The Edinburgh Fringe Festival started in 1947. It was a very punk rock beginning. Several companies, having not being invited to the International Festival, came anyways and performed at any venue they could find. Flash forward to present day and up to 60,000 shows span over 4 weeks and perform at various venues around town. The venues are non-adjudicated spaces – if you want to perform you can find a home. Most notably, I once saw a performance of Romeo & Juliet in an alley performed in Ethiopian with the balcony scene performed on a fire escape and a show about a couple trapped in a shark cage performed in an elevator. Japanese dancer Shakti, my favorite Fringe performer,  has performed over the years in an auto garage, a circus tent and the basement of a community center. Tap Dogs, Dennis Leary, Stomp, and Puppetry of the Penis all got their start at the Fringe.

Festivals hold a special place in the hearts of several New Prospect Theatre’s team members. In fact, the founders of New Prospect Theatre (Suzanne Mackay and Keefe Healy) met, fell in love and proposed at the Fringe.

Suzanne and Keefe met at the Wee Red Bar when Keefe was working for Vermont’s Green Candle Theatre and Suzanne was directing First Myth – produced by Patrick and Amanda Timmins (NPT’s Film, Fine Arts and Lectures directors). In fact, Suzanne and Keefe’s first conversation was “can you do the lights for my show?” / “sure if you explain to me how much this is” (holding out a handful of Scottish pounds).

They returned in 1995 with an original production written by Keefe Healy, directed by Suzanne Mackay and produced by Suzanne Mackay and Vermont’s the Green Candle Theatre Company. The following year 1996, they would make another Fringe appearance as a writing directing team, but this time with their own company, Firefly Productions. For this show they brought with them Margaret Mackay (NPT’s Empress of Paperwork) as their tour manager – who’s highlight of that production was hunting down a stray actor in a Mambo club at 4am and getting her home in time to rest a little before the 10am show.

Firefly Productions would return eleven more years for a total of twelve Edinburgh appearances. In the years that followed, the team was introduced to John Kingsford-Smith (NPT’s occupational safety consultant and Margaret’s partner) who they greatly approved of due to the fact that fresh off a 10 hour flight and despite not yet seeing the show, he busked like a champ at Fringe Sunday for their show “Dogs of War”.

 It was during their production of “Charlie Caplin is Wearing My Pants” that the cast and crew hiked up to Arthur’s Seat where Keefe proposed to Suzanne. Legend has it that the first word she said to him in two days (because he had said unkind things about her set) was Yes.

They expanded their Fringe prowess by adding the Brighton Fringe Festival in 2005, Budapest in 2011 in collaboration with the Scallabouche Theatre Company, and the Prague Fringe Festival in 2014.