Fantasia In Paradise
Our late-night after-show party for artists created by artists at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe 2023. Fantasia In Paradise is an evening championing female, trans and non-binary creatives at the fringe.
A cabaret followed by a networking dance party. Celebrating the intelligent, bold, sexy, camp and joyful talent from a variety of fringe artists followed by banging badass tunes provided by Edinburgh-based icon, Clean Diva DJ.
Date: Thursday 17th August 2023
Location: Paradise Palms, 41 Lothian St, Edinburgh, EH1 1HB
Order Of Events: Cabaret (11pm - 1am), DJs (1am - 3am)
CREATIVE TEAM
Creative Directors & Producers: PJ Cunningham & Danielle Carbon-Wilson
Executive Producers: Scarlett Spicer & Lucy Laverty
Artist Liaison: Millie Loveday-Inglis & Rosa Hallam Fryer
Stage Manager: Rosa Hallam Fryer
Event Photographer: Ned Blackburn
Cabaret Host: Eleanor Haigh (as Baby Fantasia) with support from Montana Rose Aguelo De Guero Barrera and Millie Loveday Inglis (as Bunny Woo & Bunny Boo)
SO LA STARS
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Performers
Fringe Show
A Bit Too Much Hair by Butch Mermaid Productions
Show Bio
A Bit Too Much Hair is gender euphoric musical chaos for thems, mens, femmes, and everyone in between! 'It’s a big, silly party where transness is centred and everyone is welcome' (Theatreview.org.nz) by artists from NZ and NYC! ‘It feels like hanging out with your friends at a house party. With a band. And rainbow glitter. Everyone’s wearing sequins. You’re inside but you can pretty much guarantee unicorns and bunnies are frolicking around in the garden.’ (Regional News).
Performers
Ania Upstill (they/them), Felix Crossley-Pritchard (he/him), Evan Michael Smith (he/she/they), William Duignan (he/him)
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Performer
Fringe Show
Almost Adult by Charlotte Anne-Tilley
Artist Bio
Charlotte Anne-Tilley (she/her) is an award-winning actor, writer and producer. She trained at LAMDA and, since then, has been creating tragicomic theatre that combines quick-witted comic characters with gripping drama. Charlotte’s work has been showcased at Gilded Balloon (Edinburgh Fringe), The Space Arts Centre, Etcetera Theatre, the Old Red Lion Theatre and the Bread and Roses Theatre. Charlotte has won the OffWestEnd’s OffComm Award, 4theatre’s Best Debut Performance, Everything Theatre’s Award for Ingenuity and was nominated for Voice Magazine’s Editors Choice Award.
Charlotte champions female and non-binary work across the performance industry and hosts the #FemiFringe Podcast.
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Performer
Fringe Show
Ma’s Monster by Charmaine Wombwell
Artist Bio
Scarlet Shambles (aka Charmaine Wombwell) theatre maker and musician whose work playfully stumbles the line between joy and heartache. After taking a break from cabaret due to motherhood, Charmaine is glad to be dipping her toes into the bittersweet waters of clown once more!
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Performer
Fringe Show
Unforgettable Girl by Elisabeth Gunawan
Artist Bio
Elisabeth Gunawan 吳金栵 is a Chinese-Indonesian artist who works in the mode of stories, poetry and performance. A critically-acclaimed and award-winning theatremaker and actor, her work explores the places we all go (but when we go, we go alone) and frequently returns to territories of exile, loneliness and Otherness. Her works have been described as visceral, irresistible, beautiful, disturbing and funny (although she has always wanted to be taken seriously). Gunawan is the founder of the artistic collective Saksi Bisou, a migrant-led company that seeks to express the often inexpressible psychological landscapes of exile and migration. With Saksi Bisou, she recently presented a new headphone piece Promised Land (Bloomsbury Festival 2022), and is currently developing a new piece Prayers for a Hungry Ghost as part of Barbican Center’s Open Lab Programme. She wrote and performed Unforgettable Girl, which will have its Edinburgh Fringe 2023 premiere at Pleasance as one of the winners of the Charlie Hartill Fund. The piece won the OFFFest award at VOILA! Festival, Best Performer in a Play in The Stage Debut Awards 2022 and is a finalist for the Les Enfants Terribles Award 2023.
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Cabaret Host
Performed by So La Flair Artist Resident Eleanor Haigh
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Performers
Fringe Show
52 Monologues for Young Transsexuals by Nothing More To Say Theatre
Artist Bio
Previously known as Nothing More To Say, piss/CARNATION are a two-woman devising duo, critically acclaimed for their 'audacious' and 'cocky' ★ ★ ★ ★ (Broadway World) performances. Their debut two-woman show 52 Monologues for Young Transsexuals is premiering at the Pleasance Courtyard on the 02-28th of August at 15:20-16:20pm. It is a verbatim show that gets sleepover-honest about bodies, sex, and love.
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Cabaret Host Assistants
Performed by So La Flair Artist Residents Montana Rose Aguelo De Guero Barrera & Millie Loveday Inglis
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Performer
Fringe Shows (Various)
Mitzi' Fitz’s Glitzy Bits, Alphabet Soup, Bro Code, Liquid Gold, Queer As Punk, Litter Tray, IT’S REIGNING MEN III
Artist Bio
Sir Cum Sized is the ultimate Jewish artiste. The world’s best klezmer musician, according to his mother. The man of your wildest dreams - if those dreams involve a clarinet worn in a harness like a strap-on.Sir Cum Sized uses drag, clowning and klezmer music to explore gender, stereotypes and antisemitism, and to celebrate the long, queer history of Yiddish Theatre.
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DJ
Artist Bio
clean diva (she/her) is no stranger to edinburgh's dance music scene, and returned to the fringe to tear up paradise palms with us at So La Flair! She facilitated flamboyant dance moves (and absolutely busted a few of her own) with a blend of disco, funk, and old school garage classics. It was spicy, it was queer, and of course, unmistakably diva.