I guess hello is always good to lead with.
So. Hello.
I’ll start with my name… I’m Caitlin. You can call me your Tour Guide or Blog Facilitator (imagine me in a safari jacket and one of those cream hard-hats tour guides always wear).
It’s my job to keep you up-to-date on our latest adventures, and to facilitate other writers, creators and Festival adventurers to tell their stories and share their ideas. This is your first short intro.
I’m Australian-British with a muddled accent, and have dip-dyed my hair purple as an affectation. I like succulents and mint tea and that’s enough about me.
Who are we?
We are Interactive Theatre International, a 22-year old Australian-born company led by Artistic Director Alison Pollard-Mansergh. Our globetrotting flagship show (which you may or may not know) is Faulty Towers
The Dining Experience, a smash hit globetrotter that’s returning to Edinburgh Festival Fringe (our eponymous EFF) for its 12th consecutive year along with sister shows Confetti & Chaos and Only Fools The (cushty) Dining Experience. All are 100% immersive and highly interactive.
But these shows aren’t why we are here writing this blog. We’re writing this blog because this year, for the first time ever, we decided to launch a brand new Edinburgh Fringe Festival hub: Imagination Workshop (hoorah!).
And this blog will take you on the journey to discover what it takes to programme, license, launch, market, and manage a new hub at the Fringe. We are going to share our processes with you, our ideas, our mistakes and (hopefully) our successes.
The hub is home to 11 shows…
We like to describe Imagination Workshop as a colourful and classy 5-star hub. It’s
basically taken over v119, the beautiful Principal Hotel Edinburgh George Street – a magnificent venue with which we have quite a few years history; more on this another time.
This year we’ll be hosting 11 acts including our own shows – Faulty Towers The Dining Experience, Confetti & Chaos and Only Fools The (cushty) Dining Experience. The programme is diverse and eclectic, covering genres like drama, comedy, spoken word, cabaret and children’s circus (I’ll list the shows at the bottom for your reference).
…But that’s pretty much it for this introduction. The hub is a brand new project for us and this blog will share with you all the production angles, ups and downs as we go along. Feel free to strap in and ride the EFF rollercoaster with us.
XOXO Gossip Girl
Imagination Workshop 2019, v119, presents:
Faulty Towers The Dining Experience
Only Fools The (cushty) Dining Experience
Confetti & Chaos
Stand Up Poet
Myra
Comfort Food Cabaret
Love/Hate Actually
Cherie –My Struggle
The Dots
Big Tops & Tiny Tots
A Migrant’s Son
Find out more about them on our website: www.imagination-workshop.com
If you have any questions about the process of opening a hub send an email to caitlin@imagination-workshop.com and we’ll try to write a blog on the subject
