Saturday 18th August: 11.30 – 1.00
In a world increasingly aware of the importance of sustainability, how can the arts best continue to be international? Do new technologies offer exciting ways of making the arts even more international? How can we both tour our work and be green? A panel discussion with David Grieg, internationally-performed playwright, Kate Ward, General Manager of the London International Festival of Theatre, and Ian Garrett, Director of the Centre for Sustainable Practice in the Arts.
ABOUT THE PANELISTS
David Greig
(From Wikipedia) is a Scottish playwright and theatre director. Greig was born in Edinburgh in 1969 and was brought up in Nigeria. He studied drama at Bristol University. He has been commissioned by the Royal Court Theatre, the Royal National Theatre and the Royal Shakespeare Company amongst others.
His first play was produced in Glasgow in 1992. His plays have been produced around the world. In 1990 he co-founded Suspect Culture Theatre Company with Graham Eatough and Nick Powell in Glasgow. His plays include Europe (1995), The Architect (1996, filmed in 2006 (see The Architect (film)), The Cosmonaut’s Last Message To The Woman He Once Loved In The Former Soviet Union (1999), and San Diego (2003).
Recent plays include Damascus (2007), The American Pilot (2005), Pyrenees (2005), San Diego (2003), Outlying Islands (2002), and Yellow Moon: The Ballad of Leila and Lee (2006). He has provided English-language versions of foreign plays, including Camus’s Caligula (2003), and Strindberg’s The Creditors (2008). His version of Euripides’s The Bacchae which opened the Edinburgh International   2007 starred Alan Cumming as the Greek god Dionysus with ten gospel singers as the Bacchae. The production subsequently transferred to the Lyric Hammersmith in September of that year. In 2010 his Dunsinane was premiered at the Hampstead Theatre by the Royal Shakespeare Company.
Kate Ward
Kate Ward joined the LIFT team in November 2009 as General Manager. She has worked in arts administration across a variety of organisations; music agency, Musician’s Incorporated; Pop Up Theatre; design and animation studio, Neutral; and Red Shift, and developed a love for international work whilst working as personal assistant to Graham Sheffield at the Barbican.
Ian Garrett
Ian Garrett is a producer, designer and administrator, dedicated to innovative arts infrastructure. He is co-founder and a director of the Center for Sustainable Practice in the Arts (CSPA), a leader in the conversation on sustainability development and the arts and Assistant Professor of Ecological Design for Performance at York University in Toronto. He is the producer for CalArts Festival Theater, having produced and designed over 20 shows at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe since 2008.
UPCOMING EVENTS
What’s the Big Idea? – an Open Forum
Wednesday 22nd August: 16.00 – 17.30
A chance for you to air your views on how the arts can engage with environmental issues. How can we make the arts greener? What role do the arts have to play in changing people’s behaviour? What radical ideas do you have for the arts? How can we make next year’s Fringe the greenest Fringe? With provocations from Erica Whyman, Artistic Director of Northern Stage, and Anthony Alderson, Director of the Pleasance Theatre Trust.
Reuse and Recycle Days
Monday 27th and Tuesday 28th August: 11.00 – 16.00
Unused flyers, unwanted props, usable furniture, gorgeous costumes, venue and set construction materials – we want them all! Every Fringe tonnes of waste go to the bin when it could be recycled or reused elsewhere. A combination recycling depot and free rummage sale: bring what you have, take what you want. Contact Harry.Giles@festivalsedinburgh.com for the full details of what we can accept and how; we will be able to take most materials, but not aerosols, paint, lino, or vinyl.