Fringe in a Fortnight – artist callout

15 January 2024

We are looking for three Scotland-based artists to work on Fringe in a Fortnight, a paid opportunity with Edinburgh primary schools taking place over two weeks in March 2024.  

This is a paid creative opportunity for Fringe artists to work with primary school children over the course of an intensive fortnight, creating a piece of work to perform to an audience of children, parents, carers and teachers.  

Project brief 


 


 

Fringe in a Fortnight is a new project designed to give primary school children the opportunity to create a piece of Fringe theatre. Artists will start with a blank slate – anything is possible!  

We’d like you to work with the class to create any piece of performance you like. The performance should be based on the young people’s ideas and the process should be a co-creative one, allowing the young people’s voices, ideas, opinions and interests to be at the heart of it. If your application is successful, you’re invited to structure the two weeks however works best for you and the school, as long as a final performance is produced at the end. 

You will have support from schoolteachers and staff in each session.

Performance 

Your performance should be no longer than 30 minutes, and it can include all of the children in the group or only some of them, depending on their interests. Some children may prefer to work on other aspects of the production, such as marketing the show, sourcing or making costumes and props, production design or helping to produce and direct.  

On performance day, each school group will travel to each of the other schools (exact schedule TBC) to watch each other’s performances and create a ‘mini-Fringe’. Audiences, decided by the school, will be made up of other school years, parents, carers and teachers. Where needed, transport for all groups will be covered by the Fringe Society.  

Dates and times 

  • 11–15 March 2024
  • 18–21 March 2024 
  • 21 March will be the performance day. 

Each daily session will be three hours long (exact timings TBC with school). 

Schools 

  • St Cuthbert’s Primary 
  • Craiglockhart Primary 
  • Frogston Primary 

Age groups 

  • P5 and P6 

Person specification 

Successful applicants will: 

  • have a basic level of experience working in school settings or working with children and young people 
  • live within travelling distance to Edinburgh (we can cover travel expenses from outside Edinburgh, to be agreed in advance with the Fringe Society) 
  • have experience / interest in performing arts for young audiences and working with children as artist-collaborators 
  • be willing and able to work with the scheduling and needs of the school, teachers and support staff 
  • be willing and able to strike a balance between flexibility in co-creative work with young people and a structured approach to delivery 
  • possess an up-to-date PVG background check or be willing to apply for one (the Fringe Society can cover the cost of this) 
  • have previously been an artist or participant of a Fringe show in some capacity. 

Fee 

Total fee of £2,500 (inclusive of all delivery, planning and expenses). 

Additional support is available for access requirements. 

You will be provided with a separate budget for production costs for the final performance (exact amount TBC). 

Key info

We are looking for three artists – one per school. The total fee of £2,500 is per artist. 

Each school will have a class group of 20-30 children, apart from Craiglockhart which has a slightly larger class of 39 children. The artist in this school will have extra support from teaching staff during sessions.  

Application process and key dates 

Application deadline: Monday 19 February 2024 at 09:00 GMT. 

We will let all applicants know the outcome by Monday 26 February 2024. All applicants will be asked if they would like written feedback. 

Additional budget is available if you have any access requirements for the application process, meetings and / or for the project itself, including providing BSL translators. Please contact us at [email protected] if you would like to set that up. 

If you would like to apply in writing, please send us a covering letter (one or two pages of A4). 

If you would like to apply by film or voice recording, send us a link to your recording via email (no more than three minutes). If you use BSL, you can record your film in BSL. 

All applications 

Please include the following information in all applications: 

  • Artist name. 
  • A bit about yourself. 
  • Why you are interested in the opportunity. 
  • Total number of Fringes in which you have creatively participated. 
  • Name and year of your most recent Fringe show. 
  • Your relevant experience and / or your artistic practice. 
  • Main contact name. 
  • Main contact phone number. 
  • Main contact email address. 
  • Where you are based in Scotland. 

Please email your application to [email protected] with 'Fringe in a Fortnight artist application' as the subject line. 

Please do not send us any CVs or other additional documents. 

We are particularly interested in hearing from artists who identify as under-represented in the arts, or are neurodivergent, D/deaf or disabled. 

We are open to having conversations with the selected artists about their access requirements to participate in all aspects of the project. 

You can contact the team on [email protected] or 0131 226 0033 with any questions about this opportunity or to talk through any access requirements. 

Thumbnail photographer credit: Lesley Martin.