ARTISTS SELECTED FOR BENSON DRIVE PRODUCTIONS’ INAUGURAL BDP EDINBURGH FRINGE ARTISTS IN RESIDENCE PROGRAM
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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE, PLEASE
THREE ARTISTS SELECTED FOR
BENSON DRIVE PRODUCTIONS’ INAUGURAL
BDP EDINBURGH FRINGE ARTISTS IN RESIDENCE PROGRAM
THIS AUGUST
New York, NY (July 22, 2026) – Benson Drive Productions (George Strus, CEO) announced today that three artists have been selected to participate in their inaugural BDP Edinburgh Fringe Artists in Residence program this August.
Chosen from over 400 applicants across the US, the selected artists include Marisol Soledad (Philadelphia, PA), Mur (New York, NY), and Nicholas Pilapil (Santa Ana, California), who will all attend and develop a new work at the 2026 Edinburgh Festival Fringe next month. To download headshots, click here.
As previously announced, each selected artist will receive travel to/from Scotland and accommodations in Edinburgh, a ticket budget to immerse themselves in the Fringe ecosystem, as well as a $3,000 commission to allow them to create their first Fringe piece throughout the month that will be presented as a Work in Progress showing during the final week of the Fringe. Their work-in-progress showings will be presented by Underbelly on Tuesday, August 25.
Nicholas Pilapil will perform at 2pm at Underbelly, Cowgate, Big Belly. For tickets, click here.
Marisol Soledad will perform at 5pm at Underbelly, Cowgate, Big Belly. For tickets, click here.
Mur will perform at 7:15pm at Underbelly, Bristo Square, Dexter. For tickets, click here.
In a statement, Strus said, “As we combed through the 400+ submissions we received for this new program, we were immediately struck by the artistry, vision, and rigor of Marisol, Mur, and Nicholas’ applications. I am so looking forward to taking these three incredible artists to the Edinburgh Festival Fringe for the first time and introducing their work to an international audience. It is my hope that as they immerse themselves in Edinburgh and create a Fringe piece of their own, they will all fall in love with the Festival like I have.”
Benson Drive Productions’ 2026 Edinburgh Fringe Artists in Residence program is supported by Carson Gleberman and Underbelly.
Benson Drive Productions also recently announced their Edinburgh Fringe Festival debut with Steve Burns: Alive running at Underbelly Cowgate from August 5-30, 2026. Directed by Sivan Battat and co-written by Steve Burns and Matthew Freeman, Steve Burns: Alive is performed by Steve Burns, America’s beloved problem-solver on Nickelodeon’s Blue’s Clues from 1996 – 2002. When he left the show, the internet decided his fate: car crashes, drug overdoses, murder conspiracies. Steve Burns was dead… except he wasn’t. In Steve Burns Alive, Burns dissects the bizarre phenomenon of being mourned while alive. This isn’t just his story, it’s an excavation of how parasocial relationships shape reality, digital mythology replaces truth and what happens when millions of strangers grieve a version of you that never existed. What happens when the world thinks you’re dead but you’re very much alive?
After the success of Cecilia Gentili’s Red Ink at the 2025 Edinburgh Festival Fringe, Breaking the Binary Theatre (George Strus, Founding Artistic Director), will be returning this year with Twitch, running at Underbelly Bristo Square from August 5-30, 2026. Written by Liliana Padilla and directed by Jack Ferver, Twitch follows Pam (performer Joslyn DeFreece) searching obsessively for her son after he has gone missing. She has lived in a town where no one trusts each other for infinity – smoking, sipping, waiting – watching shiny ladies on TV, accompanied by a twitch she cannot shake. The town begins to visit her: doctors, start-ups, grifters, psychics, strangers from Craigslist, lost animals. Perhaps Pam is imagining them. Or remembering them. Or rehearsing conversations she never had. In this surreal American town, Pam claws for certainty, a witness and evidence that she was ever chosen. Twitch was first developed in the inaugural Breaking the Binary Theatre Festival.
BIOGRAPHIES
MARISOL SOLEDAD is an NYC and Philadelphia-based director, performer, writer, educator, and deviser of original works of theater for people of all ages. Her artmaking practice centers play, community building, laughter, and subversion through the creation of embodied, liberatory, surprising spaces and forms. Recent collaborations and affiliations: New England Center for Circus Arts (VT), The New School (NYC), New Victory Theater (NYC), NY Philharmonic (NYC), coLAB Arts (New Brunswick), Philadelphia Theatre Company, Target Margin Theatre (Brooklyn), Cannonball Festival (Philadelphia), Clowns Without Borders USA. Graduate of Princeton University and Helikos International School of Theatre Creation (Florence, Italy). @marisolmakes; www.marisolmakes.com
MUR is a Manhattan based composer, librettist, visual artist, and performer. Collaborations include Jim Henson Foundation, Guggenheim Works and Process, The Flea, La Mama, National Sawdust, and SoHo House. Mur is a partner for the Wild Bird Fund, a nonprofit that rehabilitates sick, injured and orphaned wildlife in NYC. www.murnewyork.com @murnewyork
NICHOLAS PILAPIL is a Filipino American playwright. His plays include God Will Do The Rest (Artists at Play & Latino Theater Company), The Bottoming Process (IAMA Theatre Company, Victory Gardens Ignition Festival of New Plays), and Luca & Uri (Playwrights’ Arena & Victory Theatre Center). His work has been developed with Geffen Playhouse, Theater Mu, Boston Court Pasadena, Ensemble Studio Theatre/LA, CIRCA Pintig, Theatre Rhinoceros, and The Workshop Theater, among others. Nicholas is a winner of the Samuel French Off Off Broadway Festival and an alum of The Writers’ Room at the Geffen Playhouse, IAMA Theatre Company’s Emerging Playwrights Lab, and artEquity. http://nicholaspilapil.com/ @nicholaspilapil
BENSON DRIVE PRODUCTIONS is a New York-based production company developing projects from the mind of Tony Award-winning producer George Strus (they/them), who grew up on Benson Drive dreaming of making theatre. Benson Drive Productions’ New York premiere of Amber Ruffin’s BIGFOOT! was praised by The New York Times as “ecstatically silly and irresistibly charming” – the extended off-Broadway premiere was nominated for Best Musical at the Lucille Lortel, Off-Broadway Alliance, and Drama League Awards. BDP recently produced Trisha Paytas’ Big Broadway Dream starring Trisha Paytas, Sutton Foster, Ben Platt, Joy Woods, and Rachel Zegler, raising over $150,000 for the Entertainment Community Fund; a reading of Mathilde Dratwa’s A Play About David Mamet Writing A Play About Harvey Weinstein directed by Leslye Headland and starring Abbi Jacobson, Billy Eichner, and Helené Yorke, raising over $15,000 for NYCLU; and a developmental run of Kevin Zak’s A Kidman Carol starring Marla Mindelle and Josh Sharp, raising over $3000 for New York Cares. Projects in development include David Wise’s Fight Back, a musical adaptation of The Danish Girl, a revival of Neil Simon’s Rumors and over 15 other projects in various stages of development. Strus’ independent co-producing credits include Stephen Sondheim’s Here We Are (off-Broadway), Illinoise (Broadway – Tony nomination), Oh Mary! (Broadway – Tony nomination), Romeo + Juliet (Broadway), Evita (West End – Olivier nomination), Oh Mary! (West End – Olivier Award) Liberation (Broadway – Tony Award), Cats The Jellicle Ball (Broadway – Tony nomination), Titanique (Broadway – Tony nomination), Proof (Broadway), End Of The Rainbow starring Jinkx Monsoon (UK), and Rent (West End). George founded the Obie Award and two-time GLAAD Media Award-winning Breaking the Binary Theatre, was the 2024 recipient of the prestigious Prince Fellowship, is a member of the 2025 Shubert Organization Artistic Circle, and was recently inducted into the Forbes 30 Under 30 Class of 2026 in Hollywood and Entertainment. www.bensondriveprods.com.
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