Following performances at Riverside Studios and the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, British-Italian performer and writer Giulia A.Cryan brings her autobiographical solo show The Seat of Me to VOILA! Festival at Etcetera Theatre.
One woman. One chair.
A handful of objects. And all the different people she might have been. From Rome to New York, Los Angeles and London, The Seat of Me follows Giulia through the people, places and encounters that shaped the woman and performer she has become.
At its heart is a question: how much of our lives do we spend waiting for somebody else to give us permission to become ourselves? Through ballet, drama school, migration, love, and rejection, Giulia explores the moments when others gave, or withheld, permission: permission to dream, to fail, to leave, to belong and to take up space.
Using little more than a chair, music, and a handful of objects, memories transform into characters and different versions of Giulia emerge onstage. Edith Piaf’s music weaves through the piece, becoming part of a larger exploration of performance and the freedom acting gives us to encounter parts of ourselves we might otherwise never meet.
Why should you see it?
The Seat of Me is an intimate, playful, and vulnerable piece for anyone who has ever wondered where they belong, questioned whether they were good enough, started again somewhere new, or waited for someone else’s permission to become the person they wanted to be. It’s a deeply personal story about being British-Italian, migration, and becoming an artist, but underneath it is a universal question about how we become ourselves. Sometimes you have to sit with your past before you can stand in your life.
PERFORMANCE DETAILS
The Seat of Me
Written and performed by Giulia A. Cryan
VOILA! Festival
Etcetera Theatre, London
Monday 9th of November at 7pm
Running time: approximately 50 minutes
Tickets: https://www.voilafestival.co.uk/events/the-seat-of-me/
