Summerhall Arts Surgeries
Summerhall Arts Surgeries returns for a special Spring edition, marking the first standalone iteration of the programme outside of the Edinburgh Festival Fringe!
About Summerhall Arts Surgeries
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11th March 2026 20th March 2026 |
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| 7:30pm - 9pm | |
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Summerhall 1 Summerhall , Edinburgh South EH9 1PL |
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| This is a free event | |
| Visit the event website here | |
| Follow summerhallarts on Instagram |
After three successful Fringe editions, the Surgeries now expand beyond August to showcase artists year-round – continuing to champion bold, early-stage ideas in a generous, low-pressure environment. Summerhall Arts Surgeries is an artist development initiative led by Summerhall Arts. Across two evening events, eight Scotland-based artists and collectives will share short excerpts of unfinished, in-progress performance with an audience of peers, public and industry professionals. Building on Summerhall Arts’ long-standing commitment to experimentation, risk-taking and artist-led development, the Surgeries create space for artists to test ideas, play with form and spark new creative connections across artforms.
The Surgeries offer a behind-the-scenes look into some of the most exciting work currently being developed across theatre, performance, movement, spoken word and interdisciplinary practice. After each event, we encourage audiences to stick around for a drink and an informal chat with the artists.
11th March: An Opportunity Knocks by Lubna Kerr: A warm, humorous and honest solo theatre piece about a British Pakistani Muslim woman navigating belonging, identity and later-life dating between cultures, expectations and the question of where “home” really is. Mainlanders by Josh Dodds and Lucy Stewart: A meditative, movement-led theatre piece about a couple starting over on a remote Scottish island, exploring belonging, isolation, folklore and the environmental cost of modern work culture. ULTRA by Fox Banks: A genre-bending sci-fi theatre piece that uses multiverses and fractured timelines to explore identity, inherited lives and the radical idea that it’s not too late — we’re only just beginning. Desire Kills Desire by R.E. Pegg: A visceral queer dance-film solo that twists desire, consumption and the body into a surreal loop where pleasure, power and self-destruction collapse into each other.
Contains themes of death and mental health.
20th March: ThE ReAlLy CuTe ShOw by Delululand: A darkly playful, horror-infused collage exploring intrusive thoughts and how constant exposure to violence numbs us while fear still seeps through. BearGirl by Emery Schaffer: A darkly comic solo show in which a grieving widow channels her rage, desire and guilt through a feral alter ego in a bear costume, blurring empowerment and self-destruction, inspired by Anton Chekhov. Perpetual Spirals by Plaster Cast: A visceral, movement-driven journey into our prehistoric subconscious that questions modern obsessions with “human nature” and who gets to define it. SLAYERS by Corinne Salisbury: A tense contemporary drama about a survivor mother navigating misogyny and online manosphere culture while trying to empower her daughter — and confronting where self-defence tips into violence.
Contains projected footage of vomiting, blood, and nudity. The work contains movements sexual in nature.
Additional Dates: 20 March 2026
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