The VOCA PEOPLE will make their UK debut at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in 2014, with a thrilling and original musical comedy sensation already seen by over 1 million viewers worldwide. The show will play 30 July - 25 August 2014 at 6 p.m. at the Pleasance Courtyard, The Grand.
More than 200 New Zealand artists will be coming over to Edinburgh this August; the largest group of leading New Zealand actors, dancers, musicians, writers, Maori performing artists, spoken word and visual artists to have ever performed together outside New Zealand. Eight leading companies will be taking part in the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, appearing mainly at Assembly Festival and Summerhall.
Fergus Linehan, Director Designate of Edinburgh International Festival, succeeds the current Festival Director Jonathan Mills on 1 October 2014, and is currently planning the 2015 to 2019 Festivals. Fergus will maintain and build on the Festival's leading position as a multi-artform Festival, bringing major international orchestras, classical artists and opera, dance and theatre companies to Edinburgh.
Today, at a press conference in Edinburgh, Director Jonathan Mills revealed the artists, companies and work from around the world which will fill the stages of Edinburgh's annual cultural celebration. Over 2,400 artists from 43 nations have been invited to Edinburgh to perform in the annual showcase of the world's great performing artists.
Oscar nominated and Golden Globe winning actress Anne Archer will make her Edinburgh Festival debut starring as 'Jane Fonda' in the world premiere of THE TRIAL OF JANE FONDA, written and directed by seven-time Emmy award-winner Terry Jastrow.
James I, James II and James III - are a new cycle of history plays by award-winning playwright Rona Munro and directed by Laurie Sansom, Artistic Director of the National Theatre of Scotland, which are to be presented in an unprecedented co-production by the National Theatre of Scotland, Edinburgh International Festival and the National Theatre of Great Britain, during the Edinburgh International Festival in August and at the National Theatre in London from September to October.
Bernard Labadie will return to the New York Philharmonic to conduct Mozart's Requiem; J.S. Bach's Cantata No. 51, Jauchzet Gott in allen Landen!; and Handel's 'Let the Bright Seraphim' from Samson. The program's soloists will include soprano Miah Persson, mezzo- soprano Stephanie Blythe, tenor Frédéric Antoun in his Philharmonic debut, bass Andrew Foster- Williams, Philharmonic Principal Trumpet Philip Smith, and the New York Choral Artists directed by Joseph Flummerfelt. The concerts will take place Thursday, November 7, 2013, at 7:30 p.m.; Friday, November 8 at 8:00 p.m.; and Saturday, November 9 at 8:00 p.m.
The 67th Edinburgh International Festival draws to a close tonight with the Virgin Money Fireworks Concert gathering approximately 250,000 Edinburgh residents and visitors across the city to share in the annual spectacular performed live by the Scottish Chamber Orchestra and Pyrovision.
There was some fantastic variety on show at Edinburgh. There were definite disappointments but also some really impressive and innovative attempts. Although it's always tough to pick just a few shows to mention - here are my awards for Edinburgh 2013:
My Fringe was a bit of a mixed bag... I had high hopes for some shows that I felt quite let down by in the end and I was also pleasantly surprised by others, as detailed here.
Following 5* reviews and critical acclaim at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, multi award winning Sell a Door Theatre Company have announced a transfer of their new musical 'Sincerely, Mr Toad' to London's Greenwich Theatre from 10th September to 14th September.
Best known as one third of Australian musical comedy group Axis of Awesome, performers of the famous "Four Chords Song", Benny Davis takes to the Fringe this year in a solo outing. Combining a sarcastic wit with excellent musicianship, "The Human Jukebox" centres around Davis' ability to pick up on musical patterns, with examples from every area of music strung together in amusingly odd combinations.
The Stella Adler Studio of Acting's Harold Clurman Laboratory Theater Company has announced that Michael Milligan's Mercy Killers is the recipient of The Scotsman Fringe First Award at the 2013 Edinburgh Festival Fringe. Milligan's one-man play is inspired by America's horror stories of the uninsured, many of whom suffer financial tragedies on top of chronic illnesses. The festival performance featured the debut of Mercy Killers outside of the U.S.
The Carol Tambor Theatrical Foundation has announced the winner of this year's The Carol Tambor Best of Edinburgh Award, the highest honor at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. The winner of The Carol Tambor Best of Edinburgh Award was announced at the closing ceremonies of the Edinburgh Festival Fringe on Friday, August 23 at 10:45 AM BST (5:45 AM EST).
It's a magical place, The Fringe. Everyone's in the same boat, albeit different sections of the same boat. Everyone's working a bit harder, drinking a bit more, sleeping a bit less, aching a little deeper, and everyone's truly in it, it's difficult to stay on the fringe of The Fringe.
Rave Generation has been nominated for the National Students Drama Award for new writing. It is a black comedy based around 4 fictional characters who inadvertently take Class A drugs. They experience a unifying and liberating journey and are united in an unlikely setting, a primary school classroom.
There is a kind of musical I've started to call plinky-plonk (the name is a work in progress). They're invariably set in New York, and they always involve a perky group of young twentysomethings and a piano. And I find them supremely irritating, and [title of show] is definitely one of them.
I didn't know what to expect other than 'Howie the Rookie' is a one-man show set in Dublin. Or at least it's a one-man show now. It's comprised of two monologues from two young Dubliners, first The Howie and then The Rookie. Previously, these roles were portrayed by different actors, but in this production directed by writer Mark O' Rowe, both are played by Tom Vaughan-Lawlor, recently seen in the acclaimed Irish crime drama 'Love/Hate' on Channel 5.
You get the impression that resistance is futile: from the dimly-lit entrance of Le Gat (that's what I'm calling him), certain corners of the audience are filled with yelps of delight, gleeful whoops and just general joy at his arrival.
In the post-ANTM age (if that doesn't make immediate sense, I won't explain it for fear of embarrassment), the word fierce has become a bit overused but it's the only description for the five 'Starlets' in this new production by Theatre Ad Infinitum, darlings of the Fringe after their previous show, the quietly devastating 'Translunar Paradise'. This group of immensely talented physical performers has energy for days, and they are just hugely watchable for the entire running time, thanks in no small part to the twitchy, spiky choreography of Orian Michaeli (one of the five).
A cast of young people performing in a Fringe musical that isn't 'Spring Awakening' is a thing to treasure, and when it's in fact Stephen Sondheim's glorious 'Merrily We Roll Along', it's an even greater cause for celebration. The programme is scant on information on where this company, The Red Oak Theatre, originates, but nobody in the cast looks anywhere near their mid-twenties, which makes the fact that they've tackled this decades-spanning piece all the more interesting - not to mention admirable.
