Scrappy AF is a fringe-maker’s lab for the creatively courageous and independently ambitious.


Stop waiting. Start making.

A 6-month mentorship lab for fringey performance makers with a show in their guts and enough guts to make it.

💥 Excuse me?

Scrappy AF is an affordable, high impact mentorship and support lab for independent performance makers. We will be following the real timeline of 2026 Adelaide Fringe and you can mark the milestones as practice for future fringe or another festival altogether or, like me, you can build your Adelaide Fringe 2026 performance project plan for real. This is an actual do the work, talk it through and share as a group kind of a thing so you need to be ready to share with others each month and also give your own feedback.

Over 6 months, you’ll:

  • Build your idea into a pitchable show

  • Apply for grants (like the Adelaide Fringe Artist Fund, quick response grants and state based funding) to get you paid and housed

  • Design a basic marketing plan and let your audience find you

  • Budget, register, develop and birth - we are going to make this happen and I’m going to be your fringe doula by your side

It’s part accountability support group, part boot camp, part fight club. Not really… you’re definitely allowed to talk about this program.

🎯 Who It’s For

This is for you if:

  • You have a show idea (or a Moleskine three quarters full with a thousand show ideas) and no clear plan

  • You plan on working towards Adelaide Fringe, MICF, Edinburgh or similar

  • You work well with a deadline even if right before that deadline you’re nervously sweating and screaming “never again!”

  • You’re a stand-up, theatre maker, clown, circus creator, drag-trepreneur, kooky collective doing cracked out shtick, etc etc etc

  • You’re maybe on the outer - that could mean regional, scrappy, emerging or something else

  • You’re ready to work… or at least like 90% ready to work and 10% adhd

❌ Who It’s NOT For

  • Anyone expecting an accredited course - this is a certificate III in nothing

  • Anyone looking to get a grasp on Python coding basics

  • People who call their adult partner ‘bubba’

  • Those who are looking at maybe getting in to performing - soz but you need some grasp of the industry for this

  • Anyone under 18. Legal gambling is a large part of this course and you won’t be able to do that part if you’re 7

🔧 What You Get

  • 6× live Zoom workshops (monthly, 3 hrs each - we take breaks so stop whinging)

  • 6× one-on-one check-ins with Kyle (30 to 45 mins) - chat through your show/brainstorm/get feedback/have a whinge about ya mum

  • Templates & tools: grant applications, budgets, timelines

  • Peer community: group chat, support, feedback - we make a blood oath that we’re like the Bra Boys but for fringe producing skills

  • Deadlines: real ones, like festival rego + grant rounds. Some homework required between sessions but it’s literally for your show

  • A final pitchable show plan ready for production

💸 The Deal

  • 🎟️ $100 for the entire 6 month program (or if you’re actually really really povo but still keen send me an email and we’ll sort something out)

  • 🧪 This is a pilot round — this price will go up in future versions if I don’t get funding to subsidise future places… or if the whole things turns out to be a shit idea and no one’s interested then price won’t go up and neither will the course lol

  • ⏳ 8–10 spots available

  • 📅 Starts July 6 2025

  • 💬 Applications close 30 June 2025

🙋‍♂️ Who’s Running This?

Hello, I’m Kyle Walmsley.

I’ve made stuff around Australia and some of it was good and a lot of it was shit. I’ve worked inside arts orgs and I’ve also tried to tear one or two down.
I’ve produced, performed, failed, succeeded, burned out, recovered and figured some stuff out.

  • I’ve got a Master’s Degree in Business (Arts & Cultural Management)

  • I’m an actor but I don’t make a whole thing of it, ya know? Like it’s just something people are really impresssed by when they find out.

  • I’ve worked around Australia with companies like HotHouse Theatre, Flying Fruit Fly Circus, Corrugated Iron Youth Arts, Canberra Youth Theatre, Starlight Chihldren’s Foundation and Camp Quality

  • I’ve performed nationally, trained internationally and caused enough creative fires (both inspirational and dumpster) to be on an RFS watchlist

So I don’t know everything but I do know some things and I wish someone had shared a few more of those somethings with me when I was a bit more fresh.

So if you, like me, are full of ideas but a bit constipated in delivering them - let me be your creative laxative.

Speaking of raw sewerage, I make tiktoks here.

But.. Kyle… you’re not typically this selfless or generous, remember when you used to read the newspaper for blind people for Vision Australia Radio in Albury? That was probably the last time you volunteered for a community cause and that was about 10 years ago and helped approximately no people. I’m suspicious and wondering what you want from me…???

…well… now you’ve brought it up…

I would like to run something like this in future and for it to actually pay me adequately. To do this, I would either need to secure funding to subsidise participant access costs (my 1st preference) or I would need to make everyone who in future pay a bit more to do it (my 2nd preference) but either way I need testimonials and a group of desperate, beautiful, cheapskates willing to test this with me for the first time. I want this course to have someone organically say “Thanks to kyle and a successful fringe season I was able to earn 10 times my investment in the course. Wow, i was so happy to be a part of this course - I highly recommend! Thank you creative laxative, Kyle!”.

The price of this pilot round goes towards covering the costs associated with things like Zoom subscriptions, cloud storage and other platforms to deliver the program.

We’re going to make your idea, that thing that you always talk about wanting to do, something you’ve done

🚀 Ready? Here’s a timeline of things to come…

TODAY - right now - you fill in the form by clicking ‘apply now’ below - and if selected you pay a hundred bucks

June — apps close

July — successful 8-10 apps chosen. the rest are burnt in a pile and i email them saying “aww sorry not this time hun”. I also ask you for a hundred bucks, because you are one of the successful ones, and now is the time to pay for this opportunity

July — we begin - session 1

Aug — session 2

Sep — session 3

Oct — session 4

Nov — session 5

Dec — session 6: think how well we’ll know each other by this time!

Jan — session 7: you’re almost there, kiddo!

Feb — session 8: Adelaide Fringe - you did it! you actually flippen did it!

If you can’t make a session, the recording will be made available to rewatch at a later time.

The apply now button below will open a Google Form you need to complete.