Artists Selected for BDP Edinburgh Fringe Artists in Residence Program

Three artists have been selected to participate in Benson Drive Productions' inaugural BDP Edinburgh Fringe Artists in Residence program this August.

Chosen from over 400 applicants across the US, the selected artists include Marisol Soledad (Philadelphia, PA), Mur (New York, NY), and Nicholas Pilapil (Santa Ana, California), who will all attend and develop a new work at the 2026 Edinburgh Festival Fringe next month. To download headshots, click here. 

As previously announced, each selected artist will receive travel to/from Scotland and accommodations in Edinburgh, a ticket budget to immerse themselves in the Fringe ecosystem, as well as a $3,000 commission to allow them to create their first Fringe piece throughout the month that will be presented as a Work in Progress showing during the final week of the Fringe. Their work-in-progress showings will be presented by Underbelly on Tuesday, August 25.

Nicholas Pilapil will perform at 2pm at Underbelly, Cowgate, Big Belly. For tickets, click here. 
Marisol Soledad will perform at 5pm at Underbelly, Cowgate, Big Belly. For tickets, click here. 
Mur will perform at 7:15pm at Underbelly, Bristo Square, Dexter. For tickets, click here.

Benson Drive Productions also recently announced their Edinburgh Fringe Festival debut with Steve Burns: Alive running at Underbelly Cowgate from August 5-30, 2026. Directed by Sivan Battat and co-written by Steve Burns and Matthew Freeman, Steve Burns: Alive is performed by Steve Burns, America's beloved problem-solver on Nickelodeon's Blue's Clues from 1996 - 2002. When he left the show, the internet decided his fate: car crashes, drug overdoses, murder conspiracies. Steve Burns was dead... except he wasn't. In Steve Burns Alive, Burns dissects the bizarre phenomenon of being mourned while alive. This isn't just his story, it's an excavation of how parasocial relationships shape reality, digital mythology replaces truth and what happens when millions of strangers grieve a version of you that never existed. What happens when the world thinks you're dead but you're very much alive? Benson Drive Productions’ 2026 Edinburgh Fringe Artists in Residence program is supported by Carson Gleberman and Underbelly. 

After the success of Cecilia Gentili’s Red Ink at the 2025 Edinburgh Festival Fringe, Breaking the Binary Theatre (George Strus, Founding Artistic Director), will be returning this year with Twitch, running at Underbelly Bristo Square from August 5-30, 2026. Written by Liliana Padilla and directed by Jack Ferver, Twitch follows Pam (performer Joslyn DeFreece) searching obsessively for her son after he has gone missing. She has lived in a town where no one trusts each other for infinity – smoking, sipping, waiting – watching shiny ladies on TV, accompanied by a twitch she cannot shake. The town begins to visit her: doctors, start-ups, grifters, psychics, strangers from Craigslist, lost animals. Perhaps Pam is imagining them. Or remembering them. Or rehearsing conversations she never had. In this surreal American town, Pam claws for certainty, a witness and evidence that she was ever chosen. Twitch was first developed in the inaugural Breaking the Binary Theatre Festival. 

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