NORTH STAR Will Premiere at the Edinburgh Fringe Next Month

One woman, nine suitcases and a show all about how to dispose of your emotional baggage to find happiness.

Lori Hamilton's North Star - or what I listened to instead of my intuition will premiere at the Edinburgh Fringe at TheSpace@SurgeonsHall from 5-13 August.

It's the autobiographical about how Lori, who was known by her mom as "the child who ruined my life", negotiated a very bumpy road through life - lousy lovers, dysfunctional family, mental ill health and calamitous career breaks.

And now things are fine.

The show is full of insight, humour, song and dance; featuring quirky characters including Lori's Bohemian (not Boho - she was from Bohemia) great-grandma and a guardian angel on probation due to a poker problem.

Directed by the award-winning Sean Daniels the music is from a line-up of Broadway musicians.

Originally due to come to the Fringe back in 2020, Lori is delighted that the moment is here at last and she now simply has to negotiate the trip to Edinburgh from New York, not just with the nine suitcases she uses as props, but with their understudies, and the four huge suitcases that the other suitcases are packed into.

The show is directed by Sean Daniels, Artistic Director of the Arizona Theatre Company, and writer of the award-winning musical The Lion, which he will be taking to London this year.

As a creative pairing they are ideally matched - both specialising in tackling tough issues in a way that's engaging, often amusing but is unsentimental and refuses to suggest that life's challenges have easy solutions.

Lori is an accomplished performer, writer and creator of animated shorts. Since 2020 she's won 19 awards for short films, done 17 online shows, hours of rehearsals, overcome injuries and managed to her my cats to stop interrupting... most of the time.

The show also features music recorded by an accomplished group of Broadway musicians such as Latin Grammy winning flautist Domenica Fossati, pianist Keith Burton (Music Director of the Boys Choir of Harlem) and Nathan Koci (Vocal Arranger for the Tony Award-winning Broadway revival of Oklahoma!).

A recent online sneak preview of North Star attracted great audience feedback from both sides of the Atlantic including: "It was really fun and funny. I enjoyed it thoroughly," and "Excellent!! Lori is so talented and creative!" as well as "I laughed, I cried. It was incredibly moving with a good message."

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