Interview: Christie Lee Manning - I made you a mixtape
I Made You a Mixtape is a five-star, award-nominated dance party hit making its Edinburgh Festival Fringe debut this August. After playing to sold-out crowds at The Cockpit in London, this high-energy show takes you right into the heart of a 90s college dorm hang, where you are greeted by a lot of humour, heart, and a massive dose of musical nostalgia. With live musicians playing the greatest hits of the decade, nine girls share one last night through deep friendships and unfiltered emotion. Get ready for an unpredictable, changing-every-night performance that will throw you straight back to the tracks that soundtracked our lives!
Ticket link: https://www.edfringe.com/tickets/whats-on/i-made-you-a-mixtape
Venue: Big at theSpaceTriplex
When: 7 - 29 August (not performing on 16th & 23rd)
Could you tell us a bit about yourself and the show?
I'd love to! My name is Christie Lee Manning and I’m the Founder and Artistic Director of Response Theatre Company. I’m originally from Vancouver, Canada, and have spent most of my career working as a performer, choreographer, and educator. A few years ago, after taking a year-long Meisner acting course, I became fascinated by a simple question: could Meisner’s principles be translated into movement? That question eventually became Response Theatre Company and the UK’s first Meisner-based movement theatre practice. I Made You a Mixtape is the first full-scale production to come out of that work. Set inside a chaotic 90s college dorm party, it follows nine women through one final night together before their lives change forever. It’s filled with friendship, nostalgia, heartbreak, ridiculous party games, emotional freedom, and some of the greatest songs of the decade. The easiest way to describe it is that it’s part theatre show, part 90s party, and part love letter to the friends who helped make us who we are.
The show is making its Fringe debut this year. What are you most excited about when it comes to bringing the show to the Edinburgh Fringe?
I’m most excited to see how audiences respond to it! For the last four years, we’ve been developing Response Movement Method and witnessing the impact it has on performers. I Made You a Mixtape is really our first opportunity to ask a different question: what happens when audiences experience it? Fringe feels like the perfect place to explore that. Audiences arrive ready to discover something new, take a chance on an unknown company, and be surprised. That’s exactly the environment this work thrives in. I’m also excited to introduce people to Response Theatre Company as a whole and this new form of movement theatre we've built. We know audiences will come for the 90s nostalgia, the music, and the party atmosphere, but I’m curious to see what stays with them afterwards.
The show had two sold-out runs in London earlier this year. Has anything changed for the Fringe version?
Yes and no. At its core, the show is still the same production audiences fell in love with during our London runs. It’s still a 90s college dorm party, it’s still centred around friendship, nostalgia, heartbreak, and music, and it’s still performed using the Response Movement Method, meaning no two performances are ever exactly the same. What has changed is our confidence in the work. The London audiences taught us a lot about what resonated most strongly, so we’ve been able to refine the experience, strengthen certain moments, and lean further into the things that make the show unique. The biggest difference, however, is the performers themselves. Because the work is built on truthful response and live human behaviour, the cast continues to evolve with every performance. They’ve spent more time inside the world of the show, which means the relationships, listening, and spontaneity have all deepened. In many ways, the Fringe version isn’t a different show, it’s a more lived-in one.
What was the process like, from creating the show to now bringing it in front of an audience?
It’s been a much longer journey than creating a single show. The production itself is the result of four years of developing Response Movement Method, but in many ways it all started with curiosity. After taking a year-long Meisner acting course, I became fascinated by the idea of applying those same principles of listening, presence, and truthful response to movement. What began as an experiment in dance studios slowly grew into workshops, then a company, and eventually into a full-scale production. One of the biggest challenges has been learning how to translate something that is incredibly powerful for performers into something equally powerful for audiences. That’s still the question we’re exploring today. Every rehearsal, workshop, and performance teaches us something new about how people connect with the work. Bringing it in front of audiences has been extremely rewarding. You spend years in a rehearsal room hoping something will resonate, and then suddenly you have people laughing, crying, remembering their own friendships, or telling you they called an old friend after the show. Those moments remind us that what we’re really creating isn’t just a theatre production, it’s a shared experience. And that’s what makes bringing it to Edinburgh so exciting. It feels less like the end of a process and more like the beginning of a conversation.
What are you looking forward to the most?
The audiences, without question. As artists, we spend years making something and eventually reach a point where it has to leave the rehearsal room and belong to other people. I’m excited to see what audiences connect with, what memories it brings up for them, and which moments stay with them long after they’ve left the theatre. I’m also looking forward to meeting other artists. One of the things I love most about Fringe is that everyone arrives with an idea, a dream, or a crazy artistic experiment they’re trying to bring into the world. There’s something incredibly inspiring about being surrounded by people who are taking creative risks. And, selfishly, I’m looking forward to seeing our audiences dance in their seats to our mixtape. We’ve packed the show with 90s bangers, and there’s something very satisfying about hearing an entire audience collectively go, “Oh my God, I haven’t heard this song in years!”
If you had to describe the show in three words to make people eager to see it, what would they be?
Alive. Human. Unpredictable
