Trevor Hall Gateway City Arts in Holyoke Ma Gateway City Arts Office Information June 19

The view from our window

I am awakened at 6am, kill the first alarm, and then hit snooze on the 2nd warning. After all, nosotros have been upward until 1am the night before. John has already had his first breakfast, and is discussing final nighttime's functioning notes and observations with Sheryl. I open the window toward a absurd breeze, and gaze out beyond Canongate Kirk, the graveyard across from our Old Tolbooth Wynd flat. I meet if I can get a befriended seagull to have the dried bread we've been saving. We accept named the seagull Brian.

The shower's hot h2o soothes the soul, and I grab my calculator, bank check the times for the daily shows we've bought tickets to that twenty-four hours, having chosen terminal month from the over 3,000 offered. I also cheque our list of Fringe Key Creative person/Producer Workshops and networking brunches for that day. Next I tweet about something I've experienced recently, and catch a cell phone photo to go with it. Sheryl and I then head out the door for the i to three times a day we will struggle uphill on High St. (also known as The Regal Mile), past the gelato shop, the multiple whiskey, fudge, cashmere, shortbread, and kilt shops to the intersection with South Bridge and North Bridge Streets.

This coming together of roads at the bottom of the crazy pedestrianized portion of The Regal Mile is the orientation point for nigh Fringe goers. Grassmarket is to the w and best reached by going left than speedily right fugitive the various buskers and juggling acts then heading steeply downhill to Cowgate.

Up the hill on the Royal Mile

Nosotros watch every time nosotros even recollect well-nigh stepping into the street. Our "U.s.a. sense of rubber" is woefully backwards in the land of right-side driving. Rarely a day goes past when you don't find yourself virtually to step into the path of a bus that literally is only inches away, as it whizzes past from the direction you weren't looking. Simply fifty-fifty with the narrow and winding cobblestone streets with huge buses elbowing their way past tiny cars and foreign jaywalking tourists, information technology all seems to work.

And y'all can become the whole day jostling for position at ticket counters, hardware stores, markets, pubs, restaurants, newsstands, and never hear an unkind or discourteous word. The worst I heard was from cabbies bashing Theresa May and the whole Brexit mess. Think Scotland wanted to stay in the EU. And Czar Trump ofttimes came up and while we were, by right of being at the Fringe, deemed Not to be in league with the devil. Nosotros certainly got an earful one time our accents revealed our domicile turf.

Fringe Cardinal Lobby

So we are headed to a Fringe Key workshop on touring rural Scotland- or even London or Australia and more. We stay on Southbridge finding just enough space on the narrow sidewalk with the mix of performers, tourists, metropolis workers, bout groups, and beleaguered urban center residents, trying to get to work. And did I mention the posters. Everywhere there are posters which either by their size or number, try to convince you why you should run into their show over the 2,999 others visually lobbying for your attention and money. (Many copse gave their lives for this excess of promotional exuberance.)

Walking past the Tesco convenience market and Poundsavers, disbelieve everything knock- off shop, by the Surgeons Hall venue, where John performed so successfully in 2016, and onto the row of consignment stores for Cancer, Save the Children, and others- great places to selection upwardly odds and ends. We continue by Java Angel. A cappuccino and scone at Coffee Angel on the trek home, have oft been the perfect set after long workshops on Touring Contracts and Artist Visas. But the day is young, so it's effectually the corner and our destination Fringe Central, a gathering place for all Fringe artists and producers with important and helpful guidance from the Fringe Arts & Industry and Media Office staff.

Lots to larn virtually the various producing groups bringing shows to rural Scotland & London. But before that nosotros take arrived at Fringe Central in fourth dimension to chat a flake with Claudio and Armando, the Italian and Mexican talented classical clown duo with whom we proceed crossing paths.  They had finished their conversation with Miguel, the solo performer in STARDUST. His show aims to rescue the reputation of his domicile land, Colombia, then oft stereotyped as a oasis for heroine drug lords.
Side by side we trek a few more blocks to i of our favorite venues, Summerhall. Lots of the more than experimental theatre work goes on in various classrooms, lecture halls, surgical amphitheaters and assembly rooms that once housed medical students. We saw many performances here. It's a keen place to hang out either in their open up café, or the pint-fueled courtyard, or at the Majestic Dick which had been temporarily renamed the Majestic Pussy in keeping with the presence of Russian federation's Pussy Riot performances and an exhibit on their aims, artwork and approach to modify. Putin was not invited.

Robin at Java Angel

We pick up a few more tickets this day for Condition, EVROS:CROSSING THE RIVER, and GLORIOUS LOVER. Time to caput back to catch Mairi Campbell's new bear witness AULD LANG SYNE at the Storyteling Centre back on High St. Mairi has go a actually skillful friend and collaborator since nosotros first met in 2016 after seeing PULSE. Serious Play was able to bring that show to the Shea Theater last December. She and her hubby Dave Francis are insightful creators, and both value performance every bit an art form.

After Mairi's testify, it'southward back to the flat to see what John is up to. He has a very disciplined daily regime with do, guitar practice, and balance in the afternoon of a functioning. And keep in mind every day for a calendar month except Sundays, he performs Serious Play's THE Ruby GUITAR at 9:x pm, with two performances each night the final two weeks of the FRINGE, when Serious Play adds in the new trio Do Information technology At present: Manual Override at ten:20pm nightly. We throw together something to swallow, often noodles with cheese, bread or sometimes a salad from Pizza Express simply across the street and down a loma. Ask united states of america most "the duck impress" on the wall at Pizza Express someday. After dinner John warms upwards, and and so it's off to theSpace Niddry St.,Venue 9. In one case there, we look while the Drag prove ahead of use finishes, and then rush to get in and gear up up.  I check with Matteo and Ben, our venue assistants, to chop-chop have over the tech, get a thumbs up from John subsequently a sound check, and in comes the audience, with Sheryl making sure they all go seated comfortably and with a programme. John launches into another unique evening of great guitar riffs and the personal story of his life in sound, ever incorporating new nuances of gesture, focus, timing- and another memorable evening unfolds. Bows, handshakes and enthusiastic audiences, but nosotros accept to make way for the next evidence, mostly led by a young woman running in, conveying a big black accident up sofa -- and we are out of at that place to meet with our audiences who await us outside.

The Group at Mairi and Dave'southward flat

And so it's off to the High St Pub, and some relaxed conversation with local tourists, audition members or residents- making certain as little every bit possible is about Trump. It's 12:30pm by the time the pints are dry and we demand to become back to Old Tolbooth Wynd, so downhill we get, guitars, pedal board, anthology encompass, and mic stand in manus. Afterward a bit more than decompression and talk, nosotros finally hit the sack around one:30am. Before you know it, the warning sets the whole ritual in motion once again for yet another 24-hour interval in our month long and ever then fulfilling saga.
----Robin Doty (Managing Managing director, Serious Play)

Stay tuned for more to come on what shows we saw & what we choose to try to bring to Valley audiences

*Likewise- Help support the ongoing SERIOUS PLAY/ EDINBURGH FRINGE PERFORMANCE Commutation--
Bring together united states for Serious Play'due south Return FROM THE FRINGE Oct 5 & 6 at 7pm-A.P.Eastward@HAWLEY/ Arts Trust Building/Tickets world wide web.brownpapertickets.com $xviii / at door $20

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Source: https://www.northamptonartscouncil.org/2018/09/

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