They say history is written by the victors. In Dark Noon, the story is told by the vanquished. 

St Ann’s Warehouse presents the break-out hit of 2023’s Edinburgh Fringe Festival. Dark Noon envisions U.S. history as equal parts ridiculous, horrifying, and deeply profound. On an open stage covered with the red dirt of the prairie, the skeleton of a pioneer town is erected in real time by an extraordinary cast of South African actors. Acclaimed Danish director Tue Biering and South African co-director and choreographer Nhlanhla Mahlangu retell the Hollywood story of a High Noon Western through an outsider’s lens: Native Americans, cowboys, missionaries, enslaved Africans, Chinese workers, European settlers, prostitutes, and Confederates. Ripe with marvelous stagecraft, slapstick humor, and a keen eye for hypocrisy, Dark Noon is a Wild Wild West circus where an innocent encounter can explode in an instant.


Read the New York Times feature >

 

“Dark Noon at St. Ann’s Warehouse had me at human tumbleweed. [It’s] a terrific, gut-punch powerful retelling of American history.”
—Laura Collins-Hughes, New York Times Critic, via X

“One of the most gleefully provocative pieces of theater you’ll see this year.”
—THEATERMANIA

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★★★★
“Exhilarating and disturbing…Outrageously entertaining… The stagecraft is spectacular”
—TIME OUT NEW YORK

★★★★
“Huge and spectacular... Bold and breathtaking...”
—THE SCOTSMAN

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★★★★★
“A savage and gripping live documentary that tells the 300-year history of the American west in 100 uproarious minutes.”
—THE GUARDIAN

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“Dark Noon… isn’t just welcomed, it’s necessary.”
—PLAYBILL PICK

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WATCH: Dark Noon co-director and choreographer
Nhlanhla Managu in conversation at Spoleto Festival USA