A Footpath Theatre Company Presents
The Wreck of the Queen Thomasina
Pirates! Shipwrecks! Sand! Love? Come aboard ye landlubbers for the critically-acclaimed, uproariously tragic tale of two salty seadogs.
Hot from the poop decks of Brooklyn sails the exuberant, naughty, and heart-rending tale of Crumb and Nickel, two rhyming pirates scuttled on a desert island: sans captain, sans crew, lots of sand. Featuring human/treasure chest eroticism, spoon and flask fisticuffs, palliative pirate drag, and, at its core, a poignant investigation of male tenderness and love. Come find out why audiences laughed and cried, and cried while they laughed, and laughed while they cried.
Written in modern, rhyming verse and designed for guerrilla, underground spaces, The Wreck of the Queen Thomasina is an ideal Fringe show. Capturing the rough-edged, unhinged energy of independent theater without sacrificing the quality and clarity of the story at hand. It premiered to sold-out houses in New York City enjoying universal acclaim from critics and audience members alike.
Listings Information
Venue: theSpace on the Mile, Space 2
Dates: 4-19 August 2023 (not 5, 7)
Time: 11:00-12:00 (4th-12th), 14:00-15:00 (14th-19th) 45mins
This is a show about pirates, but it also seems to be a show that is interested in tragedy. How would you define tragedy in the context of this production?
Conor Johnson: Without giving too much away, this play is a tragedy because its two characters die in the end. In all seriousness, I don't think this is a spoiler, more of a foregone conclusion from the start of the play. The tragedy, arguably, is not so much that Crumb and Nickel die, but that they discover each other just before doing so.
In the press release, it talks about underground theatre. What does this term mean to you as a creator?
Underground theatre is theatre that is being forced into the world, no one asks for it, there is no market and less than no money but its creators make it happen nonetheless.
Predictably, can I ask about the inspiration for the production and the story?
This story was born out of a script request from a Brooklyn-based theatre company, spit&vigor. They were looking for shows that could be set on a small desert island set piece to be performed in a series. I was home with covid when I received the request so I strapped in and wrote the first draft. Our original performances were part of said series, and the response was so overwhelmingly positive that we decided to give the show more life.
Again in the press release, there is much discussion of the different genres that the play moves through. If you were forced to, is there any particular work that you identify with, or see as being created by peers?
The most obvious connections are Waiting for Godot and maybe even more accurately (due to shared nautical themes) Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are dead. However this is not an absurd play, and it rhymes, so perhaps if Moliere and Beckett had a child, if I may flatter myself that much.
And the most horrible question of them all: why bring the show to the Edinburgh fringe? Have you been before, if so, didn't that put you off?
We have not been to the Fringe before so there's been no disillusionment (yet). It has been a lifelong dream of mine since the youth theatre group I was a part of brought a show there and left me behind.
An up-and-coming New York City-based company, A Footpath's mission is to rejuvenate the small-scale theater scene of New York with joyous, unexpected, and compelling new work. Their previous production Ronald and Edith won 'Best of Fringe' at the Great Salt Lake Fringe Festival and showed them what a hotbed of creativity a Fringe festival can be. With their Edinburgh Fringe debut A Footpath is aiming to attract young, explorative theater audiences to delight and inspire.
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