The Arran Theatre and Arts Trust

Arran Theatre and Arts Trust is a registered charity, run by volunteers as a company limited by guarantee, which promotes, supports and develops the arts on the Isle of Arran, furthering opportunities for professionals in the arts and creating experiences which raise skills, awareness and improve access at community level.

Short listed for a Creative Places Award 2013, 2015, 2021

The Patron of Arran Theatre and Arts Trust is television political journalist, arts presenter and writer, Kirsty Wark. Corporate patrons: Mullen & Mullen Law Firm

Arran Arts Resource

Arran Arts Resource is a team of  three professional artists, Ed O’Donnelly, Josephine Broekhuizen and Sarah Cook who work regularly with young people and school children on various arts related projects (film, visual arts and drama). Their most recent activity has been an archaeology project, run in conjunction with The National Trust for Scotland at Brodick Castle and culminating in the building of a Bronze Age Roundhouse in the castle grounds.

McLellan Arts Festival

Robert McLellan was the most important Scottish dramatist and short story writer to work in living Scots in the twentieth century and his influence on the world of Scottish writing has been crucial. Since his centenary in 2007, the festival has continued, not simply as a celebration of McLellan himself, but with a view to providing the means of creating new work in Scottish writing. Poetry and competitions are popular, and the creative skills of young people are developed through skilled work in the visual arts, including film, as well as running a students’ music school on the island during the festival week. There is also a constant drive to forge cultural links with other rural and island communities.

Arran Open Studios

In August 2012 Arran artists first opened their studios to the general public. There seems nothing extraordinary about this – other regions and localities have held similar events. But this was the first year that Arran Artists, coming together under the guidance of Arran Open Studios, pulled towards such a wide-ranging initiative incorporating painters, sculptors and all manner of craftspeople. The event has run each year since and should be bigger and better than ever in 2016.  It is fast becoming part of the established Arran calendar.