The Artist’s Workshop presents Bottom’s Dream at the Edinburgh Fringe this year. It’s directed and adapted from A Midsummer Night’s Dream by Jimmy Kontos, with music direction by Manny Vidales, and choreography/aerial Arts by Tara Lynn Steele. The same team is behind The Meeples: XXX. Â Jimmy and Ashley Kontos tell us more about the shows.
Bottom’s Dream:
“A high-energy, one-act immersive musical that reframes A Midsummer Night’s Dream through the lens of Shakespeare’s most unlikely dreamer. Staying true to the text but set against live bluegrass music, it transports audiences to a fairy revel in the mountains. Bottom’s transformation collides with Oberon, Titania, and Puck’s mischief, blending aerial work, clowning, acrobatics, dance, and immersive audience interaction.”
Where: Jade Studio at Greenside @ George Street
When: 7-29 Aug (not Sun or Mon)
Ticket link: https://www.edfringe.com/tickets/whats-on/bottom-s-dream
The Meeples:XXX
“The world’s most famous puppets have lost their funding, been kicked off TV and are now hunted by ICE. Broke and desperate they throw a filthy, drug-fuelled cabaret packed with live music, dance, puppetry and hilarious chaos. Watch as the beloved characters spiral into a grotesque fever dream of debauchery, violence and absurdity – unravelling as danger closes in from all sides. Betrayals, orgies and serial murder collide in a cartoonishly raunchy spectacle – sweaty, exhilarating and unapologetically alive.”
Where: Lime Studio at Greenside @ George Street
When: 7-29 Aug
Ticket link: https://www.edfringe.com/tickets/whats-on/the-meeples-xxx
What can you tell us about your show? What is it about and where did the idea come from?
Bottom’s Dream is a one-act immersive musical built from A Midsummer Night’s Dream, told through Bottom instead of the usual lovers-first framing. We keep Shakespeare’s actual text, but we perform it with live bluegrass music, aerial work, and dance, and the audience isn’t just watching; they’re part of the room with us.
The idea started with the language itself. I’ve always been drawn to the Players’ storyline in particular; it’s funny, it’s sincere, and it never quite gets the attention the lovers get. I kept coming back to wanting to build something new out of it rather than just restaging what already existed. The bluegrass and the aerial work came later, as ways of giving that joy a physical form, but the show really started with wanting to sit inside that story and see what else was there.
Picture the world’s most beloved puppets after the money’s gone, the show’s cancelled, and they’ve got nothing left to lose. That’s The Meeples: XXX, live electric music, puppetry, and aerial work colliding into one anarchic, gloriously unhinged cabaret. It’s what happens when you take something familiar and let it run completely feral.
The idea came out of a real feeling, not a gimmick. There’s a genuine undercurrent of frustration and anger running through the US right now, and instead of pretending we didn’t notice, we decided to throw it into a warehouse, hand it a guitar, and let it party. This show doesn’t ask you to sit quietly with that anger. It hands it back to you loud, funny, and completely alive.
How would you sell it to audiences in one paragraph?
Come get lost in the mountains with us for an hour of pure, unguarded joy. Bottom’s Dream pulls you into a fairy revel built on live bluegrass music, aerial artistry, and dance, where the story finds you instead of the other way around. It’s playful, it’s warm, nd it’s built entirely around the feeling of letting go and being fully, unapologetically yourself for a night. Come find that joy and let it find you right back.
Come see what happens when the world’s most beloved puppets run out of funding, lose everything, and decide to go out swinging. The Meeples: XXX is a live cabaret built on electric music, puppetry, and aerial work, following a cast on the run with nothing left to protect and nowhere left to hide. It’s fast, sharp, and completely unpredictable, the kind of show that earns its spectacle instead of just borrowing it. Get there early. This one doesn’t wait for you to catch up.
Do you enjoy participating in the Fringe? And do you have any moments you particularly remember?
Bottom’s Dream – I first went to Fringe over 20 years ago, and I came back again last year as a spectator, and both times reminded me why this festival is unlike anything else. There’s something about a whole city being in on the same spirit of risk and discovery that I haven’t found anywhere else. I don’t have one single moment I can point to and say that’s the one; it’s more the accumulation of it, wandering into shows with no expectations and being surprised again and again.
The Meebles: XXX – Fringe has been part of my life for a long time before this show ever existed. So bringing work here myself feels less like arriving somewhere new and more like finally stepping through a door I’ve been looking at for years. As for a single standout moment, nothing comes to mind that I can point to directly; it’s less about one show or one night and more about that constant hum of a whole city taking creative risks at the same time.
What are you looking forward to the most in Edinburgh?
Getting Bottom’s Dream in front of an audience, honestly. This show is built on the idea of performing with the audience, not for them, and until you’re in the room with people, you don’t fully know what that looks like. I’m looking forward to finding out.
Watching this show find its people. The Meeples: XXX isn’t for everyone, and it isn’t trying to be, so I’m genuinely excited to see who leans into that chaos with us and what they make of it.
What’s next for the show?
Right now, all of our focus is on the premiere itself. This is the first time Bottom’s Dream will be in front of any audience, so we haven’t mapped out anything beyond Edinburgh yet. Fringe is the hurdle we need to get through first, and what comes next will depend a lot on what we learn from this run.
This run is really the beginning of an ongoing process. The Meeples: XXX was built to evolve, shaped by whoever is in the room and whatever’s happening in the world at the time, and Edinburgh is where that process gets its first real test in front of an audience. Whatever we learn here- what lands, what surprises people, where the chaos actually connects- becomes part of how
we keep building the show going forward. This isn’t a piece we consider finished at closing night; it’s one we plan to keep developing well beyond the festival.