On Tuesday, we had our first tech for the show and it was quite painless compared to other techs I’ve participated in. There are so many performances in one space that everything moves very quickly. We focused several “lanterns”, “cued the show”, had a short dress rehearsal, and then we were out of there! Tuesday night I saw two shows, The Curse of Macbeth and Orpheus and Eurydice. The Curse of Macbeth was put on by students from Cambridge University and used about 6 mirrors that could be illuminated and moved around for different scenes. While the mirrors added “spectacle”, I found that they were a little overused, as there were at least 100 internal cues in a 65-minute show. Orpheus and Eurydice was horrible, no point in talking about it. However, I will say when you see shows at The Fringe, they are either hit or miss. It also takes a while to hear about what is popular. One good thing did come out of the seeing the show as I met some students from New York working on a show called From the Fire, that I saw on Wednesday morning.
DISCLAIMER: If you were not in the Luminous Stage (or didn’t teach it), you can skip this next section.
One of the most interesting aspects of the Fringe is how they can turn ANY space into a performance space. Many times when I walk into a venue, the first thing is notice is how they have set it up and look up at how they have hung the lights. In venues that are not normally performances spaces, they just bring in trusses to hang lights. I’ve also found that LED “lanterns” are EXTREMELY popular here. I can see how they would be useful for the Fringe because there are no gels to change and they are much more energy efficient. When you only have five minutes to do a changeover, anything that saves just a little bit of times is useful. When I was talking to the Production Manager of Gryphon Venues, he was telling me that many venues that were not designed to be theatres use LED lights because the building can handle the electrical current better compared to just using traditional lanterns. Wednesday was opening night and everything went smoothly! What a relief! On Wednesday night, I saw the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama’s production of Sunday in the Park with George. For a student production, it was quite impressive and all of the actors had so much energy. Later that night, I saw The Last Five Years. I wanted to see the production because I worked on it this past spring and thought it would be interesting to see another take on the show. It wasn’t anything to write home about but it brought back a lot of memories.
Thursday I woke up super early and schlepped over to New Town (in the POURING rain) to see VCU’s production of Uncle Tom: de-constructed. I really wanted to see it because of my American Studies background and I thought I’d support Richmond. I thought that the show was well done and forced the audience to think about race and performance. Then, I saw FRESHER: The Musical that didn’t make you think at all but was just a lot of fun! It also got me really excited for “Freshers Week” at UEA this Fall! Then, I ran over to Assembly Hall (right across from the Castle) to see Rasta Thomas’ Rock the Ballet. I had heard that the projections were fantastic and thought it was worth checking out. As I was standing in line, I met a mother and daughter who were from Norwich and were in Edinburgh performing with the Norfolk Youth Theatre, what a small world!
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| Just trying to get people to come to his show. |
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| Street Performer! |