CATILIN COOK: THE WRITING ON THE STALL Is Heading To The Edinburgh Fringe Festival

Caitlin Cook became obsessed with bathroom graffiti a decade ago while she was studying art history (of course) and getting frustrated at the pretentious exclusivity of the art world. Then, in a random dive bar in Chicago, she saw this written on the bathroom wall:

"Since writing on toilet walls is done neither for critical acclaim nor financial reward, it is the purest form of art. Discuss."

Fascinated by this perspective, Caitlin set about creating her own art from the bon mots, wisecracks, witticisms, bizarre ponderings, and silly doodles that make up bathroom stalls across the world.

This led to the creation of The Writing on the Stall, which sold out its 2023 Off-Broadway debut and was a New York Times Critic's Pick; the accompanying studio album has over 25M+ streams.

This is a delightfully funny, poetic, and confessional show about bathroom graffiti. But it's also a discourse on vulnerability, connection, and finding shared humanity in the most unlikely of places. Now, Fringe audiences can join Caitlin on a sing-along bathroom-stall-graffiti journey that explores feminism, sexuality, vulnerability, trauma, anxiety, fear, and connection - with a whole mountain of illustrated dicks.

Joyful, heartful, and filled with catchy songs, this show aims to leave audiences feeling like they've just had an authentic ladies-loo experience - and to make sure they never leave another bathroom without looking for the secrets and stories scribbled on its stalls. Set in a women's bathroom - that vaunted safe space for secret-sharing, tear-shedding, trauma-dumping, and friend-making - The Writing On The Stall is a personally vulnerable show that shows us how toilet walls can also act as mirrors to our humanity.

What is it about bathrooms that inspires heartfelt human emotions? Is bathroom graffiti really the purest form of art? The Writing On The Stall sees Caitlin explore the vulnerable side of human creativity and of her own life, including the piece of graffiti that changed everything for her in the wake of a teenage tragedy.

A number of songs from The Writing On The Stall have been viral hits, garnering over 25 million views collectively and have elicited hundreds of post-show bathroom graffiti Instagram DMs.

The show is directed by A.J. Holmes (one of the earliest Elder Cunninghams in The Book of Mormon, Kimberly Akimbo, StarKid Productions), and together Caitlin and A.J. have created a show for musical theatre kids, comedy nerds, art history buffs, and anyone that's ever seen something written in a bathroom stall and thought, "Who wrote that? What's their story?".

Caitlin Cook: The Writing on the Stall will be performed at Pleasance Dome, 14th - 25th August.

To post a comment, you must register and login.