Would you mind giving us an insight into what your show/event/performance is?
In Furniture Boys my ex-boyfriends are armchairs, lampshades, and futons. The show turns break-ups into broken chairs. t’s fun, it’s playful, it’s absurdist (The Guardian called it “shimmeringly silly” and “ridiculous and revelatory”). But ultimately, it’s exploring something more – the impermanence of a relationship, an artistic project, a person, a chair, a self.
Furniture Boys began where much great art begins: a university poetry slam. In 2012, I wrote and performed what I then called ‘the couch poem’ for an audience of fellow college students—and it was a hit. That might have been the end, but I kept coming back to the couch poem, and I didn’t quite know why. Then, more and more, I kept finding myself writing about furniture—and what furniture has to do with impermanence and relationships and art-making, across many different projects. I started collecting tiny chairs. My favorite chair broke and I couldn’t throw it away – I started taking pictures of it, and it became an artistic project. A decade later, what was once “the couch poem” has grown into a full-length multidisciplinary play—and, as of last month, one that is New York Times recommended and sold-out off-Broadway. But why have I turned my exes – the boys – into furniture? Why did I keep writing about furniture? Why couldn’t I let this subject go?… Come to Furniture Boys, and the show will answer these question!
Tell us about the creative team and the process involved?
I’m Emily Weitzman, the writer/performer. I am a multidisciplinary artist — a theater-maker, a poet, a dancer, a nonfiction writer — and I am interested in the absurd, the playful, the joyful. I bring the process of art-making into the work itself, mixing genre and form: I dance and choreograph, perform comedy and clown, and incorporate photography, oral history interviews, videography, and other forms into my performance and theatre work. FURNITURE BOYS is emblematic of the work I love to make: the show is deeply silly (the boys are furniture!) but ultimately contemplates existential questions about the impermanence of a relationship, an artistic project, a person, a chair, a self. I want to create captivating, surreal, and poetic worlds — to excavate the profound in absurdist, and the imaginative in the documented.
My team is incredible! I met Kate Doyle, my director, at an artist residency in October of 2020. It was a time of isolation, of course, and the opportunity to quarantine with a small ground of artists at the residency affirmed by desire to build community and connect to other artists through theater. At the time, I was writing mostly for the page, and hadn’t performed in a few years – at that residency was the first time I said the words out loud that I wanted to write and perform a one-person play. Kate was one of the first people to encourage me. She read versions of the play throughout its early iterations. Three years later, she became my director, and we’ve been an inseparable team ever since. Kate was instrumental in developing the show for the Edinburgh Fringe 2025. Kate is also an incredible writer. Her critically acclaimed debut short story collection, I MEANT IT ONCE, was longlisted for The Story Prize and a finalist for the PEN/Robert W. Bingham Award.
This year, Jacob Combs came on as an additional director for our sold-out off-Broadway run at SoHo Playhouse. Jacob and Kate collaborated and directed together years ago, at university. When the three of us started working together on Furniture Boys, is just felt really good and right, and early into the SoHo Playhouse run it felt obvious that Jacob should come on for Edinburgh Fringe at Underbelly, too! Jacob is also an amazing screenwriter, filmmaker, and composer/lyricist!
We’ve also brought on Giulia Grillo as a producer – Giulia is an incredibly UK-based theater-artist who we met at Fringe last year, and we’re so excited to work with her!
The team for Fringe feels like it has organically grown – just like the show. Everyone on the team is someone I truly respect as an artist and theater-maker and writer and person. It feels like the dream team, and I’m thrilled to get to work with these amazing people all of August!
How does it feel coming to (back to) the Fringe?
Exciting! Heading to Edinburgh Fringe this time last year, I never thought I’d be coming back! But it went so incredibly well, and we have so much momentum built from last year, we feel the show will continue that momentum and keep growing more and more. We are back with Underbelly at a bigger venue, and are coming out of a sold-out run at off-Broadway’s SoHo Playhouse. We have a bigger team, and have worked on the show over the past year. Our debut Edinburgh Fringe was a transformative experience, and we’re so excited by what’s to come this year!
With shows from all over the world at the Fringe, what sets yours apart?
The furniture! Furniture Boys certainly is set apart by how the show turns boyfriends into futons and lampshades, and breakups into broken chairs. But it’s more than that – it’s the true balance of comedy and silliness with truth and heart that emerges.
Don’t just take our word for it. The show was hailed by The Guardian as ‘ingenious,’ in a 4-star review! They called it “a very well-made play.” Furniture Boys is an interdisciplinary mix of genres and forms – it’s comedy and clowning, it’s serious and vulnerable, it has dance numbers and oral history interviews, videography and photography, archival material from my own life. The show is as “shimmeringly silly” (The Guardian) as it is a vulnerable piece with a deeper meaning; The Guardian also called Furniture Boys “ridiculous and revelatory,” and both of those words are equally important to the show. We think “ridiculous and revelatory” is really a perfect way to describe Furniture Boys!
On that, is there anything in the production or production team’s backgrounds which influences the way the show is performed or told?
Absolutely! We are all multidisciplinary, interdisciplinary writers/artists, and Furniture Boys reflects this. I say that it’s a blend of theater, comedy clown, spoken word, and furniture showroom. There’s a dance number and couch puppets. There are multidisciplinary elements including photography, videography, and a recorded interview that comes from my interest in oral history as a form. There’s so much packed into an hour, all the production team’s expansive experiences are embedded throughout the show in so many ways.
Is there anything specific you’re hoping the audience will take away?
I wouldn’t want to give too much away (you have to come to Furniture Boys to find out!), but the premise of the show begins with the idea that furniture and boys are much more similar than you think, and goes on to slowly reveal the surprising ways in which that’s true. Why are the boys furniture? The answer to that question says something deeper and more complex about impermanence, relationships, and the making of art. The show aims to function on multiple levels, saying something about what lasts, what changes, what ensures: a relationship, an artistic project, a person, a chair, a self? We’ve been told time and time again from audience members that you’ll never see your furniture in the same light. One reviewer wrote: “You might go home and hug your favorite ottoman,” and another wrote, “furniture has never been more moving.” The Student said that the show “will surprise you with its tenderness and grandiosity.”
Your Ideal audience is in attendance, who’s watching? Or more importantly – who isn’t…?
FURNITURE BOYS is for lovers of absurdist-experimental theater, for fans of new writing, and for those mystified by their past selves. The show is for lovers of surprising, groundbreaking theatre, and artist-driven work. But the show also appeals beyond its core audience: people across generations, genders, backgrounds, nationalities, and identities told us how much they loved, related to, and were moved by this show at Fringe 2025. (Audience members across genders and generations told us that they were surprised how much they cried!)
Who isn’t? Perhaps my ex-boyfriends should stay away. (Though, of course, their identities are protected and have been adapted into: couch, office chair, lamp, futon, etc.)
It’s an intense month, so where you’re able, how do you plan to relax, and are there any other shows you intend to see or want to recommend?
Absolutely! My director Kate and I love the water – last year we had a magical swim after our final show. I love biking to the beach and swimming. But most of our off-time will be full of seeing shows! I want to see as many as I’m able to.
Some recommendations: fellow Underbelly theatre shows CRUSH, PINK RABBIT, RIP HER TO SHREDS; Friends’ shows including Liz Coin’s LIZZY SUNSHINE, Recent Cutback’s KEVIN!!!!!, and Couplet’s FOLK MARRY KILL; IKEA WARS at Gilded Balloon (on theme for us, and I’ll be there as a special guest on Saturday August, 8th!)
Furniture Boys runs at Venue 302, Jersey at Underbelly, Bristo Square
Runs: 5th -30th August at 14:30pm
Photo credit – Helios Media
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