Monday August 20th, 2012
The show that used to run right before ours, (Marvelous Medicine), closed last Saturday, and so there's no show before ours in Theatre 3, at theSpace@ Surgeon's Hall. So, instead of having six minutes to put up our set and check lights and sound system, we had the luxury of having well over a half an hour. What luxury! Today's show went really well. We had 23 wonderful people in the audience today. Our largest audience yet. Lucky for us, one of them was a professional reviewer... for the Edinburgh Guide no less. She informed us after our show that she was giving us a five star review, and that we could instantly add the stars to our postcards (flyers) and posters.
Let me explain. Once the reviews start coming in, many of them have stars attached to them. The more stars you can glue to your flyers, the better. Since we had no review (and no stars) we were starting to feel like the cousin no one wants to sit next to for Thanksgiving. Lo and behold, we have stars now!! Today, when I was handing out our newly embellished flyers by the half price ticket booth, people actually said "Well done!" When I'd hand them a flyer and say "We just got a five star review today, from the Edinburgh Guide." That was such a good feeling. It really countered the feelings we'd get if we mistakenly tried to hand a flyer to someone attending the tattoo.
Explanation: There's a big pageant at the big castle on the hill every night. Bagpipes, drummers, marching... precision marching, and then a British Tornado (fighter jet) flies over. It's a big deal here and people LOVE their pageants. But the people who love the pageantry, don't necessarily love the Fringe. So, you get quite a few angry glances and more than a little disdain. You learn to spot the tattoo people and avoid them. They almost always have large backpacks or duffles filled with... oh I don't know, haggis and crackers or something.
Oh, we saw a show today. Not an easy show to watch, but it was really well done. "An Evening With Dementia" it was called. The actor was amazing. The play really focused on the person, and what they might be going through. It was instructive without being preachy or boring or pious. Loved it.
Tonight when we were at Fringe Central, printing off and cutting up our stars (so we could paste them on our flyers), I read the bulletin board. People would take note cards that were sitting there, and write things on them. There were a few 'want ad' type notecards. People needing things transported, and whatnot. Then there were quite a few that posted feelings and people would respond to them. Here are some of my favorites:
1. Suzanne, Emma is looking for you
2. Team work, makes the dream work
3. Our first show we had an audience of 12!
4. Wow! You got an audience....we're still working on it.
5. Bad review : (
6. But good experience?
7. Chin up...... please yourself first.
and my favorite
8. Wanted: arrogant 15 year old male to screw up the most important day of my life.