DTF: Doing The Fringe

DTF: Doing The Fringe

By Apropos TheatreArtsPerforming Arts
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DTF: Doing The Fringe episodes

  • How To Showcase Dance At The Edinburgh Fringe: Tony Mills

    Tony Mills, the artistic director of Dance Base, joins us to explain what’s happening at the fringe this year.

    Dance Base was started as a charity in 1993 to encourage and develop dance of all styles. In 2001, the purpose-built centre was opened in the heart of Edinburgh’s Grassmarket, becoming Scotland’s National Centre for Dance.

    Fast forward to September 2021, when Tony Mills was appointed artistic director. Dance Base Festival 24 (in partnership with Assembly) is the first full programme curated under his tenure, and the second in partnership with Assembly. This year they will present 274 performances of 29 shows by 33 companies from 2-25 August.

    Tony’s background is in break dancing, but he has also turned his hand to choreography and studying to become a vet.

    42 min
  • How Does Underbelly Program For Edinburgh Fringe: Aisling Galligan
    Aisling Galligan is a senior programmer for underbelly, working across the fringe festival as well as at the company’s other events and their new Soho Boulevard venue. This role covers programming a range of different venues, as well as acting as a point of contact for artists thought the festival and beyond.
    34 min
  • How To Always Say Yes As A Producer: Lauren Eisinger
    Lauren Eisinger knows the fringe and festival circuit well. As well as starting her own production company, she has worked as a programmer and producer with Underbelly, been the international development manager for Circa Contemporary Circus, project manager for Sydney Festival, as well as delivering large scale events like Symphony Under the Stars with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra and Christmas in Leicester Square. This year, she’s taking two shows to the festival this year, both very different; Burnout Paradise was developed by Pony Cam and features four actors trying to cover 20km between them, before they burnout. And Monkeys Everywhere is a show for younger audiences featuring puppets and clowning.
    34 min
  • What Makes Zoo Venues Different: James Mackenzie
    James Mackenzie founded Zoo Venues in 2000, aiming to refocus the Fringe festival on the needs of the artists. Zoo gives the companies bringing their work the time, space, and technical resource to show their work as it was created. Their programming usually focuses on innovative and challenging work across theatre and dance.In this conversation we speak about the difficulties that artists face in adapting shows to the fringe format, the future of Zoo, and what James looks for when programming.
    32 min
  • When Your Show Doesn't Fit Any Category: Sam Ward

    Sam Ward is one half of YesYesNoNo, with producer Rhian Davies. On their website they state that they: ‘make live performance pieces. Most people call our work theatre. Some people don’t’. 

    This begins to reveal how Sam and Rhian play with expectations and use the theatrical form to match the story behind the work.

    Five Encounters on a Site Called Craigslist – their 2017 debut– helped them to win the Total Theatre Award for Best Emerging Company.

    This was followed by shows including The accident did not take place and We were promised honey! They will be returning to the festival in 2024, taking their new play Nation to Summerhall.

    35 min
  • Awards, Transfers, Radio, and TV: Comedy At The Edinburgh Fringe: Lorna-Rose Treen
    Lorna Rose Treen’s solo show, Skin Pigeon, was a run away success at 2023’s Fringe festival. The show sold out its Pleasance venue, before gaining an additional slot later in the day. This led to the show being transferred to the Soho Theatre, winning the joke of the Fringe, and Dara O’Brian describing one moment in the show as ‘the funniest moment in comedy’. Since that Fringe success, Lorna has been working on a Radio 4 Commission – Time of the Week – a parody of Women’s news and current affairs shows and will be bringing Skin Pigeon back to Edinburgh at this year’s festival.We discuss Lorna's process for creating characters and how she knows which ones are ready to be included in a show. We also talk about her winning Joke of The Fringe, and the press (both good and bad) that this lead to.
    36 min
  • Bigger Than The Olympics - How The Edinburgh Fringe Works: Chris Snow
    Chris Snow has worked as a theatre producer, working on around 30 shows, 9 of which went on to the Fringe. He then had a series of roles working in facilities and management, before landing a job at the National Theatre as Head of Support Services and Procurement. He’s now Head of Artist Services at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe Society. This role oversees the support and development of artists across all aspects of their career.
    36 min
  • How To Survive The Edinburgh Fringe: Mark Fisher

    1983 Mark Fisher performed at the fringe, returning to work in the Fringe office in 1986 and has been a part of every Fringe Festival since.

    He is currently a theatre critic for the Guardian, as well as contributing to other publications like the List and The Scotsman.

    He has also written and co edited several books including ‘The Edinburgh Fringe Survival Guide: How to make your show a success’ and ‘How to write about theatre’, as well as contributing to books on the landscape of criticism, David Greig, and the arts under the SNP.

    https://www.edinburghfringesurvivalguide.com/

    29 min
  • Why The Edinburgh Fringe Is The Best Play For New Writing: Katie Posner

    Katie Posner is the joint Artistic Director at Paines Plough, a touring theatre company that develop new writers and share their work with audiences around the country. Since its inception in 1974, Paines Plough have worked with over 300 British playwrights and tours to somewhere in the region of 40 places each year. 


    Katie took over artistic leadership of Paines Plough, alongside Charlotte Bennet in 2019. Before joining Paines Plough, Katie was Associate Director at Pilot Theatre, as well as having a varied life as a director.

    16 min
  • Fringe Follow Ups

    In this episode we chat with three of the people we interviewed pre-fringe, to find out what their experience of fringe 2022 was like. First, we speak with Pollyanna Esse (Director of 20 Minutes of Action) about expectations and the effect of a verbatim play. Second, we speak to Julian Spooner (Co-Director of Rhum + Clay) about what you can learn after a decade of making fringe theatre. Finally, we speak to Fergus Morgan (Theatre Critic) about the number of shows he saw, and question just how successful this year's fringe was.

    35 min

About DTF: Doing The Fringe

From the publisher's feed

In this series we’ll chat with the people who work behind the scenes to make this all happen. We’ll speak with reviewers, people in charge of running venues, we’ll look at the marketing side of…