EDFRINGE 2025: C ARTS
Irena Huljak & Kurt Spenrath
air heart
C ARTS
C venues | C alto
AIR HEART
Writer / Performer: Irena Huljak
Writer / Director: Kurt Spenrath
30 Jul -10 Aug 2025 - 17:30 (1hr15)
Image: © Hill Peppard Photography
July, 20, 2025
This captivating one-person show dives deep into the life of mysterious aviator, Amelia Earhart, known for her daring ambition. People fell in love with her as a romantic icon, but beyond the public persona, we see the woman behind the headlines, confronting her vulnerabilities, sexuality, insecurities and the cost of chasing the unknown. Through raw, intimate performance, this play explores her darker side – uncovering the personal fears and struggles that shaped her pursuit of greatness. A powerful reflection on what any ambitious woman might need to do and the price of a life lived on the edge.
Hi Irena & Kurt thank you for being part of our interview series for Edfringe 2025. How does it feel to be bringing your show Air Heart to C Arts this summer?
Kurt: Having started my theatre career in Edmonton, home of North America’s largest Fringe Fest, this feels like making a pilgrimage to the source. Opening a new play in Scotland, a country that shares a history and sensibility with Canada, is a total rush.
Irena: It’s both surreal and deeply fulfilling. Bringing Air Heart to C ARTS feels like giving breath to a story that’s lived inside us for so long. We went right to the top for our first run. We’re ready to meet audiences where they are.
You had an amazing 2024 winning Best Actress for Memento Quarry at The Great Canadian Comedy Film Festival, when making a micro film like this did you imagine it would garner the attention it has?
Irena: Thank you! Honestly, when we made Memento Quarry, it was all heart and grit. We weren’t chasing awards—we just wanted to tell a quirky story the best way we could. The fact that it’s resonated, and that I was recognised with Best Actress, is both surreal and deeply encouraging. It reminds me that even the smallest stories can ripple far when they come from an honest place. The director and producer on that project were fantastic.
As an award-winning filmmaker with a focus on documentaries how much has this background prepared you for directing Air Heart?
Kurt: Nothing has the immediacy of theatre. Americans like to look at their heroes as superhuman. Canadians prefer a more real approach, where we explore the vanities, lusts, shortcomings, absurdities and vulnerabilities of heroes.
What does it mean to you to being Air Heart to Edinburgh Fringe, will this be your debut fringe?
Kurt: I’m totally stoked. I’ve been a part of Canadian Fringes, but this is my first time in Scotland. I’ve been training with a deep fryer.
Irena: Bringing Air Heart to the Edinburgh Fringe is equal parts dream, delusion, and dramady. I brought a show in 2008. So it's the debut for Air Heart but not my first time there. It ’s an honour to premiere this wonderful little show at the world’s wildest arts festival. If I can survive the tech cue, the rain, and the existential dread of flyering, I’ll consider it a win!
If you could describe what the Fringe means to you in one sentence what would you say?
Kurt: Risk, discovery, innovation, creation, laughter, tears. And probably a subject and predicate thrown in.
Irena: The Edinburgh Fringe is where the rulebook gets torched, the weirdos take over, and art finally gets to misbehave in public. I get to travel with my amazing friend, Kurt. That's the best part.
Before your fringe run will nerves set or are you able to enjoy the process?
Kurt: I get to watch Irena be funny, thought provoking, adventurous and touching every night. I’m excited as hell.
Irena: I would be lying if I said I'm not affected by nerves, but I want to enjoy this wild ride called process! I'm ready to take the bull by the horns with this project.
Can you tell me a little bit about Air Heart, what was it about Amelia Earhart’s story and legacy that inspired you so much to create this new play?
Irena: A woman I worked with in a leadership group, Karen Rae Wilson, once said I should play Amelia Earhart because I resembled her—and at first, I hesitated. I didn’t want to create a show about someone I didn’t fully understand. But after two years of research, an artist residency on Toronto Island, a grant, a dramaturge, and a few early drafts, I finally found the heartbeat of the play. What captivated me was Amelia’s defiance—her refusal to live by the rules of her time. That fire in her echoed something in me, especially during the isolation of COVID, when society felt full of rigid expectations. Air Heart became my response—a story about daring to live beyond what’s expected. That's why I don't think of this as a feminist play - everyone just live your life bravely.
Kurt: Irena came to me with this idea of exploring the untold story of Earhart’s Canadian years, her first flight in Toronto, being a nurse to Canadian veterans of WWI. I suggested we do a Canadian style examination, and really see what made her tick. When Irena found Earhart’s polyamorous prenup, I new we were cooking with gas.
I saw on Facebook you got to start a plane that was similar to Amelia Earhart’s, what was that moment like for you hearing the engine roar for the first time, it must have been surreal?
Irena: I want to be clear, I didn't leave the ground, but did learn to start it. I didn't expect the day to go the way it went. I only thought I was going to learn a few things about being in a 1920s plane cockpit. The gentlemen at the Hamilton War Plane Museum were totally amazing. I wanted to get my pilots license after. All of the technical aspects of flying awoken the inner need in me. I was able to understand why Amelia was obsessed with planes.
During your research did you discover anything about Amelia Earhart that really surprised or shocked you?
Irena: So many details shocked me. We couldn't keep all of those details in the show. Earhart had 5 careers before becoming a pilot. Some includes being a social worker, photographer, editor for Vogue magazine, and even professor at Purdue University (without having finished a university degree). Many past shows or films focus on her disappearing. Researching her was like opening up the pandora box that was behind the aviator she had to build for the public in order to be who she wanted to be. She was also a fantastic poet. Some of her writing is integrated in the show.
As co-writers what has been the experience like bringing Air Heart to the stage?
Kurt: A mixture of uncontrollable laughter and violent recrimination.
Irena: Co-writing a project is an extraordinary journey. We complement each other in ways I never could’ve imagined. Two creatives going through the fire together—it takes trust, communication, and a shared vision to hold it all together. And when it works- wow.
How important has the creative collaboration between you both as co-writers but then as actor and director?
Kurt: Essential, and you see it in the product. A wild meld of sincere deep truth and wild clown logic.
Irena: Whether being a writer / writer, actor/ director, there is a third voice in the room - the play itself. There is a point where the project begins to speak, and the collaborators need to simply keep listening. It's important to be able to exchange the hats you're wearing. The project requires you to shift and move with it.
What would you say have been the biggest lessons you’ve taken from creating Air Heart?
Kurt: That we have some serious freedoms in Canada and Scotland. We often reflect on the fact that this script would be illegal to teach in thousands of American schools due to LGBTQ+ content in the life of a woman that has been on US stamps.
Irena: I agree with Kurt. She's incredibly famous, yet these parts of her life are almost never talked about—maybe mentioned briefly in a few obscure chapters of some biographies, but that’s it. Why is that?
Have you always had a passion for acting and directing?
Kurt: Yes. But I would say it is more of a passion for storytelling. I love to “open their mouths with laughter and pour in the truth”.
Irena: I’ve always had a natural pull toward the arts—painting, dancing, anything creative. But when I took my first acting class at 14, something clicked. It wasn’t just a passion; it felt like coming home. Acting isn’t just what I do—it’s in my bones.
How different is your approach to stage acting compared to film or TV?
Irena: Honestly, it's the same thing. It's simply a matter of what size room I need to fill. I work from the inside out. I need to believe it, be it, and live it. That is true for any medium I work in.
"—when you commit to something that’s truly aligned with who you are, the world starts to meet you there."
- Irena Huljak
Similar question, because of the fluid nature of theatre as a director how different is your approach to directing an actor on stage?
Kurt: Good acting is good acting in any medium, and I’m blessed to direct a serious talent.
What’s been the biggest changes to your approach to acting/directing since you started out?
Kurt: This one has been a partnership, so learning how each other work is a beautiful journey.
Irena: You don’t have to carry it all on your own. What I mean is—when you commit to something that’s truly aligned with who you are, the world starts to meet you there. Things begin to fall into place, like the universe is responding. But that commitment has to come first. That’s the key. It’s everything.
Is there a particular quote from Amelia Earhart that you’re fond of?
Kurt: “Freedom has casualties. Not in the military sense, but real true freedom has loss”.
Irena: While quote Kurt mentioned is the heart of this piece, I always loved “I just wanted to go faster.”
And finally, what message would you like your audiences to take with them from Air Heart?
Irena & Kurt: That heroes are human. Sad, funny, sweet, ugly, joyful humans.