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Professor Brad Poer discusses KCC Theatre’s upcoming trip to perform at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe

Actors silhouetted in the foreground onstage in front of a digital projection featuring illustrated white birch trees on a yellow background with text that reads, "Pando. A different kind of play."

Nearly 20 Kellogg Community College students, alumni, employees and community members will embark on the trip of a lifetime this summer to perform with KCC Theatre at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in Scotland.

The trip, which runs July 29 through Aug. 10, will feature the international premiere of an abbreviated version of KCC Theatre Coordinator and Professor Brad Poer’s original play “Pando,” which debuted at KCC in the spring of 2024.

Click here to donate to support KCC Theatre’s trip online.

Below, Poer answers questions about the trip as cast members prepare for their final pre-festival performances on campus in late July.

Tell us about the upcoming trip. Why this location? What will you be doing there?

The Fringe is the largest “humans performing for other humans” gathering on the face of the Earth, second only to the Olympics in number of tickets sold every year. It is an extremely democratic place to put on a show — pretty much anyone can try to put something up at the Fringe — but we are working under the International Collegiate Theatre Festival within the Fringe organization.

KCC along with eight other colleges, universities and community colleges will be performing shows we’re bringing there, four performances each. We are bringing a shortened version of my first original script, “Pando,” to perform there and will be seeing all kinds of other shows and performances when we aren’t performing and promoting our show ourselves.

The full version of “Pando” premiered on campus at KCC in the spring of 2024. This script was written with an eventual performance at the Fringe in mind, and the process in planning and creating stuff for this trip started almost a decade ago, shortly after I started working at KCC full time. It’s been a labor of love for me and the five or six members of our tour group who were in the original company of “Pando” last year.

What makes the Festival Fringe especially meaningful for theatre students?

Within theatre/live performance circles, there aren’t many resume bullet points cooler than being able to say you performed at the Fringe. As an educator and theatre artist, I believe that both travel and creating theatre make for better human beings, so why not combine the two?

What do you hope your students will take away from this experience, artistically, personally or academically?

It all comes down to changes in perspective. Seeing and hearing all the voices and messages being spun all around you changes you. Breathing in different air and being a fish totally out of one’s usual water proves time and time again to be a path to seeking further knowledge and understanding, and a broader sense of empathy in connecting with those who live lives different than yours.

Not only will the trip help solidify these ideas, but “Pando” itself is rooted in this idea of broadened curiosity and empathy for our fellow humans at its thematic core.

How do you think experiencing another culture firsthand deepens students’ understanding of the arts?

It all runs through the lens of empathy, both emotional and cognitive empathy. When you can dig deeper into the context of not just taking in art on a surface level, but also manage to experience the culture — lines of thinking and personal contexts behind why that art was created in the first place — the natural byproduct of that understanding is a connection to the artists and culture itself, and not just the art as a product.

What aspect or activity related to the trip are you especially excited for?

Watching those on the group loosen up and open up after a few days of swimming in this new, chaotic pond of ideas and cultures. I only visited for a few days with (Binda Performing Arts Manager) Jen Philp two summers ago in preparation for this trip, and I felt like a different person by the time I was ready to head home. It will be extremely gratifying to witness that change in those on the trip with us this time.

Why do you think international travel and performance is important for students, artists or performers?

Artists do not create art in a vacuum, and students will not learn without the spark of curiosity. Nothing is born from nothing. Every artist’s brain is a pantry full of experiences, skills, ideas, references, interactions and memories, and all art of any kind is less about creating things from scratch, but instead is more of a practice in concocting a new recipe from ingredients already existing in the pantry of the mind.

Travel and pulling one’s self out of our usual routines and familiar faces is a means of turbo charging the amount, contrasts and dynamics of the ingredients in that pantry, with the added side benefits of creating more resilient, confident personalities in general. And experiencing these things in a very analog, five-senses kind of way — in opposition to how we experience so much of the world digitally these days — makes for even more powerful and long-lasting ingredients.

Anything else you’d like to say?

We will be performing the version of “Pando” we’re taking across the pond for one weekend only in the Binda this July, a few days before we leave!

Come see us load in, perform and load out the show in 90 minutes or less at 7:30 p.m. Friday, July 25; 7:30 p.m. Saturday, July 26; or 3 p.m. Sunday, July 28.

A philosophical comedy set in the worlds of video games, “Pando” is accessible for all ages. Tickets are $10 for students, staff, seniors and veterans, and $15 for everyone else, with all proceeds going towards per diem for those going on the trip!

Follow us on Facebook at facebook.com/kcctheatre for info on tickets when they go on sale soon. Come see the show and help support those going on the trip!

For more information about the upcoming trip to the Festival Fringe, upcoming shows or other KCC Theatre programming, contact Poer at poerb@kellogg.edu or 269-565-7859. For more information about theatre studies at KCC, visit kellogg.edu/theatre.