Barnum. Booth. Lincoln. @ Edinburgh Fringe – Producer

18:00, Fri 7th – Sun 23rd August 2026 at Rotunda Theatre @ Edinburgh Fringe

“Can you tell me how a celebrated Shakespearean actor becomes the assassin of a president?”

The year is 1847. Abraham Lincoln enters national politics. P.T. Barnum rises as America’s greatest showman. And the Booth brothers, Edwin and John Wilkes, suddenly find themselves worlds apart under the shadow of their famed tragedian father.

Guided by Barnum as ringmaster, the line between history and spectacle begins to blur as one brother rises to become the greatest Shakespearean actor of his generation while the other descends toward one of the most infamous acts in American history: the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln.