A small theatrical troupe from Fayetteville is heading to the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in Scotland to perform their original work on an international stage.
This Sunday marked the final local performance of Be A Wolf, an original dark comedy production featuring students from Fayetteville State University’s Theatre Department. Professor Jeremy Fiebig is now leading the group on a 12-day trip to Edinburgh, where they’ll perform at the festival on Friday.
“This is a huge deal, and we are very proud. I’m excited we’re taking Fayetteville State to the world stage,” Fiebig said.
About Edinburgh Festival Fringe
The annual Edinburgh Fringe is the world’s largest arts festival. It’s an open-access event where anyone can perform. It started in 1947 when eight theater groups showed up without invitation to Edinburgh’s International Festival, according to the organization. They started their own festival just outside Edinburgh’s festival — hence the name “Fringe.”
Today, the Fringe showcases thousands of shows across hundreds of venues and can be described as a cultural marathon. Fiebig said roughly 3,200 acts descend upon the festival in August.
Fiebig had been looking to take students to London or Edinburgh and, through a colleague, became connected with the International Collegiate Theatre Festival. The program, based in Charlottesville, Va., helps college students perform at Festival Fringe. “Since then, they have really taken us by the hand and shown us how they do it,” the FSU theater instructor said.
Fiebig said the Be A Wolf cast is the only one from a historically Black college or university performing at this year’s Fringe through the International Collegiate Theatre Festival.
About Be A Wolf — a dark comedy about fear, group survival and clever branding
Taking his students overseas to perform has long been Fiebig’s desire; he said he has been fundraising for the last three years to make that vision a reality. Many of his students have never traveled outside the U.S., and several have never flown on an airplane.
Be A Wolf is an original production written by playwright Merlyn Sell for FSU in the fall of 2024. Fiebig said Sell is a colleague from graduate school and someone he has worked with over the years.
The title Be A Wolf is a play on words based on the Old English epic poem Beowulf. Fiebig described the play as a retelling of the poem, where villagers surviving a long, dark night in a great hall are attacked by a monstrous entity.
“As they explore the monster, they become part of it,” Fiebig said. “It’s abstract enough to offer commentary on social media, politics and religion. We ask the question, ‘What’s that monster we’re joining out there, and how does it consume us?’”
It may seem like the villagers can remain out of danger so long as they stay inside, keep the light on and hold their ground. But self-reflection and fear come quickly, and soon the question isn’t just what’s out there, but what they have become. The play’s mantra is: “You don’t have to be afraid of the monster if you are the monster.”
The thought-provoking play asks both the actors and audience, “Are you in, or are you out?”
Actors
FSU senior Daylen Clemons, 22, plays the role of the monster. After graduation, he plans to attend graduate school for theater or law and says he wants to help his community as much as it has helped him. “I want to give back what was given to me,” he said.
Clemons won the monster role through auditions, which he described as nerve-wracking, given the talent of his castmates. When asked why he gave the monster a British accent, Clemons said he was inspired by the main character in the TV series Lucifer.
“The way actor Tom Ellis embodies that role really spoke to me,” Clemons said. “I wanted a dialect that interacted with the audience in a way that was not only devious but sultry.”
He believes his accent will resonate with audiences in Scotland and said he has been practicing perfecting it. Clemons said he is excited to travel to Scotland for this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.
Shakeela Slade, 26, plays the character Lore. After graduation, the senior plans to move to London to work in the West End, a thriving entertainment district known for its theater scene.
Slade has always been drawn to acting and auditioned for a part in her sophomore year of high school. “I played a doctor, like I do in Be A Wolf. It was a murder mystery and my first role,” she said.
“It’s about identities. What’s a monster? Who’s a monster? It’s breaking down multiple layers. To a degree, we all have some monster in us. We all have some kind of fear,” Slade said about the play’s themes. “You either succumb to the peer pressure of being what someone wants you to be — that monster — or you can choose to go against it and say, regardless of this, I don’t want to do it.”
Senior Derayasha Lewis, 24, plays a self-described anxious character named Ray. Lewis, who started at FSU in 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic, said most of her classes were online. A theatre major, she plans to pursue a career on Broadway or open her own theater for children.
Lewis, who has never traveled outside of the country, said she is excited for the trip to Scotland. “This should be really fun,” she said.
Aaliyah Butler, 21, is a senior at FSU. Her character is also named Aaliyah (most of the students use their own names for the play’s characters). Butler is no stranger to performing for a crowd. Growing up in a Baptist church, she said she was “volun-told” to sing as a child.
A middle school teacher introduced her to musicals, and her first role was the Scarecrow in The Wizard of Oz. She later played the Caterpillar in Alice in Wonderland and found her calling in Little Shop of Horrors. “That’s when I knew I wanted to be a theatre major,” Butler said.
Fiebig said he knows a transformational experience awaits his students. “That’s the most exciting part.”
