Traverse Theatre

The Traverse Theatre Club, originally opened by Cambridge Footlights as "The Sphinx Nightclub", began at 15 James Court, Lawnmarket, Edinburgh, on 20 August 1962. The location was a former doss-house and brothel also known as Kelly's Paradise and Hell's Kitchen. It was "a long, low-ceilinged first-floor room barely 15ft wide by 8ft high" with 60 seats salvaged from the Palace Cinema placed in two blocks on either side of the stage. The theatre is named because Terry Lane mistakenly believed that the staging arrangement is called "traverse"; he later realised that it is "transverse" but it was already too well known to change it. The first performance was on 2 January 1963, with the…

Founded in 1962, the mission of the Traverse was to continue the spirit of the Edinburgh Festivals all year round. Theatre critic Lyn Gardner has described the Traverse's programme as "the backbone of theatre on the Edinburgh Fringe." "What you see there will often set the tone and tenor of the rest of the Fringe."