🥞Edinburgh Recap: I _____ The Fringe!🥞
Loved? Barely survived? Am proud of what I accomplished at? Am relieved to be done with? (All of the above, probably.)
Strawberries!
Aaaand that’s a wrap! I wrote a show. I took it to Edinburgh Fringe, the largest performing arts festival in the world. I performed it 21 times in 24 nights. I did it!
Or, more accurately, WE did it. (As in, “We did it, Jo!”…as in, my director (and tech!), Joanna Simmons.
Wall Of Gratitude
I’ll keep saying it: “solo show” is the ultimate misnomer. None of this would be possible without Jo, or without Matt Lipkins (music; with a late shout to Adam Hoffman), Julio Medina (choreography), Keri Goff (artwork), Mallory Kassoy (marketing & press), Matt Gaynes (video editing), Chloe Lee (website), and Holly Van Ness and Richard Dean (photo & video), along with ALL the folks who so generously donated to my campaign to make this dream a reality.
The gratitude continues: a million thanks to ZOO venues for being the host with the absolute most. Thank you to everyone who traveled from near and far — especially from far! — to support me, including my partner Kristen Browne aka Pushkin aka The Queen who came from LA, along with my sisters and brother-in-law, Jess, Joel, and Mal, who came from Columbus, Ohio. (Thanks also to my parents, Felice and Jerry Kassoy, for watching my nieces back home so Jess and Joel could make the trip.) Aaaand double thanks to Mom and Mal, whose talents are featured IN the show!
FINALLY, a huge thanks to my fellow performers who provided much-needed support, guidance, and inspiration leading up to and during Fringe, including Julian Stern, Brendan George, Kelly Reilly, Mark Vigeant, and Otter Lee.
I am so grateful for this experience and for everyone who made it possible.
The Great Stuff
The show got better and better, and so did I. If you saw a version in New York or LA: first of all, thank you for coming out! Second, the show has evolved SO much since then. It’s tighter, clearer, more realized. As a performer, I’m so much more comfortable, more intentional, more “dropped in.” At the end of the day, THIS is the only thing that truly matters: making the work the very best it can be, and enjoying the process of getting it there. We did it, Jo.
After my first show, an audience member approached me and said, “It was brilliant!” and then fully wept. I had someone tell me the show was the best thing they saw at the festival. I had people who have panic attacks tell me they were grateful because they’d never seen their experience depicted so accurately. I had people thank me because the show helped them empathize with loved ones who experience panic attacks. I had packed houses. People laughed and cried and told me how moved they were. I sold out of chapbooks. I sold a bunch of T-shirts.
I had a group of young actors from Bakersfield, CA come to the show and like it so much, they asked me to teach them dance moves after.
One of the adults told me, “Thank you for inspiring my child to be fully himself” and left these reviews:
I also received really lovely reviews like this one. (Joanna ASSURED me that she is not the “Jo” who wrote the review lol.)
And then I had to stop reading reviews, because…
The Tough Stuff
Someone left a really rude one online, that was less a negative review of the show and more a personal attack on me. Also, during one show, I had three drunk audience members texting the entire time (in the front row!!), and afterward, when I told them (very politely), “Hey, it’s really distracting to a performer when you’re on your phone,” one of them looked me in the eye (or as in-the-eye as a very drunk person could) and said, “I guess it was a bad audience for a bad show.” I had a show with two audience members and two shows with four people in the crowd. Interestingly, one of my BEST shows had five people there, and one of my shows with a very full house was one of the weirdest, most deflating ones.
A few years ago, a friend of mine did mushrooms for the first time. Afterward, we asked, “How was your trip?” and she said, “I felt all my fears and insecurities at the same time.” Fringe wasn’t ~exactly~ like that, but it did pinch some very personal, painful nerves and brought up questions like, Why do I need every single person to love this show, and why does it crush me when some of them (inevitably) don’t? Why is my sense of self so closely tied to (the way I perceive) the audience’s reaction to my show? Why can’t I have thicker skin and be more resilient? Does anyone care about this show? Do I even care about this show? What right do I have to take up space with my art? Am I exploiting challenging experiences for the sake of making art? Does this show minimize the experiences of people with “REAL” mental health issues? Why do I feel so lonely and depressed when I am also, objectively, loved and well supported and, by all accounts, successful in this endeavor? Why can’t I just be PROUD of what I’ve accomplished and GRATEFUL for this experience? If I can’t feel those things, what’s the point of being here?
I spent a lot of the month feeling lousy and low. I was feverish, congested, stressed, pissed off, tired, or sore. I got sucked into a culture of comparison, where I felt petty and jealous toward other shows that were selling out and garnering critical acclaim when I felt my show deserved the same. Every day, Joanna would come to the theater and say, “How are you?” and for the last several shows, my response was something like “I don’t want to be here. I don’t want to do this.”
To be clear, none of this is especially surprising, especially for a first-time Fringer and especially doing a solo show; one friend reflected on his first experience and how it felt to “get [his] ass kicked.” Also, none of this is a complaint: I just think it’s important to be honest with myself – and with you — about the challenges of the experience, when some people will say (with varying levels of honesty), “Fringe was the best month of my life!”
Despite all this, I kept doing the show. And I kept doing it really well. I was proud of my every single performance, even if I dreaded doing it or wasn’t having fun onstage. And while making this show was a deeply personal journey, perhaps the best part was that it brought people together.
The People!
*Note: Substack tells me I reached the length limit of this newsletter, so my apologies to any folks I didn’t have space to picture or mention!
I reunited with my friend Mirabelle, who I’d mentored seven years ago and had only met once in person! She’s from Nigeria, I live in LA and – whadaya know! – we reconnected in Edinburgh!
As I mentioned, Substack tells me I’ve reached the length limit, but the other main things are: I saw a LOT of great shows, met a ton of cool people, had a fantastic halloumi burger, and have (at least!) one more show date upcoming. More on all this soon…!
In the meantime, sending love & thanks & poetry & pancakes,
Ben
So good to hear about your completely amazing, completely mixed, incredibly challenging time! Thanks for continuing to share your journey with us. (When is the show coming to Columbus!?)
It’s been such a joy & inspiration to follow your journey! Thank you for sharing all of it with us!