Interview: ‘Sisters Three’, TheatreGoose Company

Ahead of the Edinburgh Festival Fringe 2024 we’re chatting with a range of creatives who will be heading to the city over August to find out more about their shows. Today we’re chatting with TheatreGoose company about Sisters Three.

Can you tell us a bit about you and your career so far.

We are TheatreGoose, an emerging company led by writer and director Emma Howlett, who has directed productions across the UK and in Europe, and is currently an associate director on a production in the West End. Howlett established TheatreGoose in 2018 whilst at Oxford University, where she staged ambitious new productions such as Enron at the Oxford Playhouse. We made our professional debut as a company in 2023 with Her Green Hell, with transferred from VAULT Festival to Summerhall for a critically acclaimed run at the Fringe where it was long-listed for the BBC Popcorn Award for New Writing and nominated for an OFFIE Award. It has subsequently been developed with Theatre Royal Plymouth for a regional tour, with its next stop at Theatre Royal Bath in September 2024. Following the success of Her Green Hell, Sisters Three is the second original show in TheatreGoose’s repertoire of work, and debuts this Fringe at Summerhall for a full month.

What is your show about?

Sisters Three plucks the dissatisfied trio at the heart of Chekhov’s Three Sisters - Olga, Masha, and Irina - and sets them on a new course: to find a life where they might finally be happy. They undertake a journey from Greek mythology to the Sugababes to discover what they truly want from their lives and whether its their bond to one another that holds them back. It is funny, endearing, and profound in its exploration of female relationships and the legacy of patriarchy.

What was the inspiration for Sisters Three and what’s the development process been to get to this stage?

It was during Fringe 2023, when our show Her Green Hell was playing at Summerhall that Artistic Director Emma Howlett was thinking about what could be next. She was reading a new translation of Chekhov’s Three Sisters a friend had written for her, and also re-reading Shakespeare’s canon (because that’s what theatre directors do in their spare time), when she started noticing a trend - Chekhov’s trio of sisters had echoes in Shakespeare’s King Lear and Macbeth - and now she was thinking about it, in many other places too. So the question at the core of Sisters Three was born: why have men been so obsessed with writing three sisters into their stories?

She pitched the idea to Summerhall in December 2023, they programmed it for Fringe 2024, and after months of research into sister trios throughout history, literature, and pop culture, and alongside a meticulous design process, she wrote the show within a few weeks in June 2024. 

It is, by any measure, a rapid process from initial idea to staged show, but we think this makes it even more exciting.

What made you want to take Sisters Three to the Fringe?

The Fringe is a natural home for Sisters Three; genre-twisting and conceptual, with a self-aware and unpredictable edge, it offers the innovation and imagination that Fringe audiences are looking for. We also made this show with our gorgeous theatre at Summerhall in mind specifically - dripping in character and connection to storytelling - so it is really a bespoke Fringe show, made for the Fringe and its audience. 

Fringe was a huge launchpad for us last year, with the success of our professional debut show Her Green Hell, and we are hoping to build on that momentum by bringing a brand new show back to Summerhall just a year later. We love being at the heart of new work, making new friends, and being amongst some of the most inspiring artists around - you could say we are a little bit addicted to the Fringe.

Apart from seeing Sisters Three, what’s your top tip for anybody heading for Edinburgh this summer?

Trust word of mouth over anything else when it comes to shows to see, and take the odd gamble. Some of the best shows we have seen over the years at Fringe we only found because we asked those who knew better than we did. Seek out international work, because it normally has to be incredible to have made it all the way here. Splash out on a few International Festival tickets - it’s worth it.

Why should people book Sisters Three?

If Fringe-goers are looking for a show that packs enough into it to be worth the (rising) Fringe ticket prices then the odyssey of Sisters Three is the perfect choice. We promise you a party, to pull on your heart-strings, and to make you see the world a new when you leave.

And because, we hope, soon it will be hard to find a ticket! There’s only so much space in our beautiful old theatre at Summerhall, so once the seats are filled, they’re filled!

When and where can people see Sisters Three?

TheatreGoose’s Sisters Three is playing in the atmospheric Anatomy Lecture Theatre at Summerhall, every evening at 9:10pm (not 12th, 19th). Olga, Masha, and Irina can’t wait to see you there!