Artsy Edinburgh, laid low by the virus, hopes for recovery
EDINBURGH, Scotland — Francesca Moody is spending August the way she always does: in darkened rooms in Edinburgh, watching some of the best new theatre and comedy the world has to offer.
All that’s missing are the hundreds of thousands of other people who usually do the same in Scotland’s capital.
“It’s strange to be in a city that you’re so used to being saturated with culture and arts and people,” Moody, a theatre producer, said backstage at the city’s shuttered Traverse Theatre.
Usually the venue is a hub for performances at the Edinburgh Fringe, the vast performance festival that helps turn the city into a global creative hub every summer — drawing crowds, generating buzz and filling the coffers of hoteliers, pub-owners, shopkeepers and tour guides.