Underground are looking to grow our team for Fringe 2012!

For three weeks in July, we gather a team of extraordinary young people to turn a few simple rooms into a buzzing, bustling hub of creativity. With our biggest programme ever –  75 acts, 250 performances – we decided it’s time to bring some more people into the team.

We’re looking to recruit at least two new members:

• A technical manager to oversee one of our spaces, liaising with artists, operating shows and overseeing tech rehearsals
• A box office manager to join our front of house team, with considerable responsibility for our public-facing operations

Both roles offer a huge amount of hands-on experience of managing a venue. You’ll join a tight-knit team of young people, all working together to realise something wonderful.

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For those of you who haven’t seen, our 2012 Buxton Fringe programme is now online, in all its glory, at http://2012.underthefringe.com/programme/.

We’ve got a huge programme this year: a veritable banquet of arts and entertainment. From big-name comedians, to fledging first-time live artists; international folk music and local magicians, returning Fringe Favourites, and much much more.

Don’t know where to start? Just take a lucky dip.

This August, the artistic arm of our organisation – Three’s Company – will be heading to the Edinburgh Fringe with a brand new show. This is our sixth year at the world’s largest arts festival, following many sell-out award-winning runs, and our third year with highly-respected comedy/theatre venue the Pleasance.

This year, we’re presenting The World’s Greatest Walking Tour Of Edinburgh. It’s not a real walking tour, it’s a spoof piece of comedy theatre, but it does involve actually walking around Edinburgh and performing at odd locations across the city. We’re running it 3rd-27th August (with a few days off).

It’s an exciting, original, fun and downright mad idea that we’re very much looking forward to making happen. And this is your chance to be involved. Always wanted to take part in the Edinburgh Fringe? Gone every year and looking for your next project? Going to be in Edinburgh anyway and want to be in a show? Well this is your chance!

We have a host of parts both large and small to fill with actors, performers and just generally interesting people from around the country. You need to be free for at least 2 weeks of the Edinburgh Fringe (but ideally the whole time) and available for some rehearsal beforehand (but this could be between 1 and 10 days).

Basically all situations can be considered, so get in touch. Just email fun@threescompany.co.uk and say hi.

Three’s Company: “Precocious theatre innovators” The Times, “An extraordinarily talented and inventive company” Whatsonstage, “The professionalism of these talented young men is astonishing” Daily Mail, “Edinburgh Fringe favourites” Fringe Guru, “Light-footed and adept at scrambling the act of theatre” Time Out, ★★★★★ Edinburgh Guide, Fringe Guru and AllTheFestivals

This July, hundreds of performers, producers, press, volunteers, artists and audiences will come together for the Underground Venues on the 2012 Buxton Fringe. Our 7th year in Buxton involves 20 days and over 200 performances of 77 shows, across three spaces.

Now is your chance to get involved in all the fun. If you live in / near Buxton and will be there this July (2-22 July) we have a host of positions for front of house, box office, marketing, events and technical work.

Whether you want to learn first-hand how to run a venue / arts organisation, network with a host of professionals from the arts and the UK touring circuit, or just get to know hundreds of artists from across the country (and abroad), this is the perfect opportunity.and technical. In return you get to see any number of shows in our programme for free – and there’s financial reimbursement for those who get involved a lot.

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From 1-10 June this year the award-winning venue group Underground Venues will be hosting a programme of comedy, theatre, music and magic at the Old Fire Station, as part of the Oxford Fringe.

We are looking for volunteers to help with front of house – selling tickets, ushering customers and liaising with acts. This is a great chance to get experience in venue-management, meet people / make contacts and work in this newly refurbished Oxford theatre.

Volunteers get the chance to see loads of free shows from a programme including comedians Isy Suttie, Simon Munnery and John Hegley, as well as free tickets to give to friends. Shifts run 5pm-11pm most days but volunteers do not need to commit to all days.

For more information or to apply please contact us on oxford@underthefringe.com or on Twitter at @underthefringe

Edinburgh Fringe has for decades been accepted as the leading arts festival in Britain – and indeed the largest in the world. Each year, thousands of acts from the UK and abroad head north to expose their shows to an unequalled popular, critical and industry audience.

And for the last few years, a number of smaller Fringes have been growing up to support this cultural migration. There are many other festivals in the early summer months and these are increasingly been used by acts to preview their shows and hone them before August, allowing their work to be seen by an even larger and more diverse audience along the way.

The 2nd largest Fringe in the UK – Brighton – has gained a reputation as a Fringe preview location. Its timing, in May, may be too early for some of the more last-minute acts but a huge number of the popular hits start off here.

Smaller but closer – both in time and space – the Buxton Fringe has become a very popular proving ground for comedians and theatre shows, with Underground Venues and its four performance spaces running 4th-22nd July.

And now the youngest, Oxford Fringe, has sprung up between them all, with its dates of May 30th – June 10th.

Without (it seems) any conscious planning, what has emerged is nothing less than a perfectly formed Fringe Trail. Moving from south to north, spring to summer, and culminating in the world’s greatest arts festival, it represents an ideal mini UK tour. And what’s best, each stop involves not just a theatre or theatres but a whole Fringe festival, involving the whole town and (by ethos) any act that wants to take part.

So, in order to increase the profile of this wonderful opportunity, we wanted to collect the key details together in this post.

1. Brighton Fringe, 5-27 May 2012, brightonfringe.org, @brightonfringe
2. Oxford Fringe, 30 May – 10 June 2012, oxfringe.org, @oxfringe
3. Buxton Fringe, 4 – 22 July 2012, buxtonfringe.org.uk, @buxtonfringe
4. Edinburgh Fringe, 3 – 27 August 2012, edfringe.com, @edfringe

Let us know by posting below if you’ll be attempting the Fringe Trail this year – and how you get on. Or talk about it on Twitter / Facebook

#fringetrail
@underthefringe

Some exciting news Fringe fans.

This year, Underground Venues is going to be branching out and running a venue on the Oxford Fringe for the first time.

Yes, the town of dreaming spires, punting, dictionaries and a special comma also has a Fringe festival! Like Buxton and Brighton, it’s a smaller version of the Edinburgh Fringe and hosts a wide range of acts from every genre and all across the world. It’s place at the beginning of June also makes it perfect for Fringe acts heading north to the daddy of them all in August.

The venue we’re running is called the Old Fire Station (OFS). It used to be a fire station (duh!) and then served as a student theatre for some years before closing for refurbishment. It’s now reopened as a state-of-the-art arts centre, fully furnished and can seat up to 158. And it’s position on George Street puts it right in the centre of town, seconds walk from the Bodelian, Sheldonian and Ashmolean (and many others things that rhyme with “ian”).

If you’re an act, the good news is applications are open now – just head to www.underthefringe.com/oxford Due to earlier deadlines however, applications will close on February 15th.

If you’re a Fringe fan, you’ll have to wait til June. The dates are 1st – 10th June but our full programme will be announced at www.underthefringe.com/oxford in March.

We hope you see you all – performers or audiences – there in June.

We are pleased to announce that after a hugely successful 2011 Fringe, Underground Venues will be back at the 2012 Buxton Fringe.

We are currently busy in the process of applying for funding that will help to make our this arm of Thundergree’s work sustainable for coming  years. So wish us luck with that.

We will be open for applications for the 2012 Buxton Fringe at the beginning of February. Check back here then, follow our twitter or go to this page to register your interest.

Hope to see you all in 2012, and here’s to the future of Fringe!

Great news from another of the Underground alumni – this time sketch group Clever Peter.

This group of four very silly men brought their first show to Underground Venues in 2009, before heading up to The Pleasance for the Edinburgh Fringe. They returned in 2010 with their follow-up, previewing Underground once more before being spotted in Edinburgh by the big-wigs of the comedy world.

They’ve now finished creating a show for Radio 4 – much like another Underground alumnus Helen Keen last year. Yaz went along to a recording recently and laughed an awful lot. Thankfully so did other people. You can hear their work – 6 15-minute shows – very soon on Radio 4.

Very clever Peter – well done!