WASHINGTON, August 19 – Beginning August 22, 22 American arts presenters and producers will experience the best of contemporary UK drama as they take part in the fifth biennial Edinburgh Showcase during this year’s Edinburgh Fringe and International festivals.

Designed to give the next generation of US arts leaders the opportunity to develop their careers by gaining insight into the UK performing arts market, the trip is funded by the British Council USA, the UK’s international organization for educational and cultural relations, and UK Trade & Investment.  

The showcase results from a unique collaboration between the British Council and the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, and provides a successful platform for performing artists and companies to find new audiences all over the world.  The US delegation, the largest of any country, will join hundreds of other leading international theatre promoters and producers from more than 50 countries.

The 2005 Edinburgh Showcase includes 29 productions selected from a range of the UK’s most promising established and emerging UK theatre companies, and features a range of artists exploring contemporary issues and working across the disciplines of live art and mixed-media, new writing, and physical and visual theatre.

Performances selected for the 2005 Edinburgh Showcase include:

• Apples & Snakes / Lemn Sissay: Something Dark
• Curious: On the Scent
• Dreamthinkspeak: Don’t Look Back
• Grid Iron: The Devil’s Larder
• Kazuko Hohki: Evidence for the Existence of Borrowers
• Hush Productions / Richard Jordan: A Mobile Thriller/Broken Road
• Matilda Leyser: Lifeline
• Lifeblood Theatre Company: The Lifeblood
• Ursula Martinez Productions: OAP
• Mark Murphy Productions: The Night Shift
• News from Nowhere / Tim Crouch: an oak tree
• Nofit State Circus: ImMortal 2
• Normal Productions: Living Pretty
• Paines Plough & Mark Ravenhill: Product
• Paines Plough & The Bush Theatre: After the End
• Peepoiykus: All In The Timing
• Peter Reder: Guided Tour
• Sound & Fury in collaboration with Shunt Artists: Ether Frolics
• Stan’s Cafe: Of All The People In All The World
• Station House Opera: Roadmetal Sweetbread
• Told by an Idiot: I’m A Fool To Want You
• Traverse Theatre Company: East Coast Chicken Supper
• Traverse Theatre Company: The Found Man
• Tron Theatre Company / Drum Theatre: Wonderful World of Dissocia
• Tron Theatre Company / Paines Plough: Pyrenees
• Vanishing Point: Lost Ones
• Volcano Theatre Company: Hitting Funny
• Walk the Plank & Mark Murphy: S.W.A.L.K… Sealed With A Loving Kiss

More than 60 percent of British Council drama projects that took place globally over the last two years resulted from the 2003 Edinburgh Showcase.  Past US engagements resulting from Edinburgh Showcase visits include experimental live art duo Lone Twin, Unlimited Theatre, moti roti’s alladeen, Theatre Babel, Tim Crouch’s My Arm, Filter’s Faster, Forced Entertainment, the Bush Theater’s Howie the Rookie and many more.  For more information on this years’ artists and their works, visit http://www.britishcouncil.org/arts-drama-edinburgh.htm.

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ABOUT THE BRITISH COUNCIL USA: An arm of the United Kingdom's international organization for educational and cultural relations, the British Council USA increases recognition of the wide array of learning opportunities available in the UK and facilitates educational cooperation between the US and UK.  The organization also showcases British creativity by introducing the American public to high-quality, groundbreaking artistic achievement, and highlights the UK's scientific innovation in disciplines ranging from biotechnology to planetary science.  Through its work, the British Council USA endeavors to promote an image of the UK that is up-to-date, vibrant, in the vanguard of new thinking and fully representative of the country’s geographic and cultural diversity.

CONTACT:    Stacy Hope
                   (202) 588-7849