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Welcome back. My blog has been silent lately, much to the dismay of tens of readers.

But I haven’t been silent. Oh no. I’ve simply been busy crafting the ugliest MySpace page in the universe, and preparing my latest foray into reverse venture capitalism—arranging a production at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in August. And what, I hear you cry, is the theatrical juggernaut we’re unleashing upon Scotland? It is the Shitty Deal Puppet Theatre Company’s Complete History of Oppressed People Everywhere (Now with 120% more Oppression)! The title may, in fact, be longer than the play.

The Fringe is both a fantastic opportunity and a huge money-sucking vacuum. Here’s the state of play—one Scottish capital, population 448,624 (roughly the size of Kansas City, Kansas only with a few more teeth), one festival lasting three weeks (6th-27th August), with 261 producing theatres, over 1,800 different productions and 27,000 individual performances. Acts range from comedy, to straight plays, to magic and musical theatre to performance art, and shows playing from 8a.m. to 4a.m. It is, if not the largest, the most well known Fringe festival event in the world, and they know it—and aren’t afraid to charge for EVERYTHING.

One does not go to the Fringe to make money, unless one is World Famous like Eddie Izzard, Cirque de Soul, or Rich Hall. Sadly, being straight, not a sad clown, and never having come up with a Sniglet in my life, I’m getting financially cornholed for everything. Our venue is a 42-seat theatre in the basement of a church, which for the full three weeks is £800 (very reasonable, as a similar space at another venue wanted £3,000). In addition, there’s three weeks apartment rent (£1,800-£2,000), payroll for four actors (£2,400), transportation (£200), and Fringe registration and ad fees (£1,200). All of which means total expenses of around £6,400 ($12,800). On the plus side, if we sell out every single seat for every performance (minus three comp seats per show for press), we stand to make £6,240 ($12,400 of your American dollars), so at best, we’re hoping only to lose £160. How could anyone not jump to invest?

So the object isn’t money, obviously—it’s exposure. You may not be able to believe this, but Norwich, England, does not attract large groups of press agents and show promoters (It mostly attracts chavs and the righteous indignation of the chronically obese). The Fringe, however, is awash with influential theatrical types. The League of Gentleman, Little Britain, Men with Coats, Kate Winslet, and Mr. Bean all did Fringe work early in their careers. Many small to medium sized venues across the U.K. choose their shows almost exclusively from Fringe fare; additionally BBC development folk look for new comedy and original works, and individual promoters pick up acts for their next season. The result is a huge trade show of art—the enormous admission price for companies is the risk you take. It is a big risk, but here in the U.K. it’s almost impossible to get recognition or a national tour without some Fringe experience at some point. It’s kind of a must for an emerging company like ours (axisofevilproductions.com).

I took a show to the Fringe in 2003, and it was what I like to optimistically describe as a ‘learning experience’ because ‘total failure’ sounds kind of harsh. Having never attended the festival before, we made some fairly basic errors. We picked a lousy venue (it was a conference room at a hotel with a light stand and some black curtains), we didn’t get an ad in the program (expensive, but vital), we only played one week (making it tough to get reviews) and we severely underestimated the need for constantly marketing the show. This not helped by the fact that our venue press office were run by monkeys who were too busy trying to sleep with each other to promote shows—it was like National Geographic meets the O.C. The end result was, over one week with six shows, we sold about thirty-five tickets, and had to cancel one show because no one showed up. And we had to share a dressing room with the folks from the venue next door—a bizarre middle-aged vamp with frizzled red hair who was hopped up on some kind of prescription meds and white wine and apparently sang Frank Sinatra tunes while accompanied by the keyboard stylings of a man who was either her lover, or her husband, or her son—maybe all three. It was weird. It was unnatural. It was the Fringe.

It was disasterlicious. However, it was not a total write-off. We were able to get two reviews, and using those two reviews and name-dropping the play as a Fringe piece, I was able to get it published by a group called Playscripts.Inc. Since then, it’s had a couple of productions and been purchased by High Schools across the country. And if that positive outcome can come from what was for the most part an unsuccessful attempt, I think we can really do some cool things now that we know what we’re doing.

Our plan this time is almost entirely based on looking at what we did last time, and then doing the exact opposite. The show is small cast, we’re going the full three weeks, we’ve put an ad in the Fringe Program (as seen on this page!), and we’re already looking in to the best ways to market and sell the show both to the audience and the press. If it sounds horribly business-y, it is, because, dammit, we are taking our cow to market. If your twenties is about finding your voice, then your thirties becomes about finding people who will buy it. So here’s to the Fringe, high hopes, low expectations, and shitty puppet shows.

In closing--Fuck MySpace. That shit is Internet crack. And yes I know it’s been around for years now, but I’ve been busy doing things, like going outside. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got to log on and see if I’ve got any more friends and find out what famous people I look like.

Logo courtesy of explodingdog.com