director from Glasgow. His acting credits include '' Sid and Nancy'' (1986), '' Hope and Glory'' (1987), '' Rob Roy'' (1995), '' The Jackal'' (1997), '' Tri ...

in the role of Willie Loman.''Death of a Salesman'' theatre programme, Festival Theatre, Edinburgh, March 2025

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Arnold, Andy Year of birth missing (living people) Living people British theatre directors Place of birth missing (living people) Theatre people from Glasgow