The performance will take place from May 22-26, with a break over the weekend. Tickets are priced at £12, with a £8 concession, available through both Brighton Fringe and Lantern Theatre Brighton’s official website.
The story follows 昭兰 (Zhao Lan), a Chinese exchange student in an American high school, who often finds herself lost in thoughts of Frankenstein’s monster. Like him, she feels out of place, unseen, unworthy, stitched together in a world that doesn’t quite fit her. When her school’s theatre club is casting for “Cinderella”, a Grimm Brothers fairytale, she sees the perfect opportunity to prove her worth. It was the first story she ever read in English. No one knows it better than she does.
Even after 昭兰 gets the role, she’s still unhappy. Foreign stories glitch into nightmares. She misses the Mandarin rhyme she once proudly sang. It doesn’t take long for her to realize: Both Cinderella and Frankenstein's monster are dead. She’s neither of them.
Blurring the boundaries between the Western literary canon and marginalized identities, the experimental one-woman performance weaves together physical theatre, song, and poetic narratives. Stories of Chinese American immigrants from different generations slowly unfold, their identities erased, rewritten, and ultimately reclaimed.
The Beachcombers is an international all-female and non-binary actor ensemble that aims to amplify underrepresented voices. The company earned glowing audience review for their international debut of “Tide” at the 2024 Edinburgh Fringe.
In the Brighton Fringe Production of “Cinderella and Frankenstein’s Monster Are Dead”, the creative team features LANGYUE “PETUNIA” HU as producer-director-writer, PAIGE MEEGAN as prop and scenic designer, LILY BARRON as composer and sound designer, SEO YUN as costume designer, ERIN BURBRIDGE as lighting programmer and technical director, DIANA “XILU” XIONG as stage manager, CHAVA KLAYMAN as assistant producer. The cast will feature LAN JIANG as ZHAO LAN.