Hard to believe we are already at the mid point of our journey as Edinburgh Fringe performers. We've seen some lovely pieces - including children's shows, paper puppetry, newly written works and stand up comedy. (?) We've had good audiences (always more than four people, which is the Edinburgh Fringe average). The first two nights we had close to full houses. Last night was a smaller audience, consisting of about fifteen, but they were one of our more lively crowds, which made it a great deal of fun.
Three performances down and three to go. We're getting to be very familiar with the city, having walked it twenty times over a day. We have found our favorite cafes. Made new connections and friends. We've really been able to accomplish everything we wanted to do here.
We had some reviewers in our audience. The first review was raving and sent all of us into blessed tears. We're waiting on another one from a reviewer who came last night. He graciously sat in the front row, had hats tossed onto him, and laughed generously. We got to speak with him after the show and got the sense that he, too, liked it very much.
The challenge has been busking. You can't go up the royal mile without receiving twenty fliers for twenty different shows. People are pulling out new tactics now. Not only are they dressing up, staging tableaus, and calling out lines from their show, but they're offering free tickets and dishing out raving review quotes. It's hard to say no to a free show with a raving review.
We spent our first day busking in regular attire, approaching the strangely clad, engaging them about their show and then letting them in on ours. This seemed like a good preliminary tactic, but it didn't last more than that first day. The second day we went out in our costumes and had our hats and instruments from the show. this gave people a curiosity about us. Tourists were taking photographs of us as we played a tune for every flier passed out.
The even harder part comes when you feel like you've given everyone in Edinburgh a flier. By about day three, people were much less-inclined to take any piece of paper that crossed their path. We found by making good eye contact and really pressing that this show is 'all-women and all-Shakespeare,' really helped us out of the 'no flier, thanks' rut.
We've also tried busking in other places. We busk on our way to and from the royal mile. We give the cashiers at the cafes our fliers when they ask us if we've seen anything good. We pass out fliers over pints after the show. Yesterday Holly and Chelsea went to the Pleasance Courtyard to pass out fliers for a change of scenery and, hopefully, a change in the usual people we reach.
This is a very dry run-down of the Fringe goings on. We've got a ton more stories and no time to type them! Guess you'll just have to wait till we get back for the juicy details!
With Love,
The TLs
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