Interview: Ariana Aragon and Mia Foster on Uncle Barry's Birthday Party

Photo: UNCLE BARRY

Immersive Rumours: Hi Ariana and Mia! Thanks for speaking with us today. To kick things off, do you mind telling us a bit about your work as UNCLE BARRY and how you came to start making immersive/interactive theatre?

Ariana Aragon: Hey! Our theatre company, UNCLE BARRY, is made up of Mia and me at its core. We started the company because we share a common interest in experimenting with theatrical form and making interactive work rooted in hope.

Right now, we’re getting ready to take our first show, Uncle Barry’s Birthday Party, to Edinburgh. We can’t wait. It’s a birthday party where guests arrive to celebrate Uncle Barry, who seems to have a different relationship with everyone in the room. He’s a mythical man. Pretty magic. The show is absurd, playful, and has a lot of heart. Since it’s rooted in improv and collective storytelling, there’s a great deal of unpredictability based on the people in the room that night. The guests, combined with Barry and the co-creative party setting, really make the show what it is. We listen to the moment at hand and people in the room, and each time it’s a different ride!

In a couple of weeks, UNCLE BARRY is also hosting a creative retreat-meets-immersive theatre getaway weekend in Portugal called Edge of Eden. We’re also in the midst of devising our next show, a movement-based interactive production in a dance den, with our friends and collaborators Morgan and Flora, titled PLEASE.

Mia Foster: Whilst the company UNCLE BARRY is the home for all our shared projects and work as individuals, we're always collaborating with other people and artists across our projects. We’re lucky that for Uncle Barry’s Birthday Party, for example, once we had the concept for the piece and applied for Side/Step, we started working with a group of seven brilliant performers. The UNCLE BARRY family extends beyond us, but it’s the company name under which Ariana and I officially work.

IR: How did you both first meet?

Ariana: We started making theatre together after meeting on our Master's course. We both study at Royal Central School for Speech and Drama on Advanced Theatre Practice. I used to work in tech, and decided to do a full career shift at the age of 31 because I was ready to put more of my energy into creative work. I’d been throwing these increasingly elaborate themed and theatrical events, and wanted to see how I could do this theatrical play thing more officially… and I found theatre-making and the Advanced Theatre Practice course.

Mia: I had 100 different jobs after my undergrad, and have always loved writing, but before starting the course, I was working in marketing and living in Shropshire. I hadn’t had anything to do with theatre for years, but managed to find my way back to it through writing, acting workshops, and luck. I came onto the Advanced Theatre Practice not really knowing what to expect, but feeling I was in the right place.

I first met Ariana at the tube station. She was the first person to describe what immersive theatre was to me. I used to interview strangers and write about it, and so interactive and immersive theatre sparked something in me. We were having great conversations about people interacting with one another and the amazing interactions we had both had in our personal lives that led to so many great adventures, and our fear that there were less of these moments happening day to day because maybe people were afraid of speaking to strangers or spending more time either working at home or on screens. So we initially bonded over our interest in that.

Photo: UNCLE BARRY

IR: Your debut show, Uncle Barry’s Birthday Party, has recently been at Voidspace Live and debuted at Side/Step Festival earlier in the year. How did it first come about?

Ariana: I remember we had a long conversation on my couch about what we were sensing among our generation and even younger, of people being less willing to take risks to interact because so much of life is now moderated through convenience and digitally through a phone. That was a driving motivation for us. How can we approach theatre with this lens of facilitating play and risk-taking with strangers?

We were chewing on this for about a month when Deadweight’s Side/Step Festival was being promoted to our cohort. While holding our seed - and honestly, a lot of this was over Zoom, ironically - we concepted Uncle Barry's Birthday Party. I was back in Florida for a few weeks, so while in random Florida coffee shops with really kitschy sharks in the background, on Zoom with Mia, we were talking about ‘What is this show actually going to be? We need a frame to anchor this interactive form we’re curious about.’

Mia: We described it in the application to Side/Step as a series of escalating invitations. We knew that the space for the festival was a restaurant, and we knew we wanted to make an immersive piece of theatre, so it was really the combination of those two things that led us to a birthday party. And then Uncle Barry came and saved us all.

Ariana: Initially, Side/Step were like ‘Hey, we love it, but we need more. What is this thing?’ so we really were building the plane as we were flying it.

Mia: As soon as we had a title and we knew the space, we immediately got performers in a room, and that's when, as a group, we dived into devising around this form and sketch that we were initially interested in.

Ariana: Once we formed the initial concept, Domi and Jack from Side/Step were very generous with their time and expertise as we were developing the show. They asked great questions and helped with dramaturgy and directing, all while being supportive of our unconventional form.

Mia: Yeah, they were great and very generous. And then Katy came to the show at Side/Step and offered for us to perform at Voidspace Live, which was so exciting.

Photo: James Lawson

IR: For those that haven't been to Uncle Barry's Birthday Party, the structure of it is essentially everyone gets together in a room and the question posed to most of the audience is, ‘How do you know Uncle Barry?’, with the audience connecting through their answers to that question and creating a shared mythology. What’s your hope for people's takeaway from the show?

Mia: Lynne [Kendrick], our teacher, said recently, ‘Rather than asking the question ‘What is this about?’ instead ask ‘What does it do?’. That weirdly gave me confidence in the fact that we had started with this interesting experience, form and structure, and so much of the experience of Uncle Barry's Birthday Party is in the process of creating, and not only creating yourself, but also co-creating.

Something beautiful that happens in Uncle Barry’s Birthday Party is this collision of narratives and collision of ideas and opinions. Everyone's got their own narrative, and everyone has their own perspective of things, and yet we're all here together.

I think Uncle Barry's Birthday Party is a space where we can explore that idea through the realm of play, but there's a lack of pressure to know the answer because there's no right or wrong Uncle Barry. And to do that at a celebration of life, a birthday party, is hopefully something that contributes to the experience for audiences and means something to them.

Ariana:  We’ve both been more focused as creators on the stories that come from responding to the moment at hand and people in the room, rather than imposing our stories onto the audience. It’s about trusting the audience in a way, and trusting the stories that come from their experience and process of actually participating in the world.

From the start, we were so focused on the experience that we almost didn't have enough threads. We didn't even have that initial question of ‘How do you know Uncle Barry?’ when we first created it. When audience members would come, we would say, ‘Oh, hi! Do you know Uncle Barry? It was a closed question, and they'd turn around and say, ‘No,’ or we'd ask, ‘Hi! How did you hear about the party?’ We wanted people to participate, but it took the two events at Side/Step for us to realise that we needed an open-ended question to create the kind of collective, imaginative experience for the audience.

Mia: There’s also something about it being in a birthday party setting, which means, hopefully, they don't feel that they have to make this massive leap into the world beyond having RSVP'd/bought a ticket and being asked, ‘How do you know Uncle Barry?’.

That was important to us because we wanted to create an environment where people can participate as much or as little as they like, and the experience still works. Some people arrive and have a full character party persona, but most people have been to a birthday party, so even if they don't want to perform to the same extent, they can just be themselves, and that's enough. Our favourite feedback has been from people saying they never usually speak to this many strangers because they’d be too nervous, or that they don’t usually like this sort of thing, but found the show really fun. That feels special.

Photo: James Lawson

IR: For a company like yourselves, how important is it to have festivals like Voidspace Live and Side/Step to get this show in front of audiences and have the chance to work out what the show really is?

Mia: Firstly, the show would never have happened if we hadn't had Side/Step to apply for. We never would have learned these things if we hadn't had Voidspace Live to go on to. The show doesn't work unless we're performing in front of an audience because we can only ever half rehearse.

Because of the experimental side of the questions that come from playing in participatory theatre, Uncle Barry is ever evolving… From these festivals, we’re learning so much about how to build a story and structure in which so much of the magic comes from audience interaction. There’s no way it would be possible without seeing the show up on its feet. There are things you find happening in a show you could never have imagined in a rehearsal. Especially when it comes to immersive stuff. It wouldn't exist without either Side/Step or Voidspace.

Ariana: Having the chance to perform the show repeatedly is teaching us the balance of driving the performance versus allowing it to unfold from the audience. The audience has a lot of power in the ending. I think without having more exposure to the possibilities, we can be too controlling or too passive. Even just these four shows have given us a lot more wisdom to be more discerning in how we approach each audience interaction.

Mia: The core mechanic of it is this kind of co-creation, which is the heart of the show. Unless we're with an audience, we never know the capacity, the potential, or the possibilities that can happen in those moments.

IR: You've got a lot more opportunities to explore these ideas next month, when the show goes to the Edinburgh Fringe. How are you feeling going into that? Do you think it's going to be a very different show by the end of that Fringe run?

Ariana: I'm feeling good.

Mia: I'm so excited.

Ariana: I think what's really nice about the show so far is that we've done a lot of the groundwork. We're going to rehearse more beforehand to strengthen our performance and make some adjustments from Voidspace, but the core of the show is there.

That said, I wouldn't be surprised if it's a different show at the end. That's something we've talked about too - how do we want to make changes during the run, what does decision making look like? We want to be responsive, and we want to learn from Fringe, but we also want to hold the core.

Mia: Because so much of the show is about the creation of narratives, it's an exciting and risky game that we're playing, doing nine shows back to back around Uncle Barry. It's going to be important for us, I think, at the end of each night to dispel the Barry of that evening before going into the next day. The beauty of the show is that it's the people in the room, in the moment, that decide who Uncle Barry is and what this party means.

If we, by accident, as everyone does, start building narratives around what's happening and events at the Fringe, we are going to start building a narrative that is more set than we would like, going into each show fresh with new audiences.

It's going to be an exciting challenge for our core mechanic and our ability as performers to wipe the slate clean so that we’re able to be completely open-minded and open-hearted when all these incredible, inventive, exciting, new ideas about Uncle Barry and why we're all here come flooding in.

Photo: James Lawson

IR: In the performances you’ve done so far, what’s been the best response you’ve had to the question of ‘How do you know Uncle Barry?’

Ariana: I won’t use the kidney one, but that is actually one of my favourites...

[NB: IR said Uncle Barry donated a kidney to them when they attended the show]

IR: Thank you…

Ariana: I really loved the last show when someone said they chopped wood for Uncle Barry. What an interesting window… What happens when you chop wood for someone for so long? What happens when someone teaches you to chop wood? I think that was very fun.

Mia: One night we had a plumber for Uncle Barry, and the following night, Barry was someone's plumber. On both nights, they plugged their business numbers. They gave out the plumbing number for Uncle Barry, and they broadcast their plumbing company. I enjoyed the serendipity of that.

Ariana: I want to start logging the Barry’s. I am genuinely entertained during the entire show as we’re performing it from these stories people come up with.

Mia: Someone met Barry when they were coming out of a supermarket. Their bags split, and all their fruit and shopping fell out, and Barry was the person to come and help.

IR: It’s like a romcom meet-cute!

Mia: Yeah, it's such a meet-cute that they'd then come to the birthday party! I like it when people say things like ‘Oh, he's a friend of a friend’ because then I wonder, ‘Well, what the hell are you doing here? He must have had such an impact on you for you to have come all this way.’ That's always a fun line to go down.

My friend Sam claimed he studied Long English with Barry at university. We said ‘What is Long English?’ and he said he had no idea. I liked the guy who was going on cruises with Barry. Apparently, Barry was one for taking the ladies back to the cabin. Someone made clocks with Barry. Something mysterious happened with Barry and my friend Fran on a fishing trip… We had Barry’s therapist - that was a good one.

IR: It’s hard to pin down exactly who Barry is…

Mia: Yeah. You know… when we were making it, the question of ‘Who is Uncle Barry?’ was constantly going through our minds. Throughout our day, we would be sending photos of things going ‘That's so Uncle Barry'. You'd see someone and you'd say, ‘I've just met someone who's so Uncle Barry’, or you'd see a line in a book and say, ‘This is so Uncle Barry’. We realised that actually, Uncle Barry is an energy or an essence that’s not up for us to define and tell other people.

Listening to what was happening throughout the process and noticing that, yeah, Uncle Barry is different for everyone, and yet there’s this energy that everyone knows when they feel it. Everyone makes up their own Uncle Barry; we just have to listen.

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Uncle Barry’s Birthday Party is at the Edinburgh Fringe between 9th and 17th August 2025 at Muse at Braw Venues @ Hill Street (Venue 41). Tickets are priced from £14.00 and can be booked via edfringe.com