After two years of preparation, the Young Americans cast debuted its masterpiece for a global audience from Aug. 10-14 at the 62nd annual Edinburgh Festival Fringe in Scotland.
“Those two weeks were very possibly the best two weeks of my life,” sophomore Annie Rosenberg said. “I’m really not sure if anything can beat our 2009 Fringe Festival experience. It really might have been once in a lifetime.”
Paly was one of 50 high schools that received the national honor of performing at the Fringe on an international stage among other international casts.
“Fringe is the world’s largest performing arts festival,” theater director Kathleen Woods said. “Performers come from all across the world. It’s like a theater festival.”
Paly’s four performances at the Fringe Festival all had spectacular outcomes. A musical, Young Americans, about how music influenced the lives of American teens throughout the decades was met with “good size houses, good audience, great audience response,” according to Woods.
“Although all four [performances] went extremely well, this one [the third performance] really made everything worth while,” Rosenberg said. “The audience cheered and laughed throughout the entire performance which gave us so much enthusiasm and energy. Finishing that show with a standing ovation from the audience was a feeling I can’t even describe.”
Junior Katie Maser agrees that performing in front of a global audience was one of the highlights of the trip.
“Probably the greatest things about the trip were performing our show for a national audience, meeting kids from all over the country who were participating in the [American High School Theater Festival], and experiencing life in Edinburgh and London,” Maser said. “The best part of the trip was performing the show, whether it be on our main stage, at Paly, or on a small publicity stage on the Royal Mile.”
Paly also got the opportunity to publicize Young Americans on Aug. 7, the opening day for the Fringe Festival. Students participated in the Cavalcade parade, where nine cast members rode on top of a double-decker bus provided by the AHSTF.
“We were really lucky,” Woods said. “We were there when it opened and there was a parade. The students who were on the bus were on TV in Scotland.”
The Fringe trip provided an opportunity for a tightly-knit cast to become even closer.
“I learned how important every single cast member is in a show,” sophomore Grace Barry said. “We all had to depend on each other to do our very best job for the show to succeed– no one could be a weak link or the whole thing would come crashing down. And I really think that we all cared about the show so much that everyone truly did their best. We all needed each other.
Despite the fun and excitement, the Fringe trip was not without lessons. According to Woods, several members of the cast were stricken with the “Fringe Flu,” and the cast experienced some the-show-must-go-on moments.
“After a couple of days they were back on their feet,” Woods said. “We had people performing who weren’t feeling well, but they were stellar.”
Preparation for the 2009 Fringe Festival started as early as fall 2007, where Paly was nominated to attend the Fringe Festival during the summer of 2009. After turning in an application by February 2008, Paly was accepted in April. For the rest of the school year, Woods recruited a cast.
Woods also decided that Paly will write its own play to perform at the Fringe. Thus, fall 2008 was dedicated to fund raising for the trip as well as writing the script of Young Americans. The script was finished by Jan. 2009 and the play was previewed in May at Paly. In the weeks leading up to the Fringe Festival, the cast rehearsed and polished up the show.
“It went really well,” Woods said. “I was really really proud of them.”
In addition to performing for audiences from around the world, the Young Americans cast went sightseeing in London and Edinburgh. The troupe toured Buckingham Palace, Big Ben, the Houses of Parliament, Stirling Castle, Victoria and Albert Museum, and the Trossachs. The cast also saw a performance of As You Like It at The Globe, where students were exposed to Shakespeare and the effects of language.
The Fringe experience has left an influential impact on the cast.
“Would I go again? Yes, in a heartbeat,” senior Nathan Wilen said. “I loved the festival and I loved Edinburgh, and if I can ever get back to Fringe, I will.”
Senior Zoe Levine Sporer agrees with Wilen that Fringe was an unforgettable experience.
“I would go in a heartbeat because it really opened my eyes to the world outside of the US and it was just really really fun,” Levine Sporer said.