It’s December 2025, and I’m sitting in the corner of the rehearsal room of my very first theatre production. Absently listening to discussions of line changes and blocking, I’m pulled back to reality by the unimaginable: “Catalina, do you want to come with Luscinia to Scotland?”
When I first started university, I knew I wanted to study abroad. I didn’t know where or when, but the specifics didn’t matter as long as I got the opportunity to travel while in school and see a world larger than my own. With no plan, it felt like a distant dream. And then that dream, now materialized as the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, fell into my lap as I sat in CFT Studio A.
Did I want to go to Scotland? Of course, it’s no question. Did I have any idea how life-changing this experience would be once I said yes? Absolutely not.
The Edinburgh Fringe Festival is the largest performing arts festival in the world, providing artists with a platform to stage their work at an international level. Spanning three weeks each August, EdFringe 2026 hosted a record 4,465 shows, seven of which came from our very own university.
With a total of 35 students, York’s faculty-led Scotland Abroad program took five undergrad shows: Define Queerness, Luscinia, Otuz Bir, The Gas Station At The Edge Of The Universe, and Wiener Beacon, along with two graduate student productions: Sister Sophia Kicks The Habit and She/They to the Edinburgh Fringe. The trip lasted from August 1 to 30, with performances running the entirety of the festival.
Theatre professor Ian Garrett co-owns Venue 13 in Edinburgh and has been leading the EdFringe program for York since 2014. Garrett was later joined by Gavin McDonald, a fellow theatre professor, and the two have acted as co-course directors from 2023 onwards. The goal of the trip is to give students experience in creating, producing, and performing a show from start to finish outside of a university setting. While many students have taken shows to local fringe festivals in Canada, “Edinburgh is a different opportunity at such a different scale,” says McDonald. “It gives [students] an international touring experience that adds extra layers of complexity and adventure.”
The attendance this year nearly tripled compared to 2025, stunning both students and faculty alike. McDonald speculates that interest was higher due to a variety of factors, including social media promotions, word of mouth, and particularly motivated students. The structure of the trip needed to accommodate this explosion in students, which led to a series of unique changes from previous years.
A higher student count required a lot more interpersonal regulation, or in other words, playing nice. According to fourth-year theatre student AJ White, who was the only student participating in the trip for his second time, the key concept was “learning how to coexist and navigate yourself within the group.” As someone who had never shared four walls with someone before this trip, I can confirm that learning coexistence was crucial to our collective success. The more people you have living together in cramped quarters dealing with the pressure of staging a show, the more trust needs to be given and upheld. “The biggest challenge is keeping up and delivering on your responsibilities to the team,” says McDonald, “Because theatre is a team sport. Everyone has to do their part to be successful.” Be it the kitchen or the tech booth, you need to have faith in your peers everywhere.
With the increased number of shows brought to EdFringe, the performance schedule was also adjusted. White’s first stint abroad was in 2024, with a production called The Evolutionary and Inescapable Rotting of Girlhood. White recalls Girlhood “literally going every single day,” whereas this year, each production performed three times a week. “The daily performance schedule is a massive learning experience,” he says. “It was learning how to maintain yourself in the long run of a show. That part I sort of missed.” Despite our shows being spaced further apart, I still think we kept ourselves quite busy all month long.
This year, Venue 13 hosted all seven of York’s shows and decided to hire students as crew. Some of my peers worked as venue crew in addition to their show, meaning their schedules were a bit more demanding than others. On the days Luscinia was showing, White ended work around 5:45 p.m. and needed to “rush back to the accommodations, get into hair and makeup, and then rush back to the venue and be ready to be on stage by 7:45 p.m.” As a theatre student who primarily works as an actor, the venue crew experience required White to “reorientate” himself and “navigate the different stresses that come up, like changeovers.”
While in the same realm, being on stage and backstage are two entirely different games. For students who have spent most of their time in university playing for only one team, the Edinburgh trip works to push them past their comfort zones and face theatre holistically rather than as isolated groups. Those moments where you had no idea what you were doing and needed to learn on the spot were some of the most educational parts of the trip, both terrifying and exciting.
Thankfully, we were all given Mondays off as a rest period or, occasionally, a class trip. Whether it was Edinburgh city tours, Stirling Castle, or the National Museum of Scotland, our professors ensured we spent some quality time together. Many students also took these days to do some of their own travelling. It was common to hear that someone had gone to Glasgow to see the Highland cows, and some students even took a day trip to Paris, though not unscathed. Flying to and from France in one day doesn’t exactly translate to well-rested.
Additionally, though EdFringe is the region’s largest festival in August, it isn’t the only one. The month also includes the Edinburgh Art Festival, Film Festival, International Festival, International Book Festival, and the Royal Edinburgh Military Tattoo. This contributes to the massive population growth for the month, meaning you meet travellers from every continent. There’s electricity in the air and buzzing in the streets, only some of which is from the occasional bagpipe.
That was my personal favourite part of the experience. I met people every day and night, and it was so insightful to hear about their daily lives and how they compare and contrast to my own. Now I have friends from all over the globe, and I consider myself extraordinarily lucky to have met them.
According to Garrett, Scotland Abroad was a glowing success for York as well. This year’s group pulled in two of the top five shows by average audience, including the best average audience to date. We also boast four of the top five shows by revenue, and audiences for York shows were up 14 per cent without counting complimentary tickets provided through door codes and flyers.
Beyond the numbers, the trip was highly successful in teaching students how to make their productions a reality without close supervision. Everyone ended up helping out in ways they didn’t expect. I went into the trip thinking I would only be applying fake blood onto actors backstage, until I ended up filling the roles of Assistant Stage Manager, Assistant Lighting Designer, and Show Hand. In addition to Luscinia, I also worked on The Gas Station At The Edge Of The Universe and went flyering every single day.
And I’ve yet to mention the amount of prep work that went into making the show run, which spanned buying costume and makeup supplies, sourcing and building props, and networking with other shows, to name a few. While my days felt packed to the brim, I was one of the least busy people there. Some had to act every night, work social media, take charge of technical elements during shows, and coordinate with reviewers.
The trip was a whirlwind, but that overwhelming experience is “kind of the point,” says White, “especially if you want to work as an actor. You have to be prepared to balance a million things at once.” So how do you not get swept away? “It’s an amazing once-in-a-lifetime experience, but you are going there to work,” reminds White. “It’s important to never lose sight of the fact that you are going there to work on a show and to support a show.” Your show is your rock. Ground yourself in it, or you’re likely to lose your footing.
“It’s a month of go, go, go, and after you get back you’re like, woah. Then you realize how tired you are,” White reflects. McDonald describes it as “a marathon and a sprint at the same time,” with the caveat that “you just don’t stop sprinting.” When you cross that finish line, you can say with pride that your own work was on stage at Edinburgh Fringe, which is beyond exciting.
This trip was an amazing opportunity for me, and I am so grateful to have been given the chance to participate. Contrary to popular belief, this trip isn’t restricted to theatre or even AMPD majors. Any York student can attend as long as they go through the application process and are prepared to take on the marathon that is the Edinburgh Fringe.
Prior to August, I had never been in a tech booth, programmed stage lights, or even been on stage during a theatre performance. I’m an English and Professional Writing major who came with so little theatre experience that it was laughable, and now I can confidently say that I’ve done it. I’ve helped develop and run a show, not just at school, but at an international level.
If the past thousand words didn’t convince you, let me say it as clearly as possible: I cannot recommend this Study Abroad program enough. There’s no Fringe like EdFringe, so if you have the drive and the opportunity, you better take it. When you’re ready to face the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, you can find more information on requirements and the application process here.
