How to Choose a Show at the Fringe

In a city with over 3000 events, 300 venues, and almost 1000 different performing groups, how do you decide just how you are going to spend your precious fringe time? It's a question that I've been pondering late at night each night on this trip. After final lights out, I make a cup of tea, open my laptop and pull out what I call "The Phonebook." The paper catalog for the festival is a 438 page tome filled with possibilities. Want to see a standup comedian? Well, pages 48-186 list every comedy act. Music has a substantial section, as musicians from all over the world have descended on Edinburgh to perform. Theatre gets divided up- Dance, Physical Theater and Circus share a section, while musicals and plays each have their own space in the catalog. Each page has about 12 show listings squeezed in, with small symbols and abbreviations letting you know run times, concession pricing, performance dates, and venue details. It's an overwhelming amount of detail. My adventures delving into the catalog have left it dog eared and bruised, but the occasional title will leap out at me. "Stop Brushing Your Teeth", a spoken word lecture from a professor. "The Escapade of the Burmese Burglary" a mystery-comedy. "A Gambler's Guide to Dying", a one man show about his grandfather. Or the best yet that I've encountered: "A Young Man Dressed As A Gorilla Dressed As An Old Man Rocking In A Rocking Chair For 56 Minutes And Then Leaves". Sometimes it's something else that catches my eye. "Clown Macbeth" had a poster with a striking image all in black, white and red. A flyer for "Unmythable" promises that I will be a Legend for entering the theatre. Sometimes it's a conversation with the performer elsewhere in town- waiting in line for a show, picking up a cup of coffee, or even just popping on or off the bus. Our students have been finding their own many different ways of connecting to the festival experience. While standing outside a venue, an actress named Desiree Burch came up to them with a flyer and asked them "Hey, do you want to kick the crap out of racism?". They ended up seeing her one woman show and came bursting with excitement at what they had seen. Classically trained at Yale and influenced by the experimental theatre scene in New York, her work found a chord with those seeing her show regardless of their race. Meeting her after the show felt to them like meeting Beyonce, but Desiree was in turn impressed with our kids connection to her message. They spent a while discussing the two projects that we have brought to the Fringe. And Desiree has promised to come see our next performance. It's been an absolute joy and privilege to see our youngsters being a part of the Festival and entering the conversation of what it takes to produce live theatre, how to connect to an audience, and how to be an artist. So sometimes, no matter how many times you flip through the catalog, or how much you manage to schedule the perfect sequence of shows so there is no doubling back or gaps of time, every once in a while you end up taking a zig instead of a zag at the last moment and stumble into something else. It's the Festival- it's alive and adapting and reacting right before your very eyes. Just reach out and grab it with both hands and see where it takes you.