The Edinburgh Festival Fringe is the biggest arts festival in the world, with nearly 3,500 shows. This year, Playbill is in Edinburgh for the entire month in August for the festival and we’re taking you with us. Follow along as we cover every single aspect of the Fringe, aka our real-life Brigadoon!
The Edinburgh Festival Fringe official program can be an overwhelming thing to sift through. Looking at a listing of nearly 3,500 shows tend to make one's eyes glaze over. The official Fringe website allows users to filter the category of shows they are looking for, such as musical, comedy, interactive, shows from LGTQIA+ creators, shows from disabled creators. But there is no subdivision for shows by women. Enter the FemiFringe Guide.
The FemiFringe Guide lists the shows at the Fringe that are created by women, trans, or non-binary people. It was started by the founders of F-Bomb Theatre, a Scottish company focused on feminist works. Their show last year, The Beatles Were a Boyband, won a coveted Fringe First Award from the Scotsman. They're bringing that show back this year.
The FemiFringe Guide was started last year, says theatre co-founded Rachel O'Regan, in response to complaints online that the Fringe was getting too feminist. "We got the idea from a Twitter troll who kept complaining that the Fringe was turning into the #FemiFringe due to the apparently overwhelming number of feminist shows," she tells Playbill. "We decided that a #FemiFringe was something to celebrate and reclaimed his hashtag to bring together the community. After all, EdFringe is the only time of year in our city that you can see a new show led by women, non-binary, and trans artists every day—it's not like we're getting tons of opportunities elsewhere!"
The program launched in 2022 as a digital booklet. It had such a positive reception that this year, F-Bomb has turned the FemiFringe Guide into a free printed program, containing not just listings but also articles highlighting individual shows. "Our experience as a company has shown that people want to find work that speaks to their own experiences. With women making up nearly two-thirds of theatre audiences, it only made sense to create this resource and help everyone discover work they want to support among the deluge of Fringe shows," says O'Regan.
The 2023 FemiFringe Guide contains over 130 shows by women, trans, and non-binary artists. O'Regan admits that's far lower than what the actual number is at the festival. But because the team did not want to assume the gender of artists, to fill the booklet, F-Bomb put out a call on social media for artists who wanted to be listed. They even sell ads in the program, which helps fund the printing.
O'Regan says that F-Bomb plans to make the FemiFringe a regular occurrence at Fringe. And so far, the theatre community is supportive, with this year's FemiFringe launch party at the Gilded Balloon Patter Hoose completely sold out. O'Regan says artists are appreciative of the additional spotlighting of their shows, something rare when you're part of a festival that contains close to 3,500 works.
"The Fringe has been running for 76 years and this is the first time that a booklet of shows featuring people of marginalised genders has been published," notes O'Regan. "I think that artists appreciate it all the more because of the barriers we face year-round. Recent research found a 37 percent gender pay gap for theatre freelancers [in the U.K.], for example. While we don't have the power to change the entire industry, we can do our bit to celebrate, support and unite our community—and I think the fact it's at a grassroots level makes it all the more appreciated.
