When you think about preparing for the world’s largest Fringe Festival, Edinburgh Fringe – the King, the Papa, the Big Daddy – you think about the typical routines of writing, editing, rehearsals and constant to-dos involving marketing, flyering, fundraising (God help us all), and social media-ing.
Your prep is probably riddled with the anxieties of – “How do I get people in the door? Where is the door? I’ve never seen my venue in person!” Or if you’re bringing a clown act, your head may be filled with thoughts of buying enough of the dry cereal you will inevitably shove down your pants while doing a bit about how conservative men don’t know how to please their wives, or figuring out a way to spray as much liquid on the stage as possible without getting in trouble with your venue or the Lothian and Borders Fire Brigade.
There really is so much to take into account. And yes, I absolutely lie awake at night thinking about all of this. Thinking about the Catholic School uniform that serves as my costume and when and how I’ll be able to wash it regularly so it won’t stink up the theater. And memorizing all the words my solo show demands (why did I do this to myself, I think).
And while I lie there, waiting for the sweet release of sleep (God I love drama), going over the same line again and again, making sure I know it in my marrow so I’ll be able to perform it flawlessly (we’ll see), 21 times in a foreign country for mostly strangers, while my head hammers this line into my cells, another thought slips in.
I don’t want it to slip, but slip it does. This thought is always something along the lines of – “Hey, you! I know you’re busy etching the words of your show onto your blood-brain barrier, but does that section, you know, the one about abortion, does that section honor what’s presently happening in America’s fight over reproductive rights and what’s that got to do with queerness? Isn’t your show about being gay????” This thought shimmies its way into my mind constantly and I’m never surprised – how could this NOT be on my mind? We’re in an election year (not just Americans)! I’m a woman! I’m queer! I’m an American, and I don’t have free healthcare, damnit! Wrestling with this is how I prepare for Fringe.
My solo show, Something To Believe In, follows a mostly real version of me at age 17 navigating an all-girls-Catholic school in the American South. Throughout the course of the show I make several important discoveries, including my favorite one – “Oh boy, I’m queer. This explains a lot!” Something to Believe In features sexy, hot dance moves, a touch of clowning, and true stories of my time in Catholic School. It’s mostly a comedy (guaranteed to be funnier than any Catholic mass ever) AND.
My story and that of so many others, wouldn’t be complete without a stark look at how and why abortion became politicized in The United States. We are gonna laugh about it, ‘cause we must, and we’re gonna talk about what that means for anyone with a uterus, what it means for all of us, especially in the year 2024. Abortion’s politicalization in America is actually a fairly recent phenomenon that’s more of a meticulous plan, laid out by White Evangelicals and the US Religious Right in the 1960s and 70s, than it is a phenomenon.
The meticulous plan is my least favorite truth uncovered during my hour-long solo confession. It’s an upsetting lynchpin, in reality and in the show – Catholics allowed their religion to be weaponized and it’s a huge part of why America is facing the problems it’s currently facing. It’s a huge part of why politicians everywhere want to legislate bodily autonomy which endangers marginalized people and inches us all closer to, you probably guessed it, fascism.
You might be asking – “Thinking about America’s fall into fascism is part of your Fringe prep?” Well one, I could argue that fascism always been a part of America and two, me thinking about it has always been a part of me, so of course it’s a part of my work and part of my prep. I think this is a part of so many of us, artists and audiences alike, and policies on the spectrum of right-leaning to fascism affect all of us. Stripping the rights of people with the ability to give birth is directly linked to attacking queer and trans folks who just want to be happy and live our lives in bodies that feel good to us.
Controlling bodily autonomy and keeping people disconnected from themselves and their communities is an egregious sin. I want to be a part of protecting queerness and community and that is tied in my desire to protect people from religion being manipulated to serve a nationalist agenda. And don’t get me wrong, my time as a Catholic is over (it’s a sticky web I untangle in my show!), but Queer is something that I have always been and always will be.
When we all embrace who we are, when we honor and celebrate that, things will actually change for the better. Fascism cannot beat the likes of pouring cereal down one’s pants! And yes, that is political. The cereal, the pants, the pouring – all of it. Whether it is an election year or not, whether you’re an artist or not, whether you plan to make politics a part of your Fringe experience or not, remember that everything is political. I’m prepping for Fringe. I’m prepping to share these ideas with others, to perform this, to do it with clarity and wit. I am preparing to laugh and cheer and my fellow artists, y’all are rad as hell.
I’m queer, and this is what it means to me to be queer. This is the tradition my queer elders laid out for me to follow, (They aren’t known for being quiet, neither am I, and why should we be? Lives are on the line!) The tradition of not just thinking about the horrors around me or the horrors the future may hold, but how I plan to defy and defeat those horrors, how I plan to do it with joy and humor, surrounded by the best and bravest artists in the world. How I plan to do it with a one person show about a sexually repressed, Catholic-no-longer, lesbian-ish (we are figuring it out) school girl, obsessed with athletes and Maroon 5.
About the show
Date(s): Aug 2-10, 12-17, 19-24
Time(s): Times vary. Click ‘Dates, times and prices’ to view the calendar (1 hour)
Location: theSpace on the Mile – Space 2
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