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At the end of a performance of "Songs for a New World," members of Walt Whitman High School's drama club received a standing ovation, a not entirely out-of-the-ordinary gesture for a high school performance.

But the group was in Scotland, not Bethesda, thousands of miles away from the usual friendly faces at Whitman's theater.

A group of 17 students from the high school traveled this August to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, an international arts festival held in Edinburgh, Scotland, where they performed "Songs for a New World" an abstract musical, to four nearly-full houses.

"People shot out of their seats," said Emily Madden, a 14-year-old sophomore. "Then it occurred to me that they loved our show so much. These people really appreciated all the work."

Last September, the students began fundraising, trying to raise the total $150,000 it would cost to travel across the Atlantic, pay for a theater, pay for the rights to put on a production of the musical, stay in hotels, buy food, and other expenses.

Students held bake sales, citrus sales, a theater camp for younger students over spring break, and solicited family, friends and area businesses. Some students worked side jobs to help pay for their expenses.

Director Christopher Gerken said after fundraising the trip cost between $3,000 and $6,500 per student.

The cast rehearsed every Saturday, in addition to their schoolwork and preparation for the usual school productions.

Despite the monetary and time sacrifices, the students said the trip was well worth it.

"Bethesda is a wonderful community, but it can be a bit suffocating," said Clayton Smith, a 17-year-old senior. "But getting to perform in front of the world made me a lot more secure in who I am, and my talents."

The festival, which started in 1947, takes place for three weeks every August. More than 300 different theater and arts spaces are used during the festival to house 100 theater groups, and the city's population swells from just more than 500,000 residents to nearly 1.5 million during the event.

While not performing, the students were able to take in other productions by high school and professional theater troupes, as well as do some sight-seeing in Scotland and England.

Outside of their own performances, the group generally settled on one act that, in their words, was "beautiful and mind-blowing": "Phantomysteria."

A 45-minute long "post-apocalyptic interpretative dance," as one student put it, "Phantomysteria" expressed everything that the Fringe Festival was all about: outlandishness, beauty, and, in some cases, confusion.

"To this day I have no idea what it was about," Smith said.

As for their own performances, the students said they couldn't have gone any better. "Songs for a New World" is originally written as a four person show, but Gerken expanded it to nine so more students could be involved.

And while at Whitman students have the luxury of making elaborate sets, time and space restraints prompted the eight members of the show's technical crew to think outside the box.

They eventually settled on digital imagery and lights, which could be easily transported.

"We're so familiar with Whitman theater, but this was completely different," said Sara Carbonneau, a 17-year-old senior. "We had to get a very quick lesson and just go with it."

Madden said that while at Whitman the theater is filled with friends and family, the 125-person crowd at the Demarco Roxy Art House was full of strangers, changing their perspectives on the performances.

"Of all the shows they could possibly see, they chose our show," she said. "I just wanted to give them the best show I could give."