Week Two at the Fringe

Seven more shows to go! It’s been a great week. RASH was shortlisted for the Amnesty International and the Big Issue Freedom of Expression Award alongside four other companies. The award ceremony is on August 23rd. I got another two great 4 star reviews from Three Weeks and the Fringe Review. I was featured in the Scotsman in Brief Encounters where Leslie Lewis Sword and I chatted about our one woman solo shows set in Rwanda. Ewan Spence interviewed me for the Edinburgh Fringe Show of The Podcast Network so check that out if you want to hear about the show. And I spoke about RASH on a panel at the Edinburgh Synagogue Open Day with Linda Marlowe and Iris Bahr who are both performing one woman shows too,. The best show I saw this week was Nina Conti doing a fantastic ventriloquist and character show – she is funny and talented. And I can’t thank Gordon, Deborah and Jessica enough for helping me flyer this week for the show. It’s hard work but rewarding. We meet some nice people along the way, and some of them do come to see the show as a result. Onto Week 3.

Week One at the Fringe

Well I’m half-way through the Fringe today and on my way to a midnight Pleasance party to celebrate that! It’s been a great week. Wonderful audiences, lots more reviews (a 4 star from the Edinburgh Evening News), lots of waiting for reviews to come out (it can take over a week!) and a great double page spread in the Glasgow Evening Times. I also performed an extract of the show and was interviewed on Mervyn Stutter’s Pick of the Fringe at the Guilded Balloon. It’s always great to perform alongside others which is a rare occasion. There are quite a few audience members that come from Glasgow from my childhood days. My parents friends have some funny reactions. Sometimes I come on stage and I hear them whisper, “look there’s Jenni”. Who else were they expecting to see? ☺ A lot of people come out of the show and ask me if any of it was true and who the story is about. Some folks seem to walk in and don’t realize it’s my own true story. It’s been so lovely reconnecting with family and friends that I haven’t seen in so long. And this week I started to see lots more shows and meets lots of performers which is definitely one of the most enjoyable things about being part of the Fringe. The best thing I’ve seen so far is Traces, a French Canadian dance troupe who fly through the air and make you stop breathing. Onto Week 2.

Week Zero at the Fringe

Well I’ve just survived Week 0 at the Fringe! I arrived here a day or two before my first preview on 1st August and watched the Fringe being built. Overnight parking lots were turned into courtyards, student unions becoming theatres, and plaza spaces transformed into massive party venues. Last night was the opening party of the Fringe – it had all the elements of a good Scottish party – great energy, lots of performances, alcohol, kilts and rain. I really felt like I had landed. I’ve been quite lucky getting a decent audience during week 0 and it’s great to bump into people who saw the show and tell me how much they loved it. My biggest find has been Kieran McLoughlin who has now become the
Associate Director of RASH. The director of RASH, Jen Nails is pregnant and so unfortunately couldn’t travel with me here. I can’t imagine what I would have done without Kieran who has performed and directed at the Fringe before and is showing me the ropes and making RASH more solid. We’ve spent the last few days in tech rehearsals with our tech crew (Mick and Cara), finding wonderful interns to flyer RASH (Gordon and Rebecca) and contacting the press. I spoke on BBC Radio Scotland live on Sunday morning, got a 4 star review from Broadway Baby and last week RASH was on the entire front cover of Sunday Times Ecosse. And an anonymous person left a donation for us at the Fringe Office – thank you! The hardest thing about Week 0 is waiting for the reviews to come about. RASH has been reviewed by 4 different press and all during previews!!! so it’s nerve wracking waiting for the verdict. Onto Week 1.

Fringe fiasco - opening show lasts 8 minutes!

Loud and unexpected noises are key features of RASH, a solo play about my experiences working in Rwanda after the genocide. So when fire alarm bells rang loud today throughout the Pleasance Dome Theatre 8 minutes into my opening show, the audience stayed put thinking it was part of the play. The stage manager had to put on all the lights and convince people to leave. Twenty members of my family, and family friends, who had hired a bus from Glasgow to Edinburgh to support my first preview, stood outside for an hour until they were told the show was cancelled. Thank goodness it wasn't raining. They have ensured me that they are sufficiently enticed by the opening act and claim they will return!

RASH - 100 best things to see in Edinburgh

The List magazine estimates there are "close to 20,000 performers vying for attention in some 30,000 shows in hundreds of venues across Edinburgh". Today the Sunday Times (Culture) named RASH as one of the 100 best things to see in Edinburgh. "When the city morphs into one big, crazy culture-fest, don't get overwhelmed. Just follow our critics' guide to the hottest shows this summer... RASH (Pleasance Dome) is a surprisingly funny portrait of life as a UN worker in Rwanda". In the Fringe Festival alone, there are 2050 shows. On top of that, there's the Art Festival, Book Festival, Film Festival, Jazz Festival and the Edinburgh International Festival. So it's amazing to be recommended amongst the top 100. If you haven't made your mind up yet whether to come to Edinburgh or not, now is the time!!! See you there.

The double life of a human rights activist/performer

So whilst I would imagine most folks who are producing and performing a show at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe are knee deep in preparations, rehearsals, press and marketing ploys, I am spending two weeks in Montreal, Canada helping to run the first ever Video Advocacy Institute run by WITNESS, the organisation I work for. Over 30 human rights defenders from around the world have gathered here to learn how to film, edit and use video and other technologies as a strategic tool to enhance their human rights advocacy campaigns, using the power of visual imagery to bring about change. It's an amazing group of people and the course is going really well. So from morning to night, I am wrapped up in this workshop, and carrying out lots of TV, radio and press interviews about our work. So in some ways, it's probably a good thing that I don't have time to worry about the fact that in a week's time my show opens at the Pleasance Theatre at the Edinburgh Fringe. On the other hand, it's hard not to be a wee bit concerned that I am not able to rehearse the play, contact press and sort out all the technical challenges that I'll be facing to make sure I get this show on the road. I am lucky to be surrounded by a bunch of wonderful friends and family who have been helping me out. And it reminds me of course that ultimately I am doing this show because I believe in the human rights work, and not because I am seeking to be the Fringe Queen of Scotland, although wouldn't that be sweet?

East to Edinburgh - New York’s Edinburgh Festival Fringe Preview

I recently performed the new version of RASH at 59E59 Theaters in New York (July 10-13) as part of their East to Edinburgh festival, featuring NY based performers heading for the Edinburgh Fringe. It was a wonderful experience. It was like a mini trial run for the Fringe which is part of the objective of the festival. It gave me a chance to perform the show as it will be in the Fringe with a revised script, brand new sound, lighting and image cues and a new costume! I got a chance to set up and break down the stage in 30 minutes - which is 15 more minutes than I will get at the Fringe. I was reviewed by the press (at least 5 different press folks showed up) - check out the first review that has come out that I'm very happy about at http://www.nytheatre.com/nytheatre/prnn/495.htm. 59E59 Theaters is run by a fantastic group of folks and the support that I got with regard to production management, press and marketing, box office etc was the best I had ever received. I learned a lot about what it really means to produce a fully fledged show and it was such a pity I couldn't perform more nights as audience attendance was great. My biggest discovery was in my lovely dressing room where for the first time, I had a speaker in there that allowed me to hear what was going on inside the theatre. This was a bit nerve racking, hearing people taking their seats and the pre-show chit chat, but the weirdest thing was running back stage after the show and then realising that if I listened carefully enough I would be able to hear what people were saying about the show. But I closed my ears, honest! I also had to deal with my first major technical hitch. On opening night I spent the first 5 minutes in the dark as the board operator searched desperately for the stage lights. Many people thought it was done on purpose and added to the atmosphere of the play, some others were more suspect! But that's the joy of live theatre!