KT Tunstall mixes deaf and hearing performers in new Fringe musical

Imagine a stage where music and silence speak the same language. This is the vision behind a new musical coming to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, and it marks an exciting return for musician KT Tunstall after three decades away from the festival circuit.

Tunstall made her name in the early 2000s as a Scottish singer-songwriter. Her stripped-down style and honest lyrics won audiences worldwide. But this time, she is doing something different. She has created a theatrical production called The Singer that brings together deaf performers and hearing performers in a shared creative space. The two groups do not simply take turns on stage—they collaborate as true partners in telling the story.

Why does this matter? Theater has traditionally been built for hearing audiences. Sound, music, and dialogue carry the narrative. Deaf performers have had to adapt to this world or find their own separate spaces. The Singer breaks that pattern. It asks: What if we designed a show where both ways of experiencing the world are equally valued from the start?

The production uses sign language, music, movement, and visual storytelling all at once. When a deaf performer signs, their body becomes the voice. When a hearing performer sings, sound fills the theater. Neither is secondary. Neither is an "accommodation"—both are central to how the story unfolds. Audiences will move between these two forms of expression naturally, the way the performers do every day.

This kind of work is still rare in mainstream theater. Many productions talk about inclusion, but few actually build it into the core of the show. The Singer does something bolder: it uses the difference itself as the creative material. It shows that constraint can spark invention. It proves that when you invite more voices—and more ways of being heard—the art gets richer.

Tunstall's return to the Fringe is also significant because the festival itself is a laboratory for new ideas. For decades, young artists have used the Edinburgh Fringe to take risks, to fail, to experiment. Now a more established artist is using that same platform to ask urgent questions about who gets to perform, whose stories matter, and how we can build a theater that belongs to everyone.

The Fringe runs for several weeks each summer, and thousands of shows compete for audiences. Most are forgotten quickly. But some change how we think about what theater can do. This one has the feel of that kind of moment.

Inclusion in the arts is not just about fairness—it is about expanding what is possible. When deaf and hearing artists work as equals, they create something neither could make alone. That collaboration, more than any single performance, might be the real story here.

Have you ever experienced art or entertainment created by people from very different backgrounds working together? What did that add to the experience?

Inspired by reporting from BBC News.