In our ongoing Edinburgh Fringe 2026 interview series, we are speaking to artists and creatives who are bringing their shows to the Scottish capital this summer.
In this interview, we speak with the team behind FORIEGNER.
What can you tell me about your show?
It is a wild ride! Sohrab finally gets a chance to tell the unbelievable story of his life, about being an Iranian asylee, a stage four cancer survivor, how he met an otherworldly entity who told him the true meaning of being an artist, but instead he will talk about his first sexual encounter in a pizza hut. Or maybe you’ll get lucky and he’ll explain the other stuff! Or maybe he will squeeze a squeaky pig for the entire hour. You’ll have to come and see!!!!
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| Photo by Darien Griffin |
How would you describe the style of your show to anyone who has never seen you before?
It’s experimental, it’s weird, it’s fun, it’s wacky. It is a clown show! It is an anti-clown show! It is a suitcase show that is also an anti-suitcase show! If you’re looking to laugh and be disturbed and be under the threat that something remarkable will happen that you have absolutely never seen before and will never see again for an hour, you’re going to love FORIEGNER.
What was the lightbulb moment that led to the creation of this piece?
Sohrab was unpacking a ton of things from a suitcase in front of his White Jewish Directors. Sometimes the objects meant everything. Sometimes they meant nothing. Each lazzo (little clown gag) with the object was an attempt to get approval from the audience. And suddenly … Sohrab was the suitcase. Everything he had ever done in his life were the objects. All of the moments of his life were lazzi (little clown gags plural) in order to get approval from something. Then the three Koan Brothers became enlightened and pissed themselves. It was destiny!
What makes 2026 the perfect year for this specific story or performance?
This is a performance about an Iranian National seeking asylum in the United States. It is a story of struggling with un-belonging and the ways our culture's fixation on identity is a cancer to our spiritual development. As a society, we humans are at a turning point in our connectedness, a turning point in how we decide to deal with ideas of “self” and “other.” We can see no greater moment than now to have the perspective of this show.
How will you mentally and physically prepare for a run at the Fringe?
Sohrab is weightlifting three times a week, and making sure to eat kiwis every morning. All of us in the company are studying the words of the great mystic poet Rumi.
If you couldn’t use a flyer to attract audiences, what ridiculous object would you hand out to people to get them into your show?
A little vial of sohrab’s semen, which would require a mission to retrieve it from a hospital in Tehran where it is currently frozen.
What is the one item in your Fringe Survival Kit that you can’t live without this month?
We can’t live without our computers because when we aren’t meditating and weightlighting and constantly seeing all the amazing performances, we are playing the competitive online autochess game Teamfight Tactics to ease the strain of our existential existences!
What would you deem as success at the end of the Fringe?
If we get this show in front of a lot of folks' eyes and help provide them with a spiritual accelerant to the dissolution of self! Or an invitation to perform at the MC93 Bobigny and Romeo Castellucci gives us an award. Maybe that one would be better.
Other than your own show, are there any other shows you would recommend at the Fringe this year?
We have an amazing group of folks coming from Philadelphia! Lions from Alice Yorke and Scott Sheppard, Baby Everything from Lee Minora, The Van Gogh Shogh from Donna Oblongota, Penelope from Alex Bechtel and Eva Steinemetz, The 40-Year-Old Ballerino from Chris Davis, Geoff Sobelle’s Clown Show! They are all philly shows! Go Birds!
What is one Edinburgh spot that you would recommend people to visit when they're not watching performances?
Meet us at the gym at the Royal Commonwealth Pool or maybe Jo-Lee Pilates!
Can you describe the show in 5 words?
Unforgettable anti-identity clown show good.
What keeps you inspired?
Knowing that Tony Clifton is looking down on us with his infinite powerful energy, and hopefully he will not go completely insane and ruin the show!
What would you hope someone takes away from seeing the show?
“If you think what’s most important about me is that I'm brown and from the Middle East, or any other label you want to name, and I believe you, then I have to work hard forever to sustain this sandhouse that I didn't consent to build. I wanted to make a show that addresses being a foreigner in America, or anywhere for that matter, without giving the audience (mostly educated and white) the opportunity to reduce the story into one where the underdog overcomes. Can I be seen as a complex ball of aliveness and not just an oriental rug?”
When and where can people see the show?
August 7th-31st, off the 18th and 25th at the Old Lab at Summerhall.
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