The Stage

Theatre company PIT wins funds to present new comedy in Edinburgh

Published Friday 31 July 2009 at 12:45 by Lalayn Baluch

Theatre company the PIT has been awarded a grant of £10,000 from the Charlie Hartill Special Reserve Fund to stage its show A Stroke of Genius at this year’s Edinburgh Festival Fringe.

The cash will pay for the company to present the production at the Pleasance Theatre, accommodation and living costs. Fund organisers have also provided the PIT with mentoring and help to raise additional funds.

A Stroke of Genius is the PIT’s new comedy which explores genetics and Darwinism through the story of Robert Klark Graham who opened a sperm bank in his back garden in 1980 to collect the genes of Nobel Prize winners.

PIT artistic director David Byrne said: “We have to keep pinching ourselves. Without the Charlie fund there is no way we would be able to afford to present an ambitious show like A Stroke of Genius at the fringe.

“The Pleasance has always supported new talent and with this year’s Edinburgh line-up, we really couldn’t be in better company.”

Any cash made from the production on ticket sales will revert back to the Charlie fund for next year’s recipients.

The fund was set up in 2004 in memory of Charlie Hartill, a writer, performer and director of the Edinburgh Festival Fringe Society, who died at the age of 32.