Never mind the Blisters...here's the Fringe Festival!

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The Fringe Festival literally takes over the city of Edinburgh every summer for the 3-4 weeks that it runs rampantly in and out of, over and under the cobblestone roads, ancient churches, and ominously awesome castles that help define this Scottish city. Literally any available space for performance is used, the street of course being a popular choice. The Fringe thrives on the crazy theatre/music/dance/ and all around art-hungry people that converge here each year. each of them hoping for a chance to be seen, heard, and recognized. It really is great being here...Romina and I shared the excited when we realized...everywhere we go we're just surrounded by crazy theatre people...just like us! The excitement and intensity to work that surrounds you can practically be touched. You walk everywhere, and everywhere you walk you're sure to run into about 15 different theatre venues in any chosen direction, or a bundle of performers trying to promote their show. And ya...there's that whole kilt and bagpipe thing too, makes it that much better. Who knew a nation could define itself by a pattern...yay for plaid! that would make a good band name actually..."the plaids"...hmmm.

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Edinburgh is simply a happening place. Just when i think the day has ended, everyone is ready to head out to the pub or a late night "curry" for dinner. I broke the record of my last late night curry dinner: this time we started eating around 1am. And as the food is placed in front of you, you think "there's no way this is going to happen" and then....it does. Every last bit of it neatly swept off the plate as you finish your beer and roll out the door back home. It really is incredible what you're capable of...I'm breaking new digestive boundaries. Although I haven't been able to see too much of it...the city is very much alive. At all hours people are performing, eating, drinking and simply having a good time.

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As I have barely had time to eat dinner before 11pm, my writing time has been limited to say the least. But let's get an update here. We finished up the preview shows in Cardiff, took down the entire theater we had created and stuffed it into a 18-ton truck. The rest of us were dispersed between passenger, luggage, and fragiles vans to take off on the drive to Edinburgh. The trip was again a reflection of the differences between American and British life. Whereas the Americans would do everything in a rushed double-time caffein-hyped manner: 8 hour drive? i'll get it in 6 no problem...one stop, 5 minutes...then hit the road...go! go! go! But instead we experienced a break-filled trip (how else will we have our tea??) I realized that the drive only takes 8 hours because we would stop every 2.5 -3 hours to get out and lounge for about a half hour at a rest stop. It is just a different pace here. Hard to adjust to actually. We arrived in the evening, got our first glimpse of our home for the next month, and started out the welcome with pizza (the very traditional Pizza Hut) and beer and cider (the alcoholic sort of course) which is quite the popular drink here. The next day we began to unload and recreate the theater we had in Cardiff. Soon into our first day of work I began to very dislike Pizza Hut. After various people commented on my rather green complexion, my first day in Edinburgh was spent getting to know my bed at the house. The following days were again spent unloading, rigging cables, lights etc. Then after this we re-teched shows we had in Edinburgh...one of which we lost ALL the lighting cues to. The whole show lost...and...as unbelievable as it sounds...it was the second time it had happened. I mean mistakes happen...but twice! We therefore had to spent an extra intensely panicked hour and a half creating the show from memory unbeknownst to the director. Pulled it off!! I decided that if this had happened at Hamilton someone would have been severely injured or excommunicated from the theatre by our tech. director.

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The last week has been spent running shows from 3pm until about 10pm. In the mornings we have box office duty so time to see the city is limited. And this is 7 days a week of course. Just to get a feel for it, one of my fellow workers commented "you know you're at the Fringe when a mate will call you up at 3am and say i just got off...wanna go for a pint?? and you'll always answer...ya, sure!" And currently at 1am the house is mostly empty because the other team (we are split into two teams) is teching the new theatre shows that came in today from California amazingly (Cal Arts to be precise) until an estimated 3am tonight. Then again all tomorrow. Yesterday Mel and I did have a spare few hours in which we saw an amazing dance show. On the way back i took extra walking time where picture-taking tourists caught my suspicious eye: i had accidently come across the "harry potter" cafe where J.K. Rowling wrote the first book on little scraps of napkin. Sweet! (mention of harry potter in blog #3).

This past Sunday was the Fringe Festival opening party for anyone involved in the festival (which is a ridiculous amount of people). Some of us went and were not dissappointed. There was a stage that had a bunch of performances of the festival's best offerings in sample size....there was some awesome stuff that i'll hopefully get time to see. Everyone there was so great...i think i made about 5 friends that night! 3 guys which we all danced with until about 4am were great fun! Oh to be surrounded by theatre-crazies. And i have to say that in no other place would i hear The Clash, The Specials, and Madness played in a dance bar setting. Amazing...i love this place already. We walked home as the sun was rising. Ya...fun night at the festival. Can't wait for more!

As for the shows I am currently working on...Gold Woman...the musical about child abuse (how could you forget) is driving me slightly crazier every day due to the fact that the composer actually has a talented knack for writing ridiculously catchy tunes. Unfortunately the lyricist is not up to par on this talent level...so you end up with lines like "it could be that you need more protein..." stuck in your head for days. And the book is just so wretched...I can't even try to explain. Luckily they only have about 3 audience members per show, so the majority of the city has been spared. Poor kids. Ironically tthey are part of "The Unknown Theatre Company"...hmmm. A self-fulfilling prophecy? Visualise....the science based show is a bit of a mess but has a lot of potential and i spend most of my time picking apart every problem in my head and thinking up new possibliites for their show. Perhaps i'll have a chance to share some of my ideas over a drink. Would be great if they were interested in the advice...we'll see. The Dylan Thomas show is great and even got the ever-elusive positive review from a major local paper. Next week we will have another new show arrive. From then on I will only be working on Visualise and the new show. Gold Woman and Dylan Thomas finish this saturday. More free time? We'll see.... Constantly walking and doing tech. work my hands a feet are getting nicely blistered and callused...I feel like a real techie. Loving it. Hopefully I'll have more time to get out and see the rest of the city and the incredible amount of entertainment stimuli it generously offers.

Another exciting note is that i did indeed find my family in Wales! After many failed attempts at calling, i decided to just get the map out and physically track them down (does that sound creepy??). I found that they amazingly live about a 5 minute walk from where i was staying! Walked up to the door and just knocked....after explaining who this strange girl in punkish clothing was standing at the door, Rob's jaw literally dropped. Hahaha...it was great. So we chatted all day, he showed me pictures of myself and the family at my house from when i was about 8...crazy. The next night he and his brothers and i all went out for dinner and drinks...it really was a lot of fun and it made me sad to think i won't be able to just phone them up (with the correct number!) and hang out. It was great seeing them though and help complete my time in Wales.

back to the theater with me!