Edinburgh Day 3 (7/31)

Today is probably the most full day of our trip, at least Fringe Festival-wise. Not only do we have our only technical rehearsal in the space (90 minutes for a ~60 minute show…) we also were selected to participate in a press preview event hosted by our venue, Greenside @ George St.

This event gives ~20 productions 2 minutes each in front of an audience of press to give a preview of their piece. The production team had designed something for us, which we had rehearsed yesterday, but today we would have to tech it in the space, which fortunately is the same space we’ll be regularly performing in. Since the press event had a noon curtain time, we had a 950am call to tech for it, followed by an 1130am call for the event itself. Finally, we’d have a 420pm call for our *actual* tech rehearsal.

So, yeah. Full day.

The team arrived at the venue and we got a chance to look around and learn how we’d be navigating the space. We *also* learned that the building managers had planned a test of the fire alarm system that morning, starting 5 minutes prior to our tech time, and lasting around 15 minutes. Clearly this was going to push the whole day back a bit, and the new plan was for us to start our tech time immediately following the conclusion of the alarm, test, and for the press event to start half an hour later than originally scheduled. Kudos to the Greenside team - they handled this curveball with grace and calm in a moment that could easily have become chaotic and anxious.

After using the delay to our rehearsal start to run down the street and grab coffee as a group, we made our way backstage, and eventually onstage, for our preview tech, which went smoothly.

Following the tech, we repaired back to our producer’s flat to relax and prep for the event itself.

Returning to Greenside, we were met with a pretty hopping atmosphere. Many of the acts were around, in both the bar/lobby space, and in the rapidly filling (and heating up) backstage area. As crowded and warm as it was, there was a good energy in the air which, once the event got underway, we were happy to see extended also to the press audience as well. We were slated to perform 17th out of 20 acts, so we were able to at least hear a lot of our fellow fringers as they sang, danced, and joked in the rapid-fire, 2 minute sets. The backstage slowly emptied out (and cooled…slightly) as more and more shows finished and went on their way.

We finally got our go, and did a fair job of our quick introduction and song, and the audience seemed to enjoy it. Hopefully that will mean we get some press mentions?

Then, as quickly as it began, it was over, and we were released until our 3rd call of the day, later in the afternoon.

Our mandolin/guitar player Justin and I used the time to make a trip to one of the city’s music stores, where I had my eye on picking up a secondhand guitar as something to noodle on during my daytime off-hours. After a long-sigh walk, made longer by some pretty dense foot traffic in the city centre, we arrived at Hobgoblin music. Sadly, the shop was having a pretty tough day. Apparently a pipe had burst in the flat above the store, and the tenant was out-of-town, unable to give anyone access to it for repairs. Still, they took care of us, and I left with a new (to me) acoustic baritone guitar.

Hauling my new cargo, we headed back the direction we came, in towards Princes St., stopping for some schwarma and a quick pass through part of the Royal Mile. We then split up to run some errands, before meeting everyone back at our producer’s flat for our third and final call for the day.

Once assembled, we prepped to haul our set pieces and props over to the venue and load-in for our technical rehearsal. A task I’m glad we won’t have to repeat for a few weeks. Arriving backstage (again) we were happy to find it considerably quieter (and cooler!) than earlier in the day.

We got into costume, prepped our load-in strategy, then bang! It was time to tech!

…and we quickly realized we were facing an unforeseen challenge. Some inscrutable tech issue prevented the light design file we brought with us from loading into the light board in the venue. Our production team pivoted, and got as much other tech work done as possible while troubleshooting the lighting problem. Ultimately, through some real on-the-fly problem solving and grace under fire, and aided by some extra helpful venue staff, we were able to get the light cures we needed built, and then run several of our tech-heaviest sequences. Then all too soon it was time to strike to our backstage storage, and by 7pm we were now, finally finished the day’s work.

I took a nice slow walk back toward the actor house, stopping at a grocery store to get supplies for a late dinner and meals the next few days.

Later, as more of the team arrived at the house, and people cleaned up from the day, a bunch of folks gathered in the lining room to decompress, drink some wine, and carouse until…well maybe a *little* too late. Fortunately, that’d be tomorrow’s problem…