Closing the Book: Final Show

As we limped up to the finish line of our run here in Edinburgh, I was worried about how the final performance would go. Lydia and Montana were feeling very sick, several of our more introverted cast members needed more alone time than the trip affords, and the graduated students were chafing against my rules, which they found too restrictive. Crabbiness was in the air.

As usual, we decided that physical activity was in order to help everyone sort themselves. Tim and I led a morning jaunt into Holyrood park to climb to St. Anthony's chapel, while some students remained in the dorm to sleep and rest. It was a beautiful hike, and Kathleen, Noah, and Tommy appreciated the opportunity to clamber all over the rocks.

After two and a half hours of hiking, we headed back to the dorms. Madison Hughes was keen to do a final round of flyering on the high street since that has made a difference in selling a few more tickets, and after a long session of failing to interest anyone else in the cast to go with her, finally Leo and Tommy agreed to help. Many thanks to them and Tim for going along on that final push to get our flyers in the hands of punters!

There were a lot of people in the house, including the 24 person cast of "Seuss Odyssey." But there were lots of people simply there because they liked our marketing (flyers, street performance, twitter), or because sometimes at the Fringe, you just buy a ticket for a nearby Venue as a show is starting and hope for the best. If I had to guess, I'd say that 80 of our 90 seats were filled for the final show, which is impressive because I didn't expect more than 4 or 5 paying audience members at each performance. I've heard from my students that one of the US groups has had the parent chaperones buy up extra tickets so they can claim a sold out show, but this could also be just another of the dramatic Fringe rumors that seem to fly about and scandalize everyone. I'm not so fussed by it; there are many ways to Fringe.

With a giant house, the actors prepped and ready to go, and our final flyering accomplished, the only thing that could go wrong would be a bad shuffle.

We had the WORST possible shuffle, with our two longest scenes being pulled in the first 2 shuffle spots. Those scenes both are designed more as payoffs after you've met the characters, rather than as introductions or plot-driven scenes. I was sad that the audience wouldn't have as enjoyable an experience of the show. It is true that some of the the laughs fell in different places as a result of the shuffle, and there were things that could've landed better in a different order, but in the end I guess I'm glad we had this shuffle, since I wanted to see how the script would work without too much pre-arranging of events. After all, I wrote this play when I was in freefall, unable to help the people I loved who needed me to be smarter and stronger and more able to say and do the right things than I was. My final experience of watching this play in minor dismay at the way the cards were dealt was a soft echo of the feelings that drove me to begin this project nineteen months ago.

The audience loved the play. The actors did a marvellous job, and it is so exciting to see them learn and grow with every performance. Afterward, several professional artists and other audience members made a point of "meeting the playwright." I'm always very impressed by people with the social skills to walk up to a strange writer and thank and praise her for her words. It's a very embarrassing thing to be on the receiving end of, though. I was also handed the business card of an actor/playwright/director who has one of the major shows at the Fringe. Apparently, he told the Dixons that ours was the best thing he'd seen at the Fringe, and that it should tour. To explain that bit of Fringe-speak: many of the professional companies are here hoping to get their work discovered and picked up by regional theaters looking to host productions. Booking several of these additional productions is referred to as "going on tour." It's a generous compliment, and I could tell from the things he laughed at during the show that he is an Edward Gorey fan as well as a theater artist.

Later in the evening, he tracked us down on Facebook. He wrote: Absolutely brilliant! Wonderful show, superbly written and realised in a completely authentic Gorey manner. Beautifully staged, lit and costumed and remarkably well acted by the young cast. Still a-buzz from it. 750 out of 10!

After the blow that was VTA, it has meant so much to me personally that adult artists are responding to and talking about this work. I'm in theater because of the conversations it can start; because it can bring people together and challenge them to think about what it means to be a human being. I also just like to make things that can make other people happy. This week we've been part of a lot of conversations, and our audiences have walked away happy. We came to the Fringe not to show off with a piece we knew would "wow," but to see how a piece of new writing could stand up to audiences who don't know us. It has not been easy getting here, but I'm glad we took the risk.

#Edinburgh #performance #Fringe