A Theatre Program with a Passport
This summer, 14 students from Oxford High School in Mississippi are traveling to Edinburgh, Scotland, to perform Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. They will participate in the American High School Theatre Festival, a curated subset of the Fringe showcasing top U.S. high school programs.
“This will be the seventh group of students I’ve taken since 2007,” said director John Davenport. Oxford’s first Fringe experience began when the Mississippi Theatre Association nominated them in 2006. “You had to be nominated to apply, and then you had to be selected,” he recalls. “The past two times we’ve been invited have come from HSTF because we’re alumni.”
The Edinburgh Fringe: A Global Village of Creativity
The Edinburgh Festival Fringe is the largest performing arts festival globally. It began in 1947 when eight theatre groups performed spontaneously on the fringes of the Edinburgh International Festival. In 2024, it featured more than 51,446 scheduled performances of 3,746 different shows across 262 venues from 60 different countries. The Fringe is entirely open-access: anyone with a show and a venue can participate. Each August, Edinburgh doubles in population, swept up in a whirlwind of theatre, comedy, dance, cabaret, circus, and musical performances.
Fringe programs range from polished commissions to experimental art installed in unconventional locations: bathrooms, forests, even cruise ships. It has launched careers of artists such as Phoebe Waller-Bridge, Rowan Atkinson, and Eddie Izzard.
This creative chaos means performers must actively engage—flyer-dropping, street invitations, and guerrilla marketing are part of the experience .
Performing with Constraints
Fringe performers share venues and must adapt to tight timing. “Your show cannot be any longer than 90 minutes,” Davenport said. “You’re sharing your venue with so many others. There are 3,000 plus.”
Oxford’s musical has been tailored accordingly. “You can’t ship anything,” said Davenport. “You have to tailor your performance to anything that can go in a suitcase or in a footlocker.” The production is deliberately minimal. “We are 100 percent stripping it down.”
Many Roles, One Cast
In Oxford’s production, cast members double and triple up on roles. “Some people are the narrator in one song and then the next song it switches to completely different people,” said Alice Dabbs. “The group has grown a lot stronger… we’re not separated by big parts and small parts.”
The structure includes a layered performance. “We have to be the characters in a show that are also playing characters who are in a different show,” said Evelyne Denham. “You have to have those many different thoughts running through your head.”
Student Leaders Step Forward
The three seniors, Evelyne Denham, Alice Dabbs, and Ann Hunter Bigham, have stepped up to mentor and guide the group. “We’ve kind of been able to build up how Davenport would want this,” Denham said.
Bigham described taking on real responsibility. “The leadership role is something I’ve adopted in my senior year.” Her earlier direction of Arsenic and Old Lace helped prepare her. “That was my first real experience with real authoritativeness.”
Raising Funds and Inspiring Young Actors
In the spirit of community and mentorship, the Oxford High students launched a summer theater camp for local children ages six to twelve. The idea had been simmering since the seniors’ earliest days in the program. “We had this crazy idea,” said Alice Dabbs. “We made a whole slideshow we were going to present to Mr. Davenport. Then we chickened out and didn’t do it.”
Ann Hunter Bigham remembered it the same way. “We knew one of the things we wanted to do was a camp,” she said. “That was a deal breaker. We had to do that.”
With the Fringe trip ahead of them, the timing finally felt right. “It just kind of came naturally,” Bigham said. “It was one of the things we knew from the get-go we were going to do.”
The camp welcomed over forty local children and became more than just a learning experience for the young participants. It offered a chance for Oxford’s theater seniors to step into new roles as mentors and teachers. “We ended up with 43 kids here and taught them about the theater,” said Dabbs. “Hopefully we got them kind of acclimated and more comfortable with the theater so that when they’re here, they’re able to feel like they belong.”
The event was as rewarding for the high school leaders as it was for the young campers. “It was so fun,” said Dabbs. “I would love to do it again. I hate that we started it our senior year and that we don’t have more summers to do it.”
For Bigham, the impact went beyond the walls of the theater. “I feel like we have really opened a lot of kids’ eyes in the community to what Oxford High School offers in theater,” she said.
Though brief, the camp gave Oxford’s youngest aspiring performers their first taste of live theater—and gave the graduating seniors a chance to leave their mark on the next generation. “We just wanted them to see what theater here is really about,” Dabbs said. “To show them how exciting and welcoming this space can be.”
Fine-Tuning Every Detail
Technical director Jordan Caviezel adjusted the music for a mostly female ensemble. “We’ve had to change the keys,” he said. “We sat down at the keyboard and sang through the show and figured out where it was comfortable.”
Caviezel oversees the entire technical setup. “My job is setting all that up to support the show.” This will be his third Fringe trip. “It’s just an incredible opportunity… Some students have never been on a plane before.”
Rehearsals began July 1, and the cast made rapid progress in only 11 days. “The show is nearly complete,” said technical director Jordan Caviezel. “We have one more number to stage.”
A Familiar Stage and Marketing in a Foreign City
The cast has been rehearsing in Oxford’s black box theater, arranged to match the venue in Edinburgh. “We’ve tightened it up as much as we could,” Davenport said. “Our black box is set up now how the venue over in Scotland will be.”
In Edinburgh, promotion is part of the performance. “On the Royal Mile, you have a basket full of flyers,” Davenport said. “What better way to get people to notice us than to be walking around in nuns’ habits?”
Personal Milestones and Big Moments
Some students will make memories beyond the stage. “My sister is on this trip with me,” Denham said. “These people… they become like a second family.”
The cast is embracing cultural immersion. “I’ve never been immersed in that many different cultures,” Dabbs said. “There’s just so many different groups… from literally all over.”
“I’m just really excited to finally do it in Edinburgh and hear the applause and say, yeah, we did that,” Bigham added.
Director Davenport finds the journey personally rewarding. “Witnessing it through their eyes. The experience through their eyes. That is the biggest reward.” And nobody moves him more than one scene in Edinburgh: the Royal Edinburgh Military Tattoo. “It is the closest thing that we will ever get to knowing what world peace sounds like.”
Catch the Show at Home
Before taking flight, the production will be performed for the Oxford community on July 24 at 6:00 PM and 7:30 PM in the OHS Fine Arts black box theater. “All ticket proceeds will go toward this year’s Fringe trip,” the school district announced.
Tickets are available at the school’s website: https://ohs-theatre-785007.square.site/
