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Press Kit
Whisper Theatre · Physical Comedy · Circus
Britt Anderson & Richie Schiraldi
Two physical-theatre makers who nearly quit over dinner during lockdown, in tears, convinced theatre was over. One of them said: we should write a farce. They brought three shows to Edinburgh.
Company
Whisper Theatre — co-founders
Works in
Physical theatre · Clown · Circus · Acrobatics
Known for
Well Balanced Dads · The Mothman Cometh · Arachne / Athena
Together
Eight years, since physical-theatre grad school
Interview
44 min · Hop For Pop · 2026
“Maybe you’ve got this great idea, but it’s not for this show. You don’t have to roll all of who you are into one show. Sometimes it’s just for the next one.”
Whisper Theatre — Hop For Pop
Ready-to-use copy
Biography
244 words — lift as-is, no rewriting required
Britt Anderson and Richie Schiraldi run Whisper Theatre, and have made work together for eight years. Britt grew up in South Carolina putting on a clown wig and riding a tricycle through the house to make the adults laugh, moved to Chicago to study improv fully intending to end up on Saturday Night Live, and discovered clown, slapstick and physical comedy instead. Richie grew up playing every sport going, and did not really know what theatre was until a family move left him depressed in his final year of school — when the drama department welcomed him in and cast him in a musical on sight. He found stage combat, then circus, and now competes internationally in wheel gymnastics.
They met doing a master’s in physical theatre, where they learned to use circus as a storytelling language rather than a trick, and took two shows to the Edinburgh Fringe in 2019. Then lockdown came. Unable to do anything physical, facing a future of Zoom theatre, they nearly gave it up — until the idea of a farce relit everything.
In 2026 they brought three shows to Edinburgh: Well Balanced Dads, an acrobatic two-hander about two fathers whose children have just left home; Richie’s solo The Mothman Cometh, performed almost entirely in the dark and lit by his own glowing goggles; and Britt’s Arachne / Athena, four years in the writing, a dark comedy in which the goddess of justice is cursed to cough up spider webs until she admits what she has done.
The part other press kits leave out
What you should know before you book them
Whisper Theatre make comedy with their bodies. The skills are real — competition-level circus, partner acrobatics, clown — but the point is always the story the skill is telling.
Circus as a language, not a trick
The question they ask of every skill is how it tells a story, not how impressive it looks. The acrobatics in Well Balanced Dads exist to be two dads, not to be applauded.
Three shows, one company
A duo two-hander and two contrasting solos, plus cabaret acts ranging from lyrical partner acrobatics to very stupid character pieces. Bookable as a package or individually.
They plan for injury
Richie trains competitively and gets hurt. They keep contingency versions ready — including, once, Britt learning Richie’s lines when he lost his voice before a show.
They kill their darlings
Their mentor’s rule: a great idea that does not serve this show is not wasted, it is pinned for the next one. They apply it ruthlessly.
Failure made them better
Fringe bombing sharpened their ability to read a room and recover in real time — to the point, they say, where audiences cannot tell when something has gone wrong.
Built out of a dark time
Both solos came out of lockdown. The duo show came out of nearly quitting. The work carries that: dark at the edges, joyful underneath.
For press · cleared for use with attribution
Quotable
01
“My mom always likes to tell me I would put on a clown wig and ride my tricycle through the house to try to get her and her friends to laugh.”02
“I realised that I loved to play anything other than what I was.”03
“I thought for sure I was going to go the sketch comedy route and be on Saturday Night Live someday.”04
“One, I could make people laugh. Two, I could use my body to do it. And three, I got to work with other amazing artists.”05
“They were like: you look older than all of the freshmen, we have a role for you if you want it. And I was like, okay, so I’m in the musical now. Now what?”06
“Everything’s with my body. What does it take to activate a mask that’s on my face?”07
“How do I use circus as a language in a show to tell a story, rather than: look at this trick I learned how to do?”08
“We were starting to break down in tears. Is this it? I don’t want to do Zoom theatre forever.”09
“It was you, Britt, that was like: we should write a farce.”10
“Everything’s getting dark, dark, dark, and then a little flame. And we just kept fuelling that flame until it exploded.”11
“Once we realised that we can’t stop doing theatre, the ideas came: what is possible for us to do as soloists?”12
“Maybe you’ve got this great idea, but it’s not for this show. So you’ve got to pin it, and it’s going to be for the next thing you make.”13
“You don’t have to roll all of who you are and all of your great ideas into one show.”14
“My skill at recovering from failure in the room is immensely improved over the Fringe festivals.”15
“I go up into the rehearsal room and go: well, I’ve broken my big toe. So how do we get through this show like that?”16
“Basically, Well Balanced Dads is me working around Richie’s injuries.”
Attribution: Britt Anderson & Richie Schiraldi, speaking to Hop For Pop, 2026.
Career
Selected credits
Edinburgh Fringe 2026
- Well Balanced Dads — acrobatic two-hander
- The Mothman Cometh — Richie Schiraldi, solo; performed almost entirely in the dark
- Arachne / Athena — Britt Anderson, solo; dark comedy
Earlier
- Edinburgh Fringe 2019 — two graduate-programme shows, including bouffon clown work
- Cabaret acts: partner acrobatics and character pieces
Training & skills
Both hold master’s degrees in physical theatre. Britt trained in improv in Chicago. Richie is a circus artist and teacher who competed at a wheel gymnastics world championship in 2026, and teaches rock climbing.
Logistics
Press assets & contact
Online
Instagram @thewhispertheatrecollective (Whisper Theatre) · LinkedIn
Watch the interview
This kit was produced by Hop For Pop. The interview and quotes are drawn from Hop For Pop × Britt Anderson & Richie Schiraldi, recorded 2026. Britt Anderson & Richie Schiraldi and their representatives are free to use any part of this document — the biography, the quotes — for booking, press and promotion, with credit to Hop For Pop for the interview material.
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