Category: The Essentials

  • Tips for Planning Your Edinburgh Fringe Show

    Tips for Planning Your Edinburgh Fringe Show

    What to keep in mind when you’re planning to bring a show to the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. Taking a show to the Edinburgh Festival Fringe isn’t something to be done on a whim. It takes months of preparation and planning to make sure everything runs smoothly, and even then, there’s plenty that can be forgotten or overlooked.…

  • Accessibility at the Edinburgh Fringe

    Accessibility at the Edinburgh Fringe

    Top tips for making an inclusive, accessible Edinburgh Festival Fringe show and how to communicate your access needs as a performer. Making theatre accessible and inclusive is vital, but it isn’t always easy – especially when it comes to putting on a show in a historic city like Edinburgh when old, often inaccessible buildings become…

  • Promoting Your Show at the Edinburgh Fringe

    Promoting Your Show at the Edinburgh Fringe

    Tips for marketing and promoting your Edinburgh Festival Fringe show. After all the hard work of funding, budgeting, and bringing your show to the Edinburgh Fringe, you’re finally ready for an audience. You have tickets to sell, seats to fill, and interviews to give, but none of this comes without marketing and promoting your show. It’s important to…

  • 8 Top Tips for Bonding with a New Cast

    8 Top Tips for Bonding with a New Cast

    Industry advice for getting on with your fellow company members and creating lasting bonds Meeting new people in any context can be daunting. Unlike most professions, actors’ careers involve hundreds of first days at the proverbial office. Our job requires working closely – sometimes intimately – with colleagues we’ve only known for a few weeks. In…

  • Cost and Budgeting Tips for the Edinburgh Fringe

    Cost and Budgeting Tips for the Edinburgh Fringe

    Top tips for costing and budgeting for your show at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. How much does it cost to bring a show to the Edinburgh Fringe? It’s the hopefully not-a-million-dollar-question asked by every ambitious creative wishing to bring a show to the festival. Unfortunately, it’s also very much a ‘how-long-is-a-piece-of-string’ kind of question, and the answer…

  • How to Prepare for Auditions and Self-tapes

    How to Prepare for Auditions and Self-tapes

    Performers Bella Ramsey, Laura Donnelly, Rob Brydon, Toheeb Jimoh and Asim Chaudhry share their preparation tips for auditions. At this year’s CDG Awards, we caught up with some of the performers who guest-presented to ask them how they prepare for auditions and self-tapes. Here’s what they had to say: 1. Read the Scenes You’re Given Before…

  • Transitioning from Screen to Stage

    Transitioning from Screen to Stage

    Four tips to help serial screen performers who are treading the boards for the first time The institution of acting in this country starts out on the stage. In the theatre, at drama school, or in scene study classes, we learn to tread the boards, fill the space, and successfully transmit the story across to an audience,…

  • How to get Funding for Edinburgh Fringe

    How to get Funding for Edinburgh Fringe

    Top tips on how to raise funds to put on a show at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. It’s no secret that putting on a show at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe can be costly. Expenses you’ll need to plan for can include: Venue costs Registration fees Production costs Accommodation Travel Marketing, PR and press costs Living…

  • 25 Ways to Raise Your Spotlight Profile

    25 Ways to Raise Your Spotlight Profile

    Tips from Spotlight experts about how to make the most of your profile and your membership. Keep your profile professional… it is not a social media account. Updating Your Spotlight Profile 1. Keep your professional credits up to date and spelt correctly. Make sure to fill out every field possible as casting directors will often search by…

  • Creating Compelling Characters

    Creating Compelling Characters

    Actor and drama school teacher Des Fleming shares his advice and practical exercises to help you create compelling characters. Des Fleming hosted a brilliant workshop at our recent Open House event where he explained that bringing characters to life requires a process of exploration and investigation. Here, we summarise some of the valuable insights he…