JUSTIN ELIZABETH SAYRE IS A FORTY YEAR OLD WOMAN to Play Edinburgh Fringe
The solo show blends standup and storytelling, drawing inspiration from Bette Davis and Elizabeth Taylor.
Award-winning writer, performer and downtown New York fixture Justin Elizabeth Sayre will bring their celebrated solo show, Justin Elizabeth Sayre Is a 40-Year-Old Woman to the Edinburgh Festival Fringe - part standup, part storytelling, part battle cry for anyone creating their second act. Sharp-witted, hilarious and heartfelt, it is a joyous piece of theatre that asks, in a culture that counts you out, how you can stand up and take the space you so rightly deserve.
Sayre (they/them) is a non-binary performer who, in this show, adopts the idea of the "forty-year-old woman" - not as a demographic, but as a state of mind. Self-possessed, foul-mouthed, and fabulous, for Sayre, anyone can be a 'forty-year-old woman' in their own right, regardless of age, gender, or social situation; it's not about the number of candles on the cake - it's about the party you throw around it. Taking the milestone of turning forty as its starting point, the show asks what it means to age in a culture that treats youth as the only currency worth having.
With inspiration drawn from classic Hollywood divas such as Bette Davis, Lauren Bacall, and their namesake, Elizabeth Taylor, Sayre learns to never wait for permission, never apologise for taking up space, and to never doubt your own power and worth. For these women, and Sayre themself, the key to becoming a 'forty-year-old woman,' is understanding yourself as a person of worth. As Sayre puts it: "When the world says you're not enough, I want to be entirely too much!'
The show also opens into a wider conversation about queer ageing and visibility. Growing up with the backdrop of the AIDS crisis, Sayre saw a generation lost in real time. The result was a profound gap in visible queer elders. Like many who grew up in the wake of that crisis, Sayre is now part of the first generation stepping into that space - making the case that getting older is a privilege and a power, not a diminishment, and showing what it means to grow into your truest form. Set against a broader cultural conversation in which society still places an outsized premium on youth, the show asks what it means to reclaim that territory - for women, for queer people, and for anyone searching for the right to be exactly who they are.
Funny, intelligent and deeply affirming, Justin Elizabeth Sayre Is a Forty-Year-Old Woman is both a comedy and a manifesto for embracing growth as the good part. Blending humour with sharp personal insight, and jazzy jackets they stole from your nan, the show invites audiences to step into the idea of the "forty-year-old woman" for themselves - whatever that means to them. It is a call to anyone who has ever been told they are no longer in fashion and are less valuable with time: your power may only just be beginning. The show is dedicated to Sayre's friend the late comedian and podcaster, Catie Lazarus, 'who didn't get to be a forty-year-old woman for long enough.'
The show is produced by Outside In Theatre, which also brought Sayre's 2022 hit, Lottie Platchett Took a Hatchet and is supported by Soho Theatre's Edinburgh Lab programme.
Justin Elizabeth Sayre is a Forty Year Old Woman performs 5th to 30th August (not 17th) at Underbelly Bristo Square's Dairy Room at 18:10.
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