Multi-award winners for The Underground Railroad Game (Fringe First, Obie Award and Stage Award), Lightning Rod Special is returning to the Edinburgh Fringe with a sweaty moustache of a comedy about the business of letting their dads die. With a dose of Kafka and ‘A Christmas Carol,‘ Lions (8 Best Shows at Philadelphia Fringe) disassembles the myths their fathers told themselves about what it means to be a great man. Enter a world of breathing machines, Christmas ghosts, to-do lists, shirts that smell like grass, and the most romantic disappointments of their fathers’ lives in this show about the legacies we inherit and failure, asking how masculinity can move forward positively.
Co-writer Scott R Sheppard tells us more about the show.
Where: Tech Cube Zero, Summerhall
When:Â 6-30 Aug
Ticket link: https://www.edfringe.
What is the show about, and where did the idea come from?
Back in 2023, my co-writer Alice Yorke and I were making a satire with our director Sarah Blush about seductions and pitfalls of American capitalism. But in the middle of that process, both my dad and Alice’s dad passed away very suddenly. Her dad was in a tragic bike accident, and mine had a severe complication after a minor surgical procedure.
These losses exploded our lives in unfathomable ways. It became the only thing we could think or talk about in our writing sessions. We were consumed by the business of death, masculine legacy, a secret sadness that our fathers grappled with throughout their lives. The big boogeyman of American capitalism started to feel tenuous and impersonal, so we left that topic behind and started to relive the weeks we spent in the hospitals as our dads were on life support.
During these darkly comic and emotionally fraught doldrums, we felt like clerks of death. We managed bizarre and petty administrative tasks, while also trying to account for the monumental and mediocre lives our fathers lived. There was so much to do, and there was nothing to do, all at the same time. This contemplation became the world of our play. Years later it led to Lions, a raucously funny and tender piece that is probably the most personal work our company Lightning Rod Special has ever made.Â
Sell the show to a potential audience in one sentence!
If you’ve ever had the sweat drip from your mustache while you’re cleaning the air filter on your generator, while wondering if, when you die, anybody will remember how well you coached that youth soccer team back in ‘92 when they took second place in that local July 4th tournament….it’s a little like that.
What does the Fringe mean to you, and do you have any particular memories?
Edinburgh Fringe is like the month-long ketamine hit that helps you rationalize years of distressing poverty and emotional turmoil from being a professional theater artist in 2026. Haha. But I do actually have one memory from the last time our company, Lightning Rod Special, was in Scotland.
When I came to the Edinburgh Fringe with our show Underground Railroad Game at the Traverse Theatre in 2018, it was a huge moment for us! We were very nervous and excited because we weren’t sure if the show was going to work for Edinburgh audiences in the Fringe context.
Then, when we were supposed to begin tech, the shipping container with our set got trapped in a boat, hours from Edinburgh, and we had to tech our show without most of our stuff without a set. And the set was a huge part of the show! When the truck finally came in the middle of the night, my pal Jenn Kidwell gave the driver a big hug. I was terrified that our first show would be a complete mess.
The next day we previewed the show to a sold-out house, and the fear was coursing through my veins. But we pulled it off, and it ended up being one of the wildest tour stops of my life. We got a Fringe First, an Edinburgh Stage Award, and went on to do six weeks at Soho Theatre in London. A very memorable and thrilling ride.Â
What are you looking forward to in Edinburgh?
I was thinking of becoming a connoisseur of blood sausage. So please send your recs. I also can’t wait to see a bunch of shows, especially all the shows from my extremely talented friends and collaborators coming from Philly and New York City: Foriegner, Baby Everything, Salty Brine’s Neutral Milk Hotel Show, Penelope, 40-Year Old Ballerino, and Geoff Sobelle’s Clown Show.Â
What’s next for the show?
We’d love to take Lions back to the States and show it to a bunch of audiences there. Who knows, maybe we’ll do a dad-themed tour where we only play garages and decks.