The Making of Pinocchio

Welcome to The Making of Pinocchio! – an up-close behind the scenes look at the quest to make Pinocchio the perfectly imperfect trans masc narrative of our times. 

In a forest of real wood and fake wood, and real fake wood, and fake real wood, join the cast, crew and creators as they construct Pinocchio over and over again, shaking the boundaries between possible and impossible, reality and fantasy. Turning wood into flesh, boys into donkeys, and making that nose grow… the tricks of the trade will be revealed before your very eyes.

Artists and lovers Rosana Cade and Ivor MacAskill have been making The Making of Pinocchio since 2018, alongside and in response to Ivor’s gender transition. Glimpsed through a fictionalised making process, the artists’ real autobiographical experience meets the magical story of the little lying puppet who wants to be a real boy.

Enter a world of wildly queer utopic imaginings, conjured in a click and lock landscape where everything can change and everything can connect.

“The wondrous trans tale of Pinocchio… A funny, clever and thoughtful two-hander, rich in playful imagery and direct-to-camera asides, about identity, definition and acceptance… The satire is gentle, but the politics are clear.”

 The Guardian

“The Making Of Pinocchio is clever and absorbing, full of reflection and self-revelation, powerful visual imagery and movement, and a profound sense of the force of Pinocchio as a story about a central character striving to be what he does not at first seem to be – a “real boy”.”

The Scotsman

“The Making of Pinocchio overruns with DIY ingenuity… the show is moreishly pleasurable to watch. The duo hold the audience with a brand of mischievous humour that’s provocative and reassuring in equal measure.
The Making of Pinocchio is about love and companionship… and what I feel invited to see beneath these complex layers of performative irony, allegory and reverie, is the beautifully commonplace reality of a relationship.” 

Exeunt Magazine

A Fierce, Kampnagel, Tramway & Vooruit Co-Commission. Produced by Artsadmin. Funded by Creative Scotland and Rufolf Augstein Stiftung with support from Scottish Sculpture Workshop, National Theatre of Scotland, Live Art Development Agency, Gessnerellee, Mousonturm, LGBT Health & Wellbeing Scotland and Glasgow Zine Library.