Sasha Wilson is an LAMDA-trained actor, musician and writer. She founded Out Of The Forest Theatre in 2017 andis known for their historically driven, often macabre, feminist work. We caught up with them to find out more about their Lizzie Borden inspired Edinburh Festival Fringe show, Bury The Hatchet.
How would you pitch Bury The Hatchet to fans of True Crime Podcasts?
Bury The Hatchet is for the armchair detectives, the midnight Reddit scrollers, the ones who keep a running list of red flags and never say no to “just one more episode.” It’s a foot-stomping, multi-rolling, darkly comic dive into the Lizzie Borden case—but told from a perspective the headlines never gave her.
If you love My Favorite Murder, You’re Wrong About, or Criminal, and you’re curious about how media, gender, and murder intersect—you’ll want in on this one.
And how would you pitch it to someone who is into slasher movies?
Our show is the lovechild of Pearl and Six Feet Under, all a gothic New England nightmare and a mortician’s eye for gallows humour.
Did you grow up with the nursery rhyme?
Well, I grew up just down the road from Fall River, Massachusetts and I knew it well! She is our local boogeyman.
Why Bluegrass murder ballads?
Necessity was the mother of invention! When we first staged the show back in 2018 we were young and broke and only had enough pennies to rub together to spring for some period appropriate costume. I then racked my brain for how else to conjure a sense of time and place and it occurred to me that music can transport us, so I looked up old folk tunes and murder ballads to set the scene.
Is any telling of Borden’s story going to be inherently pollical? Is the story worth telling without a political angle?
I don’t think you can tell the story of Lizzie Borden without engaging with the politics of gender, class, and media. This is a woman whose innocence or guilt was decided largely through hearsay and headlines.
To retell that story without interrogating why she was viewed the way she was and how women continue to be tried in the court of public opinion would feel like a missed opportunity.
That said, this isn’t a lecture. The show is an absolute romp: there’s bluegrass, blood, and multi-rolling mayhem. But bubbling underneath all of that is a serious thesis — about how we shape narratives, how quickly we flatten women into villains, and how much fun the public has stringing them up. We’re not just retelling a murder mystery. We’re asking: why do we still love watching women do the hangman’s shuffle?
What’s the zaniest thing you’ve done to get this show made?
I emailed the owners of the Lizzie Borden Bed and Breakfast and convinced them to give me a private tour over my Christmas holidays. While other people were sipping mulled wine and watching Love Actually, I was pacing through a 19th-century crime scene, taking photos the rooms where Andrew and Abby were actually murdered.
Because there’s no other place on earth where chaos, brilliance, heartbreak, and art collide quite so spectacularly. The Fringe is a pressure cooker for creativity — it forces you to be brave, bold, and resourceful, often all before breakfast.
It’s also the ultimate test audience: you’ve got five seconds on the Royal Mile to convince a stranger to see your show over 3,000 others. It sharpens your instincts, your pitch, and your purpose.
For me, the Fringe isn’t just a place to show work — it’s where I go to become a better artist. The communal energy, the camaraderie, the sheer volume of stories being told from every corner of the globe — it’s completely intoxicating. It asks a lot of you. But if you let it, it will give you everything back tenfold.
How similar is this to other projects you’ve worked on?
This show is the blueprint. Bury The Hatchet is the production that helped form the very DNA of Out Of The Forest Theatre. It set the tone for everything we’ve done since: historical stories reframed through a contemporary lens, scored with foot-stomping folk and shot through with gallows humour. We realised, in making this show, that we weren’t just telling old stories — we were interrogating the way they’ve been told. That ethos — playful, political, musical, and a little bit unhinged — has been with us ever since. So while every show is its own beast, Bury The Hatchet is the original recipe. The OG. The start of the whole delicious mess.
What is your favourite moment in the show?
If, like me, you like your crime dramas hardboiled with a side of Victorian Grand Guignol, the interrogation scenes are to die for. Lizzie gets grilled in true noir fashion — clipped dialogue, raised eyebrows and just enough inconsistent detail to make you squirm. We’ve also drawn on the actual inquest transcript, so much of what you’ll hear is really what was said!
Where else can we see you?
Well, apart from at 3:50 every day except August 12th on The Queen Dome stage, you’ll likely see me chopsticks in hand guzzling down spicy garlic beef soup at Noodles and Dumplings!
What’s next?
I’ll be trading bloodstains for baubles as I direct The Nutcracker — a new adaptation I’ve written for Taunton Brewhouse’s Christmas show.
Monsters or Mazes?
Monsters – because I already have no idea where I’m going 99% of the time. Vampires or Werewolves?
Vampires – because I love antiques and come on, the fits are to die for.
Truth or Beauty?
Truth – because things that are true have a strange, stubborn beauty of their own. Even the ugly bits.
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