East Van to Edinburgh takes The Cultch's online shows to the world's largest Fringe fest
From The Boy in the Moon to The Darlings and 1 Hour Photo, local productions will find a huge new audience
The Boy in the Moon. Photo by Mark Halliday, Moonrider Productions
1 Hour Photo. Photo by Raymond Shum
SOME OF THE Cultch’s top shows from its past digital season are headed to Scotland and beyond.
Shows from the Neworld Theatre hit The Boy in the Moon to nonbinary drag innovators The Darlings will feature in East Van to Edinburgh—a new digital series curated with the UK’s Richard Jordan Productions and ZOO, which operates multiple Edinburgh Festival Fringe venues.
Shows will stream across the UK, Canada, and around the globe from August 8 to 28 as part of the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, one of the world’s largest arts festivals.
“I have been going to Edinburgh for the festivals every summer with the odd exception since 1997. It feels like my second home and I have an international festival community there. I was missing it so much and I was trying to figure out how to bring that Fringe vibe to our audiences and how to share the East Van Vibe with everyone else in the world because it is amazing!” Cultch executive director Heather Redfern tells Stir. “Both places have very big and special ‘feels’ about them.”
The productions will stream via ZOO TV, an online streaming service for theatre and dance that was launched when the Scottish capital’s famous Fringe, which normally stages upwards of 50,000 performances, was cancelled in August 2020 due to the pandemic.
Now this summer, East Van to Edinburgh will run as a special online offering on that same streaming service, running alongside this year’s Edinburgh Fringe.
Aside from The Darlings and The Boy in the Moon, the lineup includes the hit musical do you want what i have got? a craigslist cantata and Tetsuro Shigematsu’s 1 Hour Photo, all part of the East Side venue’s acclaimed first foray into the digital realm. They’ll join a filmed version of Inside/Out: A Prison Memoir, Patrick Keating’s real-life story, seen here during the 2018 PuSh International Performing Arts Festival.
“The shows in the platform really illuminate the East Van vibe, they capture a unique combination of daring, originality and quality, and they really sing in the digital space,” Redfern explains. “The most important thing at Edinburgh is to be authentic. The Edinburgh vibe is about finding gems, discovering the new and unexpected. Each of the shows in East Van to Edinburgh do that.”
Redfern says the cross-Atlantic project grew out of conversations she had with Jordan about the phenomenal digital shows they had made over the pandemic year and how she’d love the work to be showcased at an Edinburgh digital venue. Because he had worked with ZOO last year, Jordan helped bring the three companies together. “It has had to come together really quickly, which would not have been possible without the incredible abilities and dedication of the Cultch staff,” Redfern emphasized to Stir.
The series will bring an important new audience to local artists who have had no chances to tour during pandemic lockdown.
“I hope that each of the artists that have taken a chance on being a part of this platform get the international audience and attention they so richly deserve,” Redfern says. “I hope the Cultch becomes a go-to digital venue for people all over the world and that carries on in our seasons to come. And who knows, after this, maybe East Van won't be Vancouver's best kept secret!”
The streamed series also offers Vancouverites another chance to catch the shows if they missed them earlier in the year. You can book tickets via ZOO TV or visit thecultch.com for a full list of showtimes
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