Scottish Excursion
SLIPPERY ROCK — Taking part with thousands of other performers in this year’s Edinburgh Festival Fringe will be Slippery Rock University students who will stage “Dark North” and “Hungry Jane” written by David Skeele, SRU theater professor.
Touted as the largest arts festival in the world, the event runs from Aug. 2 to 29 in Scotland’s capital and features theater, comedy, dance, circus, cabaret, children’s shows, musicals, opera and exhibitions.
Students will perform two preview shows Aug. 5 and 6, with six regular performances Aug. 8 to 13.
“Dark North” is a 55-minute, eerie adventure tied to the exploits of Daniel Dark North, a television psychic who has made a career out of communing with the dead.
“Hungry Jane” is a one-act, psycho-torture tale that focuses on a woman who enlists the help of her ghost-hunting former lover to end her problems with the ghost of a young girl who bothers her.
This year marks the sixth time in the past 10 years SRU has participated in the festival.
The festival dates to 1947, when eight theater groups turned up uninvited to perform at the then newly formed Edinburgh International Festival, an initiative created to celebrate and enrich European cultural life in the wake of the Second World War.
Not being part of the official program, the actors staged their shows on the “fringe” of the festival.
More performers followed the example and in 1958 the Festival Fringe Society was created.
In 2015 there were 50,459 performances of 3,314 shows in 313 venues.
