Julia VanderVeen Will Debut MY GRANDMOTHER'S EYE PATCH at Edinburgh Fringe 2024

A lovable idiot holds a memorial service for a long-deceased family member and we are all invited to get to know her. The idiot, that is. Witness My Grandmother's Eyepatch putting ‘the fun in funeral' this Edinburgh Festival Fringe at ZOO Playground.

 

My Grandmother's Eyepatch is the off-the-wall comedy debut hour from award-winning New York based clown Julia VanderVeen.

 

Julia's physical comedy will explore the wild stages of grief and attempt to honour her beloved grandmother who died two decades ago. 

 

Julia has always been preoccupied with the finiteness of time. She once berated her Grandmother for turning on the TV because she wanted her full attention. Then aged 7, Julia asserted, "Grandma, we have such little time together."

 

Still commanding attention, in My Grandmother's Eyepatch, Julia utilises the silly, joyful and absurd skills in her armoury to ask audiences to consider what they want to achieve during their short time on earth. For Julia, it's her debut Fringe comedy hour. Would her Grandmother be proud?

 

Frigid Fringe NYC's ‘Best solo clown' winner Julia VanderVeen says, “My grandmother always wanted to be a poet, and she was a poet very late in her life, but I always wondered if she really wanted to raise children or if she did it because it was expected.

 

“I especially feel connected to my grandmother right now, because I'm an artist in my late 30s, and I'm actively in the process of deciding whether I want to be a mother or not.

 

“How many female voices have not been heard because they were tired out from the immediate tasks of child-rearing?

 

“What I love about physical comedy is that I connect with every single person who comes to my show. I am letting the audience see my vulnerability and laugh at the deep stupidity of being human, which is something we all share.”

 

My Grandmother's Eyepatch plays throughout August at Edinburgh's Zoo Playground. Directed by award-winning clown and improviser Isaac Kessler. Executive produced by US-based performer and live events veteran Angelika Giatras. Advance tickets (prices from £10) are available to book here.

 

My Grandmother's Eyepatch is Julia VanderVeen's debut Edinburgh Fringe hour. The show is an original concept first devised in 2019 with Brighton-based physical comedy masters Spymonkey's Artistic Director Aitor Basauri.

 

Julia VanderVeen is a New York based actor and physical comedian. She has a degree in Music Theatre from Illinois Wesleyan University. She was studying Classical Theatre and High Comedy at BADA (British American Drama Academy) when her grandmother died in 2006, and, as a result, missed attending her memorial service. 

 

Julia has trained extensively in Clown and Bouffon, and apprenticed under head of physical theatre at Yale University, Christopher Bayes. As an actor, Julia has worked all over the United States, and performed in places as remote as Alaska, and as tropical as the Mediterranean; appearing in Hairspray on Royal Caribbean's Symphony of the Seas.

Julia has been creating clown material for the past ten years. Currently, she is developing two all female Bouffon shows: one entitled Stand Back and Stand By about the January 6th insurrection at Washington's Capitol Building, and one entitled Supreme Cream about the Supreme Court overturning women's rights to abortions in the US.

She lives with her husband, her two cats, and her ambitious plant collection.

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