BACKSTAGE AT FRINGE with The Fusion Theatre Ensemble | The Weathering

In today's 'Backstage at Fringe', we spoke to The Fusion Theatre Ensemble, who bring The Weathering to Theatre Works starting October 16 as a part of our Fringe 2025 season.

Set against a haunting landscape of a collapsing world, The Weathering is a raw, experimental surge of original live performance. In a genre-defying blend of physical theatre, original sound, projection and puppetry, The Weathering challenges the dire climate crisis and extreme weather events through the voices of those often excluded from the conversation. Devised by a diverse ensemble of 24, the majority of whom identify as a person living with disability, this is bold, boundary pushing work from Fusion Theatre. The Weathering is a poetic act of resilience and regeneration, where science meets story, and survival becomes art.

Q: Take us back to the start. When did this show first drop into your head? How did it get to where it is now?

A: Like most things at Fusion, this show didn’t come from one person’s spark, it was born from a collection of ideas and lived experiences.

In 2024, our Artistic Director Jo first arrived with the seed of “weathering” as a theme for exploration. The goal was to produce an original, devised piece of theatre that represented our radically inclusive practices as a company. Soon after, our ensemble gathered around giant A4 sheets of paper, coloured textas in hand. Together we brainstormed words, ideas, images, scribbles, anything and everything that sparked our imagination. The sheets of paper were covered in storms, trees, heatwaves, fragments of memory. Collections of us as people and artists.

From there, our ideas spilled out of the rehearsal room and into the world. Ensemble

members went out into their own lives and captured the weather around them: videos of trees bending, skies changing, the thick heat of a February heat wave. These became the seeds of stories, layered into movement, text, and sound. Our creative process was less about one linear path and more about weaving a patchwork, or as Simone put it, “Our process was like driving with a geographically challenged person. We knew the direction we needed to go in, we just took all the wrong turns to get there. Though each wrong turn ended up being necessary to get to where we are now”.

Two years on, The Weathering is not a single vision, but a living archive. It's a collection of our shared stories, lived experiences and the many different ways each

of us has felt the impact of the climate crisis in our bodies and our lives.

Q: What will audiences find in your show that they won't find anywhere else in

fringe?

A: Us! AND a show and company that puts inclusion, and accessibility into the core making process. Our show is the best example of what happens when creative agency is shared.

Audience members will walk into a theatre that is quite literally jam packed with a diverse ensemble of creatives that identify as living with and without disability, support workers, and co-creators who have thrown every idea into the pot. The result? A totally original, devised show that refuses to sit in just one box.

It’s funny. It’s dark. It’s thought provoking. It has movement, puppets, raw stories, and a collection of forms you’d never expect to see on the same stage. Think Fringe buffet, but instead of food, you’re served an eclectic mix of theatre that’s heartfelt, challenging, and impossible to label.

Q: What will surprise audiences about this work?

That it hits everywhere at once. One moment you’ll feel child-like joy, and the next you’ll be questioning your own impact on the environment, and somewhere in between you’ll find yourself deeply moved. It’s emotive, confronting, and tender all at once, the kind of work that sneaks up on you, sticks in your chest, and makes you think long after you’ve left the theatre.

Q: You're on a blind date. Nervously, you walk into the bar. Across the smoke and pool tables you see them - there they are. Your exact target audience member, personified. Can you describe them?

A: They’ve just parked their eco-friendly smart car out the front, and they’re already ordering a round, ready to pay top dollar for theatre that matters. They’re all about seeing shows that hit harder than the shot of tequila they’ve just slammed. They’re parents, they’re activists, they’re inclusion allies, they’re people who care about the environment. They love their shows funny, dark, messy, and thought-provoking. They’re fellow creatives, the kind who’ll laugh with us one minute and cry with us the next. And if Brad Pitt happens to be free, well then yeah, Jean-Marie says he’s welcome too.

Most importantly, our mystery audience member is someone who wants to go on a journey, to have their mind cracked open and their socks “completely blown off” as Kat insists. That’s our audience: curious, bold, and ready to weather the storm with us.

Q: What has been the most memorable moment in your process to this point?

A: It’s definitely been the new level of care and support that we have built for each other over the past 2 years. Having our support network and making new friends and

connections has been one of the best parts of making this show. Also, making the final scene has been a highlight. We love performing it. No spoilers but it’s pretty awesome.

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The Weathering plays at Theatre Works from October 16-18. Stay tuned to the Theatre Works Backstage Blog, where we have loads more Backstage at Fringe content on the way!

Click here to get your tickets!