In association with Imaginate with support from OneRen.
It’s Reid Aitken’s first day of high school and he just wants to vanish. When an embarrassing incident spirals into a legend known only as “The Creeping Snake,” Reid finds himself at the centre of the cruellest joke in school.
Suddenly, the question isn’t how to disappear – it’s how to survive, and who will stand beside you when everything feels impossible.
Fast-paced, funny, and painfully true, Cringe is a story about surviving the minefield of growing up, standing up to bullies, and finding the friend who makes you braver than you ever thought you could be.
Note: The video below is just a rehearsed reading presented at the 2025 Festival and is only intended to give audiences a taster of the script.
Access Information
- Set design: The set has a back wall with a recess which the performers sometimes stand on or walk across. On the back wall in the corners, there is a large door on the right and a small doorway on the left. There are two side walls that have two cupboards, which two performers come out of at the start. There are a number of school chairs and an overhead projector which displays drawings and announces the name of lessons on the back wall. There is a red school bell above the doorway on the left and an exit sign above the door on the right. All the walls are used like a blackboard to write and draw on.
- Performers: Three performers tell the story, jumping between multiple characters and narration. Two men - one small with light brown curly hair and one taller with brown hair and one woman with blonde hair, all playing teenagers in first year of high school.
- Lights: Theatrical lighting comes from each side of the stage and there are moments of almost blackout apart from the light coming from the overhead projector, which also displays moving patterns.
- Sound: There are a number of upbeat electronic tracks; some voiceovers and bursts of laughter. There are moments of singing and loud theatrical music building to a crescendo. There are loud sounds of a school bell.
- Experience: The performance is mostly narrative with some movement. A story which explores themes of friendship, bullying and the death of a parent. There are many moments of humour but also of moments of sadness and grief, but the story is ultimately uplifting.
- Capacity: 98
