I’m not a religious person, but I have for a long time fantasised about taking a month or so to walk the Camino de Santiago in Spain, a network of pilgrimage routes that lead to the tomb of Saint James in the cathedral of Santiago de Compostela. Some of the routes are shorter, but the longest are quite a challenge. 

I was therefore immediately interested when I heard about writer-performer Susan Edsall’s ‘Buen Camino’, a one woman show about the creator’s own experiences of walking the Camino. 

I wanted to find out more – about Susan’s reasons for completing the walk, why she made a show about it and her expectations of the Fringe – so I arranged a chat ahead of her performances in August. 

CM: Can you start by telling us a bit about the content of ‘Buen Camino’? What story does it tell?
SE: I had a perfect life, a perfect love and perfect happiness. When I suddenly underwent an unexpected loss, my perfect life ended. 

Consumed by excruciating pain, I found it impossible to imagine any future worth living. Until, on an ordinary trip to the grocery store, I heard The Voice. The trouble is, I don’t believe in Voices. And yet, when The Voice told me to walk the Camino de Santiago in Spain, I obeyed despite knowing nothing about this ancient pilgrimage.  

With only my pack and my pain, I began a journey through unrelenting rain and temperatures that rarely got above 50 degrees. With the help of some improbable Spiritual Guides, a little bit of magic and the Camino itself, I had to face my past to have any hope of creating my future. 

Alone on stage, I become 23 characters to take the audience on my solitary walk through 540 miles of rain, resentment and redemption. ‘Buen Camino’ is my true story about how my grief led to surrender and ultimately to freedom. 

CM: What themes are explored through the play?
SE: Can you have a spiritual experience if you don’t believe?

What can happen when you are so undone that you become open to spiritual experiences that you, in a more stable state, would disavow?

Is spiritual transformation possible through battling? Or only through surrender? 

How can despair force a level of honesty that requires you to own your life – or your death?

What does it take to find freedom and to stay free?

CM: What made you want to turn your experiences into a play?
SE: At the risk of sounding loopy, there was a point on my walk when the Spirits had finally had their way with me. They told me I had to write a one woman show. And to perform it. Even though I had no clue where to begin, I obeyed. So I did and I am.

CM: Is it difficult to tell a story this personal? Or is it cathartic?
SE: Neither. I love telling this story. I love it every time. My catharsis happened in 540 cold, rainy miles in Spain. Now, a year later, I want to connect. I want to have the kind of personal experience with the audience that is uniquely possible with theatre.

When people leave my show, I don’t want them to be thinking about me or about my play. I want them to be thinking about themselves because they saw themselves in my story. I want the connection to be that deep and that personal. 

CM: Can you tell us a bit about the creative process you went through in bringing this story to life?
SE: After finishing the Camino, I walked another 75 miles to Finisterre where I’d rented an apartment on the beach for a week. It rained the entire time.

So I sat at the kitchen table and wrote all day every day. Longhand. I wanted to answer the question “what just happened?” On day seven I read it out loud.

It took me four and a half hours! Then I got online to find someone to help me turn it into a solo show.

I found Jessica Lynn Johnson of Soaring Solo Studios and wrote to her with little hope that she would take on someone as green as I was. I was wrong. We immediately started collaborating. 

I opened the show in Los Angeles six months later, receiving the Soaring Solo Stars Encore Award, and performed it two months after that at United Solo on 42nd Street in New York City, the largest solo theatre festival in the world.

I then performed it at the Hollywood Fringe Festival in Los Angeles in June. 

CM: I’ve been wanting to do this walk for years. Would you recommend it to other people?
SE: Absolutely. In addition, I would recommend they train.

There are plenty of lessons to be learned without the help of blisters, shin splints, plantar fasciitis or sprained ankles. Training will make the walk much better. Ninety percent of people who walk the Camino don’t train and that’s a mistake.

They also need to prepare themselves spiritually. What do they want to face? What questions are nagging at them? What about their life feels like it isn’t quite alive?

The spiritual aspect of this journey is far more rigorous than the fifteen miles a day they will be walking. Thinking about why you’re going – really, why – is the best investment you can make. 

CM: You premiered the play last year. Has it changed or developed a lot since then?
SE: Oh my, yes. It’s not the same script. It’s not the same show. I’m not the same person.

During my rewrite I added new scenes, deleted others, eliminated characters I loved and changed the ending entirely. I even decided to include the real magic that happened on the Camino.

In the course of performing, I discovered how to make the show deeper, more honest. This makes it scarier for me to perform because I risk the indifference of the audience.

Nevertheless, I can’t create the connection I want unless I’m as vulnerable as I know how to be. I certainly won’t connect by playing it safe. I might entertain, but I’m unlikely to connect. 

The more I perform the less interest I have in holding anything back. Theatre is a place where people gather to have an experience. Putting on the brakes is not the way to make that happen. 

CM: What made you decide to bring the show to Edinburgh?
SE: I don’t know that I decided. My director Jessica suggested it and I said yes. I love this show. I want to perform it. So why not?

CM: Have you been to the Fringe before? What are your expectations of it?
SE: I haven’t been to the Fringe before. I expect to meet interesting people, see fabulous shows, and learn a lot about myself and about my own show.

CM: What plans do you have for when you are not performing? WIll you be taking in other shows?
SE: Absolutely. Theatre is my great love. I believe it has a unique power to touch audience members. I crave the experience of being stunned by a show, of finding myself astonished at what it reveals to me about myself. It’s exhilarating.  

And although I think I’ll pass on haggis, I am interested in eating cranachan. And Dundee cake. I’m a sucker for dessert. I don’t want to plan anything too tightly. I want to make sure I have room to include the magic I expect to happen there, too. 

CM: Can you tell us a bit about your background? Have you always performed? How did you come to be working in the arts?
SE: I have loved theatre since I was a child, but I didn’t study it or pursue it after high school. I got a degree in English Literature.

I was idealistic enough not to take the teaching option, to which the admissions officer said, “that and a dime will get you a cup of coffee”. That’s how long ago it was – can you imagine? – a dime for a cup of coffee!

I came to be doing this show because one of the questions the Spirits on the Camino forced me to answer on my walk was “who are you now?”, and my answer was “I am a performing artist who holds a hot coal to the human heart”.  

CM: What have been the highlights of your career thus far?
SE: I don’t really consider myself having a career so much as fulfilling a calling. The highlight for me is working together with talented people and digging deep to tell the truest story I know how to tell with the most skill and vulnerability that I can bring to it. 

Earlier in my life I ran a professional regional theatre and I have written two memoirs and a novel. I enjoyed both. But writing and performing this show is in a league of its own. I feel like I’m right where I’m meant to be. 

CM: What aims and ambitions do you have for the future?
SE: I want to find ways to tell deeply true stories that scare me in what they require of me. I want to get better at what I do and braver at what I risk. 

I have a very soft spot in my heart for regional theatre and would love to be part of various theatres’ seasons. College campuses are intriguing to me, as are other mediums like film and television. I try not to close doors. There is so much to learn about where and how to tell a good story, and so much I don’t yet know. 

After Edinburgh, I’m performing at the Philadelphia Fringe, at small theatres in Montana, and have applications in to other festivals. Australia and New Zealand are in the mix but nothing is settled yet. 

CM: What’s coming up next for you after this?
SE: I’m going to do this show until something else rises in me. I’m sure it will. Stories are brewing. But ‘Buen Camino‘ is very new – it has a long life ahead.

Susan Edsall performed ‘Buen Camino’ at Gilded Balloon at Appleton Tower at Edinburgh Festival 2025.

LINKS: susanedsall.com | instagram.com/susanjoyedsall