The Fringe Festival: Community Through Memory

Anand Choudhary '22 Assistant Arts Editor

Five celebrations transform Scotland’s capital into a major cultural and artistic destination for as many as 4.4 million people, including members of the Hopkins community, every August. After the Olympics, the five festivals that make up the Fringe Festival make up the second biggest event in the world. 25,000 artists come from almost 70 different countries across the globe. This year, however, each celebration has been cancelled this year due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Fringe Festival dates back to 1947, two years after the end of the Second World War. On August 22, 1947, the different festivals were founded as a way to reunite a broken community through art, bridging cultural and political boundaries. Presently, the Fringe Festival boasts some of the world’s most talented actors, dancers, and musicians across its multiple venues.

Fergus Linehan, the Festival Director, released a statement in hopes of raising the spirits of those who were looking forward to this year's festival: “The Edinburgh International Festival was born out of adversity – an urgent need to reconnect and rebuild. The current crisis presents all at the Festival with a similar sense of urgency. Work begins straightaway on a 2021 Festival season that will boost both our spirits and our economy. As we observe our essential social distancing we can, I hope, look forward to being back together soon: sharing brilliant music, theatre, dance, literature and art from the greatest creative minds of our time. Until then, thank you for all your good wishes and keep safe in the coming months.”

Every other summer, a group of students from Hopkins, along with Arts faculty members Mike Calderone and Hope Hartup, travel to Edinburgh to witness the Fringe Festival. Leah Miller ’20 gives insight on her experience: “The great thing about the fringe is the insane range of shows to watch. There is literally every and any type of show you can think of. And some of it is amazing, and some of it is awful, but all of it is entertaining.” Margaret Toft ’21 also describes her experience as “one of the most joyful and eye opening experiences [she’s] ever had. Seeing the different shows was not unlike browsing through plates of hors d'oeuvres: some great, some terrible, but you couldn’t tell until you tried them. For [her], seeing all different approaches to theater blew my mind, and influenced the projects and shows [she] pursued [her] junior year.” Students like Elroy ’20 think the Scotland trip is “undeniably one of the best parts of my Hopkins experience. Beyond getting to perform on an international stage, I got to explore a beautiful city, meet fellow artists in a space that celebrates and encourages art, and bond with my classmates. It was magical and I will never forget it.”

Although Hopkins did not plan on traveling to the Fringe Festival this summer, the community still takes impact on news of the cancellation. To get a better sense of how the cancellation of the festival affects the Hopkins community, The Razor met with Arts Department teacher Mike Calderone over Zoom:

Anand Choudhary: When and why did Hopkins start going to the festival?

Mike Calderone: We first went in 2012 with a tour company called The American High School Theater Festival (AHSTF; or as Hope calls it, "The Alphabet Company"). We only took nine kids and, since we were just trying it out, we were separate from any school financial aid; each kid had to pay their own way. That was an EXPENSIVE trip (not including production costs for our own show!), but a good one. AHSTF did stuff like housing, advertising, venue rental, festival registration, etc. All we had to do was get the kids and the show together. AHSTF scheduled our day pretty tight and included being the audience for the other high school shows that went over. The venue where we performed was not even on the official festival map! Off the beaten track to say the least! I don’t know how many other shows there were, but there were a lot. They took us on side trips and did "group bonding" activities, but we really just wanted to get out into the festival and explore on our own. Hope and I looked at each other on one of the final nights and decided we could do it better and cheaper on our own. When we went back in 2017, we did it for half the cost of AHSTF, had housing just off the Royal Mile, and our venue was literally in the center of the festival map! The 2019 trip got even better even though I nearly had a heart attack the week before we went; our housing was changed on us without anyone telling us. The good news is that we were in a better location than before, but still! I wasn't even sure we had housing the week before we went! It was the best trip so far!

AC: How does the cancellation of the festival affect you?

MC: When the Festival announced that they were cancelling this summer, my heart sank. The only positive was that this was our "off year": we planned to attend in 2021. If we planned to go this year we probably would have lost a lot of money. My heart sank not just for the Festival Fringe but for the entire city of Edinburgh. You have to remember that the Festival is just one of five festivals in Edinburgh; most of which happen at the same time. It's called the Festival Fringe because the original theater festival is the International Theatre Festival (very exclusive; very expensive; very good.) Companies that weren't allowed to participate in the International Festival said, "We're coming anyway!" and they "fringed" around the International Festival. But there's also the Jazz Festival, the Book Festival, and the Art Festival, to name a few. The population of Edinburgh more than doubles in August because of all of these festivals, even though half of the city's residents flee during that time. They very often rent out their properties to the influx of tourists and performers. There's a bit of a love/hate relationship with the festivals: they love what it does for the city, they hate what it does to the city. The festivals are a big boost to the economy, of course; but for the regular resident, it is relatively impossible to get around town for the entire month of August. I have friends who live there; I'm interested in hearing what the first quiet August in their lifetimes will be like. This year's cancellation really doesn't affect me much aside from the big-picture heart-ache for the city. We'll have to keep our ears to the ground as to what 2021 is going to look like. It's my hopes and dreams that 2021 will be like that first festival; where we all come back together healthy, happy, mourning for what we lost but celebrating what we have. It is no surprise that what I want more than anything else, aside from the health of my family and friends, is to be in my city once again.

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The Fringe Festival: Community Through Memory