FOREIGNER to Make UK Premiere at Summerhall During Edinburgh Festival Fringe
The Koan Brothers' anti-identity clown show stars Iranian-American performer Sohrab Haghverdi at Old Lab.
FOREIGNER will make UK Premiere at Summerhall during Edinburgh Festival Fringe. Performances will run 6 - 31 August 2026 at Old Lab at Summerhall.
As a performing artist and asylum seeker in the United States, Sohrab Haghverdi feels the push and pull to perform his identity for different audiences and institutions. FORIEGNER is his anti-identity clown show, aiming to both explain and explode his sense of self.
Born and raised in Iran, the very real possibility of deportation hangs over Sohrab's head. And so with the Trump administration threatening mass deportations in the United States, and engaging in active war with Iran, this foreigner feels a renewed urgency to showcase his artistic brilliance and land himself a Netflix special.
Throughout the performance, Sohrab teases at two different outcomes: if the show goes well and his performance art (drinking his piss) is considered genius, he could earn an O-1B visa awarded to foreigners with virtuoso artistic talent. But if the show goes poorly, he drinks his wee, disgusts his audience, he may be convicted of moral turpitude and promptly deported as a criminal. His future hangs upon the whims of people he has never met, and he feels increasingly squeezed by their conflicting stereotypes: is he the inspiring immigrant or the odious outsider, why can't he be nothing instead? Why are any of us claiming to be anything?
In this dizzying solo performance, Sohrab bounces between over-explaining and refusing explanation. Paradoxical, autobiographical, anti-identity, anti-comedy, and very clown, this FORIEGNER raises his middle finger to the many labels put upon him, spitting venom one moment, blowing kisses the next.
The show received the Al-Bustan Award for SWANA Artists and the Tyler Touring Fund. Producer and co-creator Mason Rosenthal is a founding member of the award-winning American theatre company Lightning Rod Special, the artists behind Underground Railroad Game (Edinburgh Fringe First and Edinburgh Stage Awards) and a 2026 Creative Capital Awardee.
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