🪩 Edinburgh Culture Minute: 25 Sept - 1 Oct 2024
Sneaky Pete's & The Pitt team up for a new festival this weekend, new Boro gallery opens, theatre careers workshop, Women's Fiction Festival + Doors Open Days
Welcome to the 60th edition of the Culture Minute, a weekly round-up of Edinburgh’s local creative news, events, jobs, funding and opportunities. The Culture Minute exists thanks to paying subscribers.
🚪 Lots of new locations are opening up for this year’s Doors Open Days weekend, including Advocates Library, the Anatomical Museum and Barnton Bunker. - The full listings are here and a map of all participating venues is here.
📚 The Edinburgh Women's Fiction Festival is on at Holy Corner this weekend. Panels include the Women's Prize Discoveries, indie publishing, regency romance, Scottish witch trials, modern families, happily-ever-afters, cosy fantasy, and bringing women to the centre of historical fiction. For writers, workshops include hooks, lines, & pitches, writing with folklore & fairy tales, and writing commercial fiction. - More details on their website.
⮑ Authors appearing include: Maggie O’Farrell with Jenny Brown OBE, Kim Sherwood with Sara Sheridan and Lesley McDowell; and Sara-Jade Virtue will chair a triple-author Simon & Schuster panel of Sharon Gosling, Rebecca Ryan and Heidi Swain. - Tickets for all the events are here.
🎵 There’s a new festival in town this weekend. Days Festival is for fans of house and UK garage, or those looking to discover some new music. Established acts on the line up include HAAi, Dan Shake, Emerald and Julio Bashmore. It’s at The Pitt in Granton, with three stages across the whole of Saturday afternoon and evening. The event is a collaboration between The Pitt, Rare Club and Sneaky Pete’s. - Tickets are close to selling out.
🖼️ A new gallery and arts space has opened on West Register Street. Boro is curated by designer and creative director Rob Swain, whose background includes curation for the Gamma Proforma record label. - Find out what’s on at Boro on Instagram.
🪩 Supper Club returns to the Safari Lounge on Saturday night, with special guest Fourth Daughter performing before the usual vinyl DJs’ fun. - Tickets are here.
🎭 A new series of events for young people interested in working in theatre starts this weekend. The Festival Theatre hosts Find Your Light day on 28 September with a day of creative activities inspired by A Chorus Line. The day starts with Coffee With The Creatives networking morning, designed to shine a light on careers involved in bringing a production to life. This is followed by an afternoon of creative workshops, inspired by the themes and art forms explored in the show – each led by artists and giving you the opportunity to tell your story, your way. The workshops will focus on Performance Poetry (with Katie Ailes & Kevin McLean of I Am Loud, Photography (with Anneleen Lindsay) and Dance (with Chris Stuart Wilson of Dance Base). Find out more about taking part here.
📆 The Edinburgh Futures Institute has announced the Future of Education will be the theme of the sixth Edinburgh Futures Conversations Series. Held over three sessions in October and November, the free events will focus on the themes of crisis, utopia, and AI. - Register on Eventbrite.
🎪 What do Edinburgh’s Festivals do to be socially engaged and how can the local creative community work with them? That’s the question posed by the next Creative Edinburgh and Festivals Edinburgh Making Festivals Happen event on Wednesday 8 October. Local freelance practitioners are encouraged to attend. - Reserve your spot for free here.
🎬 Sett Studios on Leith Walk hosts a market and film screening on Sunday, raising funds for families in Gaza. - Tickets for the screening of the documentary ‘Foragers’ are available here?.
📆 There are loads more creative events on this week - more than I can squeeze into this email. Luckily many of them are previewed in Naomi Head’s latest edition of The Good Egg Project Newsletter.
🥁 Celebrating the 20th anniversary of their debut album 'Thunder, Lightning, Strike' The Go! Team will perform the album in full at The Queen’s Hall on Thursday 26 September.
🔊 EPiKA femme collective has a DJ workshop at The Mash House next week.
🎭 What’s on Edinburgh’s stages this week?
Here’s Thom Dibdin of All Edinburgh Theatre:
Edinburgh's got right back into the swing of things after the post-EdFringe hiatus.
The big local opener is Something About This Night, Showcase Edinburgh's annual portmanteau production at the Church Hill Theatre (Ends Sat: tickets) in aid of MacMillan Cancer Support. It's a worthy charity and always a great night out.
Last chance tonight to catch local lads We Are Brothers with A Dame of Two Halves (Wed: tickets) at the Studio; and Grid Iron's Ben Harrison & David Paul Jones with their Eighties memories show at Summerhall Last Night I Dreamt That Somebody Loved Me (Wed: tickets).
On the big stages, Scottish actor Vivienne Carlyle stars in the key role of Mrs. Johnstone in the umpteenth return of Willy Russell's Blood Brothers to the Playhouse (ends Sat: tickets).
While the Festival Theatre has the Leicester Curve's acclaimed touring revival of A Chorus Line (ends Sat: tickets) in all its grit and glitzy pomp.
Elsewhere, writer and director Fraser Scott has Common Tongue a "play aboot imperfect Scots" at the Storytelling Centre (Sat: tickets). And there is good availability for this week's A Play, A Pie and A Pint as The Wolves at the Door (ends Sat: tickets) is in Traverse 1.
For shows coming up, check: On Stage Next Week; and for more details of this weeks' shows go to Æ's Preview and listings: Mon 23 – Sun 29 Sept 2024.
📌 Edinburgh Culture Minute Community Noticeboard
📌 “Scotland's National Book Awards announced its longlist on 19/09/2024. Michael Pederson, Edinburgh Makar, has been longlisted for The Cat Prince & Other Poems under the poetry category. Other notable writers include: Jackie Kay, Andrew Crumey, Andrew O'Hagan, Janette Ayachi and the late John Burnside.” - Thanks to Rebeca Bird-Lima, Project & Communications Officer, for sharing this.
📌 “Please join us at Golden Hare Books on Thursday 26th September to hear Glen Cousquer discuss his brilliant new book, Wild Places, Wild Encounters, about Edinburgh's wealth of natural beauty and where to see it. Book your spot at goldenharebooks.com, or come and speak to us in the bookshop on St Stephen Street.” - Thanks to the Golden Hare Books team for this.
📌 “This autumn, Scottish Opera presents a revival of the much-loved 2014 production of Donizetti’s Don Pasquale, which comes to Festival Theatre Edinburgh on 8,10 and 16 November. It is performed alongside the Company’s specially created staging of Britten’s Albert Herring on 13 November, bringing even more opera to Scottish audiences. Don Pasquale is conducted by Scottish Opera Music Director Stuart Stratford, and Director-Designer duo Renaud Doucet and André Barbe and Lighting Designer Guy Simard bring this quick-witted comedy to life with typically colourful and quirky style.” - Thanks to Scottish Opera for sharing this.
📌 “Scottish Youth Film Festival is back for it's 10th year at Armadale Academy on the 4th and 5th of October. This free event is hosted by the Scottish Youth Film Foundation and brings together young filmmakers from across Scotland for a chance to network, learn and celebrate film in Scotland. The event is open to the ages of 12 to 26 and includes various workshops from industry professionals such as Douglas Mackinnon and ILM, film screenings and an awards ceremony, tickets for the event should be booked in advance.” - Thanks to the SYFF team for this.
📌 “Join us on Tuesday 1 October from 7.15-9pm at Embassy Gallery, EH1, for LISTENING PARTY, a free monthly meetup for people who make things. This month we're doing a body doubling session - bring along something you’re working on or have been putting off; we will spend a power hour coworking on our individual projects, then we will celebrate our efforts with a drink and a chat at the pub! More info at @listeningpartyclub on Instagram.” - Thanks to Rachel Stanley, Host, LISTENING PARTY, for sharing this.
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