Edinburgh Fringe Special: Kate Barton
The co-artistic director of Piccolo Theatre on verbatim show Screen 9
Hello…
…and welcome to the a special issue of The Crush Bar. Usually, I arrive in your inbox every fortnight, but things are going to work a bit differently throughout August - partly because I am pretty busy covering in-person Edinburgh Fringe things for The Stage, and partly because, hey, why not not mix it up a bit?
Instead of one big interview every two weeks, I’m going to be sending out a short Q&A every few days - and each one is going to be with someone connected to an Edinburgh Fringe show I think is worth shouting about.
This first one is with Kate Barton, co-artistic director of Piccolo Theatre, whose verbatim show Screen 9 is playing at the EICC all month. In what has been a bit of a weird week - a mix of joy at the festival returning, and sadness that it is still so far removed from its usual exuberance - Screen 9 was a definite highlight. I saw it on Wednesday night, and loved it.
Anyway, more about the show below. For now, let me remind you to subscribe to this newsletter to get it sent straight to your inbox, if you don’t already…
And let me also remind you that you can help support this newsletter by sending me a few quid via Ko-Fi on the link below. Anything you can do to make this worth my while would be really appreciated!
I’ll see you again at the bottom, but first of all, here’s Kate…
Q&A: Kate Barton, Piccolo Theatre
Kate Barton - along with George Rexstrew - is co-artistic director of Piccolo Theatre. She wrote and directed the company’s new show Screen 9, a verbatim piece about the mass shooting that occurred during a cinema screening of The Dark Knight Rises in Aurora, Colorado, in 2012.
The show is this year’s recipient of the Charlie Harthill Theatre Reserve, The Pleasance’s fund to help emerging theatremakers take their work to the Edinburgh Fringe, and has been made in partnership with Survivors Empowered, a US-based charity that works with those affected by gun violence.
It is a hugely moving work. Four characters - composite fictions created from Barton’s research, played by Rexstrew, Sabrina Wu, Hannah Schunk-Hockings, and David Austin-Barnes - stand on a stage and speak, their voices overlapping and interweaving to tell the story of the shooting, and what happened to the survivors afterwards. It is also extremely thought-provoking, tackling the related issues of gun control and the glamourisation of gun violence.
Fergus Morgan: Why make a show about a mass shooting? And why make it a verbatim play?
Kate Barton: I think it is something that a lot of people around the world can’t comprehend. I certainly couldn’t! How could a space I love like the cinema suddenly be one of fear and death? But that is the reality for Americans right now and it is something I wanted to highlight. We, as Europeans, are getting so used to it happening across the Atlantic that the shooting which took place ONLY TWO WEEKS ago in a cinema in California where people died didn’t even make BBC homepage news…
I wanted to tell the survivors’ story. Aurora is a typical case where all the media attention was on the shooter with their face being splashed across the TV. I knew that there was something much more important and interesting about the real people affected and what happened next. I find verbatim incredibly powerful as a medium to tell stories. And I think, as this show is about reclaiming a space and a community, it made sense if the text was theirs too.
FM: How did you go about researching and writing Screen 9? What were the biggest challenges?
KB: It’s very much a collage of all sorts. There is no one source I spoke to or took information from. Blogs, interviews, news coverage, documentaries – anything in the public domain or anyone that spoke directly to me was taken as direct quotes and compiled together into four character sketches, anonymising details and fictionalising the real people.
The biggest challenge was the time. It’s taken years of crafting and researching and detailing to put it together as a piece. We have been incredibly fortunate to work with Survivors Empowered directly on this production. And I am incredibly grateful to Sandy and Lonnie [Phillips], who lost their daughter Jessica, for speaking to me directly and lending me their voices in the script. They are an absolute inspiration and their work with Survivors Empowered has motivated this piece to spread their amazing journey.
FM: What about Piccolo Theatre? Who are you? Where do you come from? What do you want to do? Where do you want to go?
KB: We are a reasonably new company, set up by me and George Rexstrew. Our first show, Swallow by Stef Smith, was selected for the National Student Drama Festival when we were both at university. We then took a small break while George trained at LAMDA and I worked for Durham University. We want to produce bold, thought-provoking productions and tell real stories.
Next year is the tenth anniversary of the massacre and our dream would be to tour Screen 9 nationally (and maybe internationally) – to share the message, start the conversation, and fundraise for the important work of Survivors Empowered.
FM: How have you found your experience at the Edinburgh Fringe this year?
KB: Very odd. The Fringe is back but it is a Fringe like no other! No flyers, both in-person and online shows. I think it feels calmer, which is nice! There is less of a feverish atmosphere, which, given the Fringe is a marathon and not a sprint, seems really healthy to me.
We’ve also been fortunate enough to have some wonderful feedback so far and I’m pretty overwhelmed by the amazing support we have garnered from audience members. And just being here (and not sat at home!) has been truly rewarding.
Screen 9 is at Pleasance at EICC until August 29th.
That’s it for now…
…but I will be back with another short, Fringe-themed Q&A in a few days time. If you are in Edinburgh, I’d really recommend catching Screen 9. If you aren’t, then take it from me that it is a great show, and deserves a future run somewhere!
In the meantime, you can read my first dispatch of Edinburgh Fringe reviews for The Stage here - and, should you feel so inclined, you can also read my feature about theatre and cricket, and the long relationship between the two (including a terrific Harold Pinter anecdote) here.
Right. I’m away this weekend, off to another Scottish island. I’ll be back in Edinburgh on Sunday night, and back in your inbox sometime next week.
See you then!
Fergus x