‘the most provocative play to hit the Edinburgh Fringe in years’ - The Daily Telegraph

TERF went on sale one week ago on edfringe.com. Taking this show from script to stage has been a challenge every step of the way, not because we lacked support from an arts community who recognised talent and quality work, but because of the fear of taking a moral position in one of the most prescient debates of our time: the right for trans people to live with dignity and free from discrimination.

Now, the owner of the venue in which the show is being staged, is threatening to pull the plug; without discussion, and without reason.

TERF is controversial because art is, and must be, political. Its subject is JK Rowling and her transition over the past several years into one of the most polarising figures in modern-day Britain. TERF is not proselytising but invites you to come, be challenged, and form your own judgements.

Programmers were concerned that the same people who protested previous shows at Fringe would disrupt this one too.

We were delighted to secure St Stephen’s Church – a venue of renown in the heart of our city. The Programmer Derek Douglas loved the script and saw that it is a parody which offers space for reflection; as we said in our first announcement, it is NOT a hit piece.

It’s also cleared all legal reads that we have commissioned.

The show has been the subject of articles in The Times, The Telegraph, The Daily Mail, Edinburgh Evening News, Pink News, Brietbart, Fox News, Red State, and Cracked, as well as the Sky News daily round-up.

All but two of these reports were widely inaccurate despite our repeated attempts to offer corrections. Reports suggested that it was misogynistic, that we were struggling to cast, and even that the writer was enabling ‘child mutilation.’ Coverage of the show has highlighted the worst aspects of social media and the global press: biased, click-bait driven coverage which draws upon and encourages hatred, discrimination, and bigotry in comment sections and on social media.

TERF is now set to be REMOVED from its venue. Peter Schaufuss, owner of St Stephen’s Church, had demanded that the show be exempted from the programme citing a clause in his contract with the venue manager. This happened the same day Rowling entered the conversation on X with a lighthearted challenge that India Willoughby be cast as her in the play. Could this be after an accurate Telegraph article was released in which we gave the writer an exclusive first read of the script, which was judged to be ‘impressively even-handed’?

‘an impressively even-handed and wickedly funny caricature of all the leading players’ - The Daily Telegraph

Schaufuss is adamant the show cannot go on. He hasn’t read the script, he doesn’t know the team behind the show, and he hasn’t accepted an invitation to speak with us to explore a way forward. This is hair-trigger censorship in a Festival that prides itself on presenting new work by someone who used to be respected as a world-class artist. It makes no sense to treat fellow and emerging artists this way. 

TERF began as an exploration of how digital media and online discourses are rotting our abilities to make ethical, considered, and respectful decisions on how we perceive and treat our fellow humans. Rowling has made herself a public figure at the forefront of the gender ideology critique but she is only the face of this show, which asks each of its attendees to reassess the decisions they’ve made and the way they’ve made them, in the hope that everyone who leaves our play will – after just 80 minutes sitting in the dark – have a newfound respect for the differences between us and a greater openness to navigating these boundaries.

TERF is not about fostering infighting or capitalising upon distress; it asks that we overcome the conditions of such warfare and that we step from the theatre and into the world together – with a greater openness to the shared conditions of our lives. Our play has now been subjected to the same censorship and stymied thinking which prevents us from having real, meaningful, and forward-thinking conversations about how to bridge our differences.

We are appealing to the global arts community including our audiences, to draw upon their consciences and commitment to making art with real world value. TERF is not an easy show to host, but that’s because the conversations it engages cannot and should not be easy.

Art is not window dressing; it is a hammer with which we explore the questions of our time.

We appeal to you to support and save one of the most prescient and exciting shows of the 2024 Fringe. 

By adding your name to this petition, you send a clear message to Peter Schaufuss and other venue landlords that censorship has no place in our community.

We, the undersigned members of the global arts community and its audiences, express our unwavering support for the values of free speech and artistic freedom in the United Kingdom and around the world.

The threats by Peter Schaufuss, owner of St. Stephen’s Church, Edinburgh, to cancel production of the play TERF run counter to those values.

Allowing cancellation of art due to fear is a critical step towards censorship of speech of all forms.

Censorship is an expression of violence – towards thought, ideas, and, in the words of Alfred Stieglitz, the “vital expression of the self”.

Violence has no place against the self, and no place in art.

We urge Mr. Shaufuss to adhere to the fundamental precepts of free speech and artistic freedom and allow the production of TERF to take place as scheduled.