Let the Fringe Begin!
Our tendency to be out and about until the wee hours of the night made this morning's bright and early wake-up a bit rough, but as always it was completely worth it. |
| Last night at Underbelly |
We walked to the Edinburgh Castle which is located at the end of the Royal Mile on top of an extinct volcano. We began our tour in St. Margaret's Chapel, followed by the Scottish National War Memorial and the Grand Hall. We stopped to take pictures at yet another beautiful view, and continued on to see the Crown Jewels. The crown, sceptre and sword of state were on display in a small dark room guarded by a thick vault door.
When we finished at the castle we went back to the flat for a quick lunch before heading out on our various afternoon meetings. The walk down the Royal Mile was absolutely insane. It's impossible to explain the overwhelming energy emanating from the street performances and flyer distributers, and hard to believe what people will do/need to do to stand out! Some of these companies have incredible marketing strategies and some need a bit of work on their 30 second pitch, but what really stood out was the variety. I had a 1pm meeting with one of my show producers so I couldn't spend toooooo much time letting people throw flyers, stick stickers and bribe me with discount tickets, but I'm definitely going to need to do some reorganizing of my suitcase at the end of the month because at this rate I'm going to have over 50lbs in promotional material!
At 12:30 Julie Mercik and I (aka Julie²) left the flat with map in hand attempting to find the Assembly Roxy venue for our first producer meeting. We got so lost it's not even funny...life is rough without having access to Google Maps on my phone!! But we got there and met with Bill, the producer of Bedtime Solos. He explained in better detail the plot and purpose of the show and the history of his company and experiences with international fringe festivals.
After our meeting we made our way to Ctoo Venue to see Romeo and Juliet with the group. The show was very well done, especially considering they were able to condense it to a 60 minute time slot. I also later found out that the company thought they would be performing on a proscenium stage but found out upon arrival at their tech rehearsal two days ago that the venue was a thrust stage. I thought the blocking was very well done before I knew they had to redo the entire show during their already too short load-in, but I have even more respect for the show now that I know how little time they had to "make it work."
Following the show we went to Fringe Central for another participant workshop, and then back to the flat for dinner and class. We found out who we'll be working with for each of the presentations, discussed the workshop and shared various experiences on the Royal Mile.
We finished class around 8:30, and the co-ops went back to Xela's flat while Emily, Allison, Athena, Amy and I went to Viva Mexico, and then spent the rest of the night at a place called Bees.
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