Placeholder

Saint-Domingue, 1790. One year and one day before an uprising of rebel slaves will ignite what is now known as the Haitian Revolution. At the theatre in Port-au-Prince, Minette waits, holding a seat for her white employer, but the auditorium fumes conjure up ghosts from her past. This engaging piece takes as its starting point the idea that the gaps in the archives, the lacunae in the texts, and the holes in the narrative are themselves acts of violence and suppression.

Catherine Bisset’s writing debut and first solo performance, Placeholder had its world premiere at the Scottish Storytelling Centre in November 2021, as part of the Being Human Festival programme. Placeholder was nominated for Production of the Year at the Framework Emerging Theatre Awards in 2021, longlisted for the Alfred Fagon Award for Black British Playwrights in 2022, longlisted for the Kavya Prize in 2024, and winner of the Dundee Fringe Award in 2024.

Placeholder was inspired by academic research carried out by members of the Colonial-Era Caribbean Theatre and Opera Network (CECTON), a cross-institutional endeavour chaired at St Andrews.

• £11.00
• 22-23 November 2025
• 60 minutes
• Summerhall
• EAS Studios @ Summerhall
• 14 and above (14+)
• 
  Distressing themes: racism, slavery. Mention of rape, violence and murder