Shakespeare at Traquair

Shylock in The Merchant of Venice (2024)

Macbeth (2025)

Promenade performance
28 May – 31 May
4 June – 7 June
Performances begin at 7.30 pm

Macbeth will be directed by Esmé Babineaux.

The young actor auditions (10-16) will be held at St Joseph’s Neighbourhood Centre,17 Rosetta Road, Peebles, EH45 8JU, on Saturday 8th March from 2:30-4:30pm. More details.

Please note that our outdoor performances are in the grounds of Traquair House. The performances take place whatever the weather, so come prepared with suitable clothing and footwear. Our plays begin at 7.30 promptly, so make sure you have time to park your car and walk to the start of our play.

Shakespeare at Traquair is a vibrant community-based drama group, which has put on 27 annual open air promenade productions in the stunning grounds of Traquair House (Scottish Borders) since 1995. Like Shakespeare’s own company, our actors, costumiers, make-up artists, stage management and production team have other professions, but their passion and commitment to performing Shakespeare’s words never fails to entertain large cohorts of followers.

Our Production page has details of all our productions. In 2018 and 2019 our promenade productions were Much Ado About Nothing and Love’s Labour’s Lost, whilst our youngsters performed The Taming of the Shrew and Much Ado About Nothing at the 2018 Edinburgh Fringe. Due to Covid we had to delay A Midsummer Night’s Dream to 2022, performed Richard III in 2023, The Merchant of Venice in 2024 and in 2025 (our 30th year) we will be staging Macbeth in 2025.

Richard Nisbet

The founder of Shakespeare at Traquair tragically passed away in May 2024. He not only founded the group, but directed and acted in many performances and was the heart and soul of Shakespeare at Traquair. We will all miss him, but he has left a fantastic legacy and you can find out more about him here.

Macbeth (2025)

Macbeth will be our 2025 play, and Esmé Babineaux will be directing. Performances: 28-31st May and 4th-7th June.

The young actor auditions (10-16) will be held at St Joseph’s Neighbourhood Centre,17 Rosetta Road Peebles, EH45 8JU, on Saturday 8th March from 2:30-4:30pm. Further details can be found here.

The Merchant of Venice (2024)

In 2024 we performed the Merchant of Vence, which we last staged in 2004. David Bon directed. We sold out six of the eight nights, despite less than perfect weather on some nights. Full details, including photographs, are available here

Richard III (2023)

Leah Moorhouse directed Richard III, which ran from Wednesday 31st May to Saturday 3rd June and Wednesday 7th June to Saturday 10th June. More details are available here

A Midsummer Night’s Dream (2022)

Our promenade plays returned to the beautiful grounds of Traquair House in June 2022, with our delayed production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, directed by Tom Hudson. This year’s setting took us back to the carefree, permissive 1960’s where just about everything that can hang out will be hanging out. More details, including photographs and video are available here.

Iced Gems

Shakespeare at Traquair’s Kath Mansfield, who directed Romeo and Juliet in 2011 and has appeared in many other of our productions, has contributed to Iced Gems: An anthology of stories, poems and reflections. With contributions from four other authors, the anthology is available on Amazon in Kindle, hardback and paperback formats.

Hamlet and Macbeth (2021)

After the events that rather shook up 2020, 2021 was always going to be different. And things were different for Shakespeare at Traquair as it replaced the planned promenade performance of A Midsummer Night’s Dream with a sit down offering of two of the Bard’s best known comedies, Hamlet and Macbeth. Yep, you read that correctly – Hamlet and Macbeth, comedies.

Full details, including photographs and videos can be viewed here.

Love’s Labour’s Lost (2019)

Love’s Labour’s Lost was Shakespeare at Traquair’s main stage production for 2019 and was directed by Tim Wilcock. The play sees self-denial in fashion at the court of Navarre where the young king and three of his courtiers forswear all pleasures in favour of serious study. But when the dazzling Princess of France and her entourage arrive, inconvenient promises are quickly ditched in favour of some ham-fisted wooing.

More details about Love’s Labour’s Lost

Shakespeare Shorts (2018)

Following sell-outs in 2015 and 2016, Shakespeare at Traquair were back up to Edinburgh for Fringe 2018. Mix fourteen young actors, a couple of Shakespeare plays, some creative editing and you’ve all the ingredients for two shows that will appeal to anyone from age 5 upwards. Out talented young cast performed rewritten and shortened versions of The Taming of the Shrew and Much Ado About Nothing, written by director Tim Wilcock.

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Much Ado About Nothing (2018)

Much Ado About Nothing is a light-hearted romp set in Italy, telling the story of Benedict and Beatrice, Claudio and Hero and a raft of other characters. It was last performed by Shakespeare at Traquair in 2003, so we were delighted to be doing it again. Scott Noble, one of the original cast from 2003, directed the play.

More details, including photographs, are available here.

Get Involved

We are a friendly, inclusive group and welcome people of all ages who would like to act or help behind the scenes. Our main summer productions involved adults and children, but we also have children only shows.