Edinburgh Fringe Q&A: Nadiya Atkinson

Tell us about your show. What can audiences expect?

Our show is a slapstick, camp, and cringe-filled journey through space and time, following two generations creating fanfiction. In the 1960s, a rag-tag group of women from college students to housewives gather to write stories about their favourite characters from a sci-fi show called Fantastical Adventures Reaching Through Time, speculating on their not-so-platonic relationships. This thread comes from the historical roots of fanfiction in Star Trek fanzine-making of the 1960s. In the 2010s, two teenagers navigate their burgeoning queer identities through this now-dated, but utterly charming, sci-fi show. For me, CRINGE is a love letter to fanfiction, sci-fi, The Carpenters, and everything in between, bursting with physical comedy, queer romance, and unabashed nerdy joy.

CRINGE was born from 2012-era days spent under galaxy-printed comforters watching Doctor Who and trading Silly Bandz on cement-cooked playgrounds. It’s a collaboration between me and Max Johngren to celebrate the embarrassing but overwhelming love for fandom and everything 'geek' that pervaded that time in our lives. It’s an intergenerational, intergalactic romp, filled with poorly-made aliens, awfully-written stories, and a whole lot of heart.

Can you talk about some of the creative team involved?

Absolutely! We have a brilliant group of artists on both the cast and crew. Raven Zhan is our genius set, lights, puppet, and everything-in-between designer. We’ve been working together since university and have approximately five productions between us as collaborators. She has an unbelievable eye for composition, colour, and harmony with a background in shadow puppet design. Jake Eisner is our sound designer, creating our parallel worlds through 60s-inspired sci-fi sound. He has extended experience working in music and sound as a designer and director, most recently working on Heartbeat Opera’s queer retelling of Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin. And of course, Katherine Mostek is our intrepid Production Manager, who single-handedly holds the whole operation together. I couldn’t imagine doing this piece without her. And we have a surprisingly large cast for the Fringe – eight inventive, comedically dazzling performers.

CRINGE is presented by Fishmarket Theatre Co., our interdisciplinary, physical-theatre artist collective that revels in playful, innovative storytelling. Fishmarket was founded by a group of clowns, ceramics artists, and writers, dedicated to multidisciplinary work grounded in collaborative storytelling. From installation-art Shakespeare to romance-inspired dark comedies, we often bring shows outside of traditional venues, into spaces where they can converse with geography and community and investigate the imaginative, and fully-embodied. I am thrilled to make our international debut at the Edinburgh Fringe and introduce everyone to this team.

What are your thoughts on the festival in general and how do you feel about being a part of it this year?

Part of what I love most about festivals, from Avignon to Edinburgh, is their intensely experimental and community-focused nature, giving a platform to a variety of stories, storytelling, and storytellers. There aren’t many opportunities for artists to be fully supported in throwing the most insane, brilliant, and deranged ideas at a wall; Fringe’s nature as a supportive, artist-centric hub of idea swapping and genre-bending is absolutely thrilling. We’re over the moon (literally) ((I apologise)) to perform at the Edinburgh Fringe and meet other artists from around the world. We’re all going to see as much work as we can. And for us, that’s as much a part of the experience as performing will be. It’s an honour to take part this year and we are so looking forward to seeing what this summer holds.

Looking at this new show, how would you say it links to your previous work both personally and thematically?

As a director, I’m often pulled to stories that live in the in-between: between mediums, genre, and language. I firmly subscribe to the second half of the oft-misquoted, “A jack of all trades is a master of none, but oftentimes better than a master of one.” I love the intersections between art disciplines, working in ceramics, illustration, theatre, circus, and writing, and often scheme about crossing them over.

Writing and directing has been a novel experience for me; my last foray into staging my own work was back in high school (secondary school) when I thought it an excellent idea to bring a 50-minute Shakespeare love-life-speculation play to the San Diego Fringe Festival called, you guessed it, Will. As a playwright, I adore dark, specific comedies that straddle the line between farce and drama, pulling inspiration from folktales, slapstick comedy, and embodied dramaturgy. My plays are filled with impossible-to-stage directions and seek to celebrate heightened theatricality. Current works-in-progress include a piece about five kids stuck in an unaccompanied minors room of an airport with only pretzel bags, a vague sense of instability, and each other for entertainment and a Slavic-inspired intergenerational folk-musical about Ryba-Kit, a Fish-Whale that carries a town on his back.

Why is this an important story to tell?

CRINGE is a show that investigates queer storytelling and worldbuilding as an avenue for liberation, as an identity-affirming practice in itself. With the guilty-pleasure reputation fanfiction has now, CRINGE uplifts fan-created work as an indispensable tool in providing space to fantasize, to desire, and to investigate relationships that fall outside of heteropatriarchal norms. Science-fiction fan-culture is at the centre of CRINGE and its ability to bind people together and celebrate work typically rejected by mainstream circles. 

Queer ancestry through fanfic comes to the forefront in CRINGE, celebrating not-often-mentioned queer worldbuilding. Tumblr takes its place as a vital part of contemporary queer culture. Fanzines deemed inconsequential by academic circles come to light. We hope that CRINGE sparks discussion, research, and honours the women who not only single-handedly saved Star Trek from closure but created novel forms of fiction that gave my generation a way to verbalise their journey as LGBTQ+ kids coming-of-age in the 2010s.

How can Edinburgh audiences keep up with you beyond the festival?

Fishmarket Theatre Co. lives virtually at fishmarkettheatre.com, where you can find us on X, Instagram, Tiktok, and Facebook! We’re a New York-based company, but are often traveling to various parts of the world and have shows coming up in the fall. If you’d like to stay abreast of our in-person and virtual offerings, you can also subscribe to our newsletter substack at fishmarket.substack.com.