Emily Carding’s ‘Quintessence’

Our friend Emily Carding performs their solo show Quintessence this week at the Brighton Fringe Festival (where it won the “Outstanding Theatre Award” in 2019) and talks about how the show was inspired by their love of Shakespeare, science-fiction, and Frankenstein. Featuring the embodiment of an artificial intelligence onstage; starting out life as a commission from the London Science Museum; influences ranging from Shakespeare’s Ariel to Star Trek’s Data; the power and profundity of silliness; the elimination of barriers provided by Fringe performing spaces; upcoming pub garden performances of As You Like It with the Open Bar Theatre; and real-life warnings about how humanity will ultimately be destroyed — and possibly be reborn. (Length 20:22)

Tales Of Edinburgh

The Edinburgh Festival Fringe is on and sadly, we’re not there! So we’ve dug into the archives to find some of our favorite Edinburgh moments. Thrill to tales of discovery; amazing performing experiences; reconnecting with old friends and meeting new ones; the only (horrible) way to become a Catholic martyr; special appearances by Rachel Parris, Yisrael Campbell, and Tim Fitzhigham; the real-life inspirations for the Red Wedding and Shakespeare’s “The Phoenix and the Turtle”; fun-loving Puritan numpties; new Jews, old Jews, and faux Jews; the joys of both seeing and performing multiple shows during a single Fringe; the dangers of flyering; excerpts from The Complete Millennium Musical (abridged), which performed at the Assembly Rooms exactly twenty years ago; international tour dates for the Fall of 2019; and discovering how the theatre can become your temple and John Malkovich your lord and savior. (Length 25:51)

Episode 607. Getting To Edinburgh

How do you get to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival? What’s involved with producing yourself at the largest theatre festival in the world? Jamie Gower, the creator and star (sorry, operator) of Denny O’Hare: I Feel Fuzzy, takes us step by step through the process of creating a show, picking a venue, developing a budget, making peace with the idea that this will most likely be a money-losing operation, and most importantly, understanding the danger of not going. Featuring nuts and bolts, waived visas, the value of pre-planning and starting early, the advantage of not being a good puppeteer, learning how to create good press releases and posters and flyers, the importance of location location location, and the supreme importance of not waiting for permission. (Length 24:53)