The Edinburgh Fringe Theatre Festival

Program dates: August 9-22

(One week option also available)

Register now for this unique opportunity!


  • Experience the largest and oldest international arts festival in the world.
  • See new, cutting edge, international work by contemporary artists and playwrights.
  • Choose from over 2,000 shows daily, in over 250 venues across the city.
  • Enjoy upscale accommodations in the heart of the city–walk everywhere!
  • Explore the City of Edinburgh, and tour the Scottish Highlands for a day.
  • Visit the concurrently running International Festival, Book Festival, and Art Festival.
  • Earn graduate course credit with the University English Department, or participate for no credit
  • Support scholarships for undergraduate students eager to study abroad.  (Your deposit is tax-deductible).

A NOTE FROM THE PROGRAM DIRECTOR

My first experience of the Edinburgh Fringe Theatre Festival was in the late 1980s.  It wasn’t really “planned”—I happened to be in Edinburgh in August and, as a student of drama, could not believe my luck.  While the rest of my family visited the sites, I managed to see 5 different plays in a day, all interesting, and together less than the cost of a single Broadway musical ticket.  The next day, I saw five more.  Imagine, I thought, what I might see in a week!  In the US, I was lucky to see this many good plays in a year!

Since its inception in the late 1950s, the Fringe Theatre festival has grown larger and more influential than the upscale International Arts Festival on whose “fringes” new groups first provided their cheaper (but no less talented and inspired) productions.  The Fringe has hosted many kinds of alternative theatre over the years, and its vitality has kept alive the mainstream festival tradition on which Scotland’s post-war economy was built. As independent and alternative theatre continues to move center stage, the fringes of the fringe festival still percolate with new talent and ever cheaper “alternatives.”

Over the course of my career as an English and drama professor, my visits to the Edinburgh theatre festival have never failed to challenge, entertain, dazzle, and inspire.  But most importantly, each year it re-kindles my belief in the power of theatre to uniquely address the most pressing ethical and political issues of our day.

When it comes to the theatre, seeing is believing.  However enthusiastic I may be about my own experience of the festival, nothing I say or write could ever replace an experience of the (always unrepeatable) real thing.  Whether with students or friends, post-show festival conversations offer the kind of rich, challenging, and surprising insights that can only be had in discussions with fellow audience members.

Please consider joining us this year and discovering the excitement for yourself.

Despite the low cost of the program, your participation helps fund scholarships for  qualified students who could not otherwise afford this high-season study abroad experience in Scotland.  Your program deposit is fully tax-deductible, and your support is greatly appreciated.

Jenny Spencer, Professor
English Department
University of Massachusetts, Amherst