Chorus at the Edge of the World (or The Shackleton Story) tells of Ernest Shackleton’s ill-fated attempt to cross Antarctica in 1914. He and his crew became trapped in the ice, lost their ship, and spent two years facing the harshest conditions on earth. Shackleton always put his crew’s state of mind before any other concern- even going so far as to choose a 12 pound Banjo over 12 pounds of food. And, with that Banjo, he held mandatory singalongs every week. As the crew of the Endurance starved and froze on the Weddell Sea, they sang. Though Shackleton failed to cross the continent, he brought every member of his crew back alive, making this one of the greatest success stories from polar exploration. Shackleton’s leadership style is now taught in schools across the world. It is even studied by NASA in preparation for ever longer journeys through space.

Over the span of Ernest Shackleton’s life (1874-1922), giant factories burst from the English countryside turning whole forests black from the soot. Horses and buggies, the preferred mode of travel for more than a thousand years, were pushed off the road by clanging automobiles. Gravity itself was conquered at Kitty Hawk. Theaters went dark to make room for silent films. And phonographs usurped the place of pianos and voices in homes all over Europe and America. Technology was reaching into human lives deeper than ever before at the cost of...something. What do we lose when we no longer need to rely on each other? And how far do we have to travel to find it again?

The parallels to this moment are clear. And as digital technologies assert themselves in our lives, we need a patron saint like Ernest Shackleton. Someone who saved others (and was saved himself) by singing and storytelling. Forms that have held humans together through history and are available to us all regardless of wifi signal.

I have been writing this play for six years, starting over from scratch four separate times. The script has been a solo show, a lecture, a piece of Avant Garde theater and a parlor chat. Discarding hundreds of pages of jokes and witty turns of phrase (I assure you they were very witty) is truly demoralizing...maybe not as bad as watching your shio sink below the ice of the Weddell sea, but pretty bad! At each dead end, I heard Ernest say “Well, time to try something new.” It honestly made each beginning a little easier.

The Chorus at the Edge of the World, the version you will experience, is inspired by my favorite habit of Shackleton’s: he had to turn everything (even Antarctic exploration) into a party. He couldn’t help himself. This play seeks to do the same. Drinks and revelry. Wild stories and singing. Toasts to loved ones now departed. There are very few things theatre can do which films, books and podcasts cannot. Throwing a party is one of them. 

There have been many obstacles in this process: hundreds of hours in freezing coffee shops, countless rejections, and the justified frustrations of my beleaguered wife. At a reading in San Fransisco, someone defecated in the doorway with fifteen minutes to curtain. Theatre school could not have prepared me for this adventure.

(Side note: writing about starvation gives one a wicked appetite- I blame at least fifteen of these pounds on Shackleton)

It is a labor of love and has brought me great joy.

 I believe if you come with an open heart, Shackleton might just reach through the years to kindle some spark within you. A good story can do that.

See you on the ice!

Richard Thieriot

9/5/2023