BACHELORS OF FINE ARTS at Edinburgh Fringe Festival 2026
I never planned to be a writer, especially not this early in my life. I certainly never planned to write a musical about my own experience in theatre school, take it across the ocean, and perform it every day for a month at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, aka the world’s biggest theatre festival. And yet, this August, that’s exactly what my collaborator, Riley Elton McCarthy, and I did.
The show follows two students entering an elite drama conservatory expecting to find their people and start building their dream careers. Instead, they find toxic authority figures, complicated friendships, bullying, bad decisions, and an institution that isn’t interested in protecting the people inside it.
It’s funny. It’s messy. It’s got some VERY catchy songs. And a lot of heartache and sadness, too. At its heart, Bachelors of Fine Arts is about what happens when young people are raised inside systems that normalize harmful behavior. One of the things that became increasingly important to me while making the show was the idea that abusive people in positions of power don’t just hurt the people immediately underneath them. They can teach those people how power works and unknowingly raise the next generation of abusers. That felt bigger than just our experiences at school. It felt like something worth putting onstage and speaking out about. And weirdly, making this show became a way of taking some of those experiences back.
I spent a month in Edinburgh performing every day, meeting artists from all over the world, seeing amazing new shows of every form, making friends I hope I’ll have for a very long time, and watching complete strangers connect with something that started as two people making fun of their lives.
Then the stars started coming in, which was… surreal. Here are the highlights:
SMU Reviews ★★★★★ “The sheer force of charisma and talent from both leads powers you through such niggles, and I can’t imagine anyone not having a good time watching this show.”
The Phoenix Remix ★★★★ “Sometimes you want to see a show that is engaging, has really good storytelling, and creates a good performance for the audience. This is a show that does this.”
The Real Chrisparkle ★★★★ “The two actors have a brilliant chemistry together, and it’s a very rewarding storyline. And you won’t stop singing that song.”
The Reviews Hub ★★★★ “As writers, Hope Johansen and Riley McCarthy show courage, optimism, and incredible energy; as actors they traverse a wide emotional terrain—satire, black humour, drama, and musical theatre—with considerable skill (and a couple of noteworthy singing voices).”
The Stage (★★★) and The Scotsman (★★★) also picked up on the bigger ideas behind the show. The Stage praised our “diverse and imaginative” score and “witty and intricate” lyrics. At the same time, The Scotsman highlighted the show’s “strong political dimension” in its exploration of privilege, exclusion, and the pressure to conform.
But probably my favorite thing anyone said about the show came from Broadway and TV producer Scott Noe:
“There is something wonderfully defiant about taking experiences that once held power over you, putting them onstage, setting them to music, finding the punchline—and taking that power back.”
I’m so proud of this show, especially considering we started developing it this year. I never intentionally set out to write Bachelors of Fine Arts. I definitely never expected it to become one of the biggest creative adventures of my life so far. I’m really glad and very grateful that Riley asked me to do this. Sometimes all you need to do is take the stories that hurt, add some jokes, lighting, and silly props, and suddenly they’re yours again. And that’s a pretty cool thing I got to do.
Looking forward to the next life of this insane little show that could.