This summer, 41 students from the Youth Performing Arts School will take what YPAS teacher Georgette Kleier calls “a once-in-a-lifetime, life-altering trip,” when they travel to Scotland for the Edinburgh Festival Fringe.

The Fringe is an internationally known home for new and experimental theater. In 2015, the festival spanned 25 days and held more than 50,000 performances. This year, YPAS students will spend 10 days expanding their artistic borders and will take their place on the international stage when they perform.

But they need your help to get there.

On Friday, Jan. 6, those students will team up with the Frazier History Museum to present a cabaret of your favorite movie musicals. There also is a silent auction and the chance to catch the Frazier’s “White Christmas” exhibit, which features memorabilia from one of the all-time movie musical greats. All proceeds from the event will help fund the trip this summer.

Insider reached out to Kleier, head of the theater department at YPAS, as well as senior musical theater student Caroline Glazier to talk about this weekend’s cabaret and the coming trip.

“The whole thing is that we’re committed to taking everyone one who wants to go, regardless of financial means,” Kleier said. “I mean, we have a couple of parents who can just write a check for $6,000 and not bat an eye, but we have many that cannot.”

That $6,000 price tag is hefty, but it’s worth every penny, Kleier believes. “If we are trying to create global citizens, part of that is creating the artist who responds to the entire world, not just their little, isolated pocket here in Louisville.”

Glazier, meanwhile, has high hopes for performing at Fringe.

“It’s the chance of a lifetime … the Fringe Festival is an amazing opportunity to perform in front of other people who are in love with the arts like I am,” she says.

This isn’t the first time YPAS has gone to Edinburgh. Kleier took a group in 2014 and witnessed the mind-expanding theater experience firsthand. Students will “hear languages spoken they didn’t even know existed,” she said. “I’ve seen shows there from women from India, doing (works) about their own journey escaping from abusive relationships.”

It’s this sort of challenging and original work Kleier wants her students to interact with — and hopefully create. The students will be taking a devised show to Fringe, which means they’ll work together to create an original piece. Their show’s working title is “The America Project,” and it’s based on the method employed by the Tectonic Theater Project, most famous for “The Laramie Project.”

“We’re taking what the Tectonic Theater Project does really well,” Kleier said, “which is interviewing and using primary sources to tell stories.” Those interviews, newspaper articles and material culled from a variety of sources aim to convey truths about the lives of the people the students interview in the process.

You’ll likely get a chance to see “The America Project” on stage this summer. Last time Kleier and the students created a work for Edinburgh, they presented it at the C. Douglass Ramey Amphitheater in Central Park as a preshow entertainment for Kentucky Shakespeare. Kleier is in talks with Kentucky Shakespeare producing director Matt Wallace to make a repeat appearance.

But first, you can see all the students on stage at the Frazier on Friday.

Glazier mentions the effort put in prepping for the show, which involved the students putting in rehearsal time on their own over break.

“It’s been a work in progress, picking the songs out ourselves and getting them approved by Ms. Kleier,” she said, crediting her music teacher with giving her the skills to keep practicing over break. “Thanks to Tim Murner, I know how to plunk my notes out on the piano. He’s awesome.”

Friday’s fundraiser should be high-energy singing and dancing, but the 41 students have been hard at work all year, pulling shifts at the KFC Yum Center and Slugger Field to help raise money. In fact, most times you get a hot dog or beer at one of those venues, you’re probably interacting with a nonprofit group raising funds.

“It’s exhausting … but it’s fun,” Glazier said. She generally spends those shifts as a food and soda runner, since the teenagers aren’t allowed to handle the cash, or the beer. “It’s not easy for anyone to get the money,” she added, referencing the hefty price tag on the trip. But she’s not willing to leave any of her classmates behind. “It’s an ensemble show. And everyone should be able to have this opportunity.”

The show runs 7 to 10 p.m. on Friday, Jan. 6, at the Frazier History Museum, at 829 W. Main St. Tickets are $25.