Among the winding cobblestone streets of Edinburgh, below the jagged green cliffs of nearby mountains, a band of Upper School (US) students, costumed in old-fashioned dresses and suits, marched together, distributing flyers to promote their performances— and frightening everyone they met.
From July 30 to August 9, nine students traveled to Scotland to participate in the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, the world’s largest performing arts festival. US Theater Director Ross MacDonald, US Arts Department Head and Technical Director Adam Howarth, and former US Choreographer Amanda Lewis accompanied the students on the trip.
Founded in 1947, the Edinburgh Fringe Festival hosts 60,000 shows each year in more than 300 locations across the city. The school partnered with the American High School Theatre Festival organization to plan its housing, meals, and the cast’s performance schedule.
As a continuation of the school’s spring play, the cast performed “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” four times at the festival with an almost entirely new cast. Of the actors who traveled to Edinburgh, only two had participated in the spring play due to significant time and financial commitments, among other reasons. The new cast had to quickly adjust and decide how they wanted to portray their characters differently, creating a variation of the same script and roles from the spring play.
In preparation for the festival, the cast met in late May to read through the script and outline the actors’ summer work. The week prior to the festival, the cast came together for five six-hour rehearsals before heading to Scotland.
Presley Jacobson ’25, who played Mrs. Van Tassel and the violin in the music pit, noticed the cast’s tangible growth and increasing enthusiasm during rehearsals. “I’m most proud of how we because it brought the cast together increased our energy throughout by encapsulating elements of their our one week of rehearsals,” she said. “Because we had so little time, at the start, we were so focused on learning the blocking and lines that we weren’t as focused on bringing the play to life. By the end of the week, everyone really came into their characters, which made for four incredible shows.”
In Edinburgh, the cast spent their free time together, hiking up Arthur’s Seat, a nearby mountain, attending workshops with professional actors, learning traditional “Ceilidh” dancing, and strolling down the Royal Mile, the city’s most famous street, often stopping to watch street performers captivate audiences with unicycles and fire.
Mr. MacDonald, who directed and devised the play, worked with Mr. Howarth to choose “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” for the festival because it brought the cast together by encapsulating elements of their shared New England heritage.
“We needed to engage the audience and grab their attention with the play,” Mr. MacDonald said.
“The students we have come from different backgrounds, groups, and identities, but, at the end of the day, we’re all from New England. So, how could we take a new spin on a classic piece of New England?” The atmosphere of the festival encouraged performances that evoked various emotions, Mr. MacDonald added.
“Edinburgh is a unique city, rich in history and culture, providing the perfect setting for a beautiful, inclusive, and diverse month-long festival with people from all around the world coming to make art, make people laugh, make people cry for the right reasons, make people think, and engage people. That’s a wonderful thing.”
Miley Chen ’25, who played the narrator, White Lady, appreciated the opportunity to share the play with a new audience in Edinburgh.
“We were told that we did a really good job,” she said. “Coming from an audience of strangers, their reaction hits differently. You’re like ‘Wow, I impressed that person, and they’re going to go home thinking of our play.’ It’s part of why I like theater so much: It has the ability to affect people’s lives.”
Additionally, the festival introduced Miley to a global community of thespians. “It was exciting to be in a place where everyone had a common interest,” she said.
“Theater and art bring a lot of joy into people’s lives. The Fringe Festival is a festival of joy. Even though there was war and scary things in our world, everyone was there to have a good time, and it was palpable: you could feel it in the air.”
While in Edinburgh, Salar Sekhavat ’26, who played Mr. Van Tassel, viewed a school from China perform the play “12 Angry Men” in Mandarin with subtitles. The play demonstrated the ability of theater to unite global audiences, he said.
“The actors were living in that moment and in their characters so much that it completely transcended the language barrier. I could have never read the book before and not had the subtitles, and I still could have understood precisely what they meant in every scene.”
Mr. Howarth, who designed the production’s scenery, props, and lighting, said he enjoyed watching the cast share their love of theater with audiences. He appreciated the opportunity to learn from the festival’s other attendees, he said. “The highlight of the festival for me was the ability to share ourpassionforwhatwedowith others,” he said.
“Our group made friends with other schools who were also performing here, attending shows together and sharing ideas. We had the ability to step out of our understanding of what art is at our school into a larger world and hopefully will bring some of what has influenced us home to broaden our program and school culture.”
