Experimental theater festival celebrates 20 years in San Francisco
The Fringe Festival returns for its 20th consecutive year in downtown San Francisco, running from September 7-18 at the EXIT Theater and selected satellite stages.
Fringe Festivals are hosted all over the world and present short theater or staged art pieces with an open-genre emphasis, low ticket price and many one-hour or less performances.
The San Francisco festival keeps to its “fringe” tradition with special ardor — small and large theater companies are selected to perform via the SF Fringe lottery, which “supports artists of all genres and experiences,” according to festival guide booklet.
Pure luck gets a theater company a slot in the festival, allowing a huge variety of performance styles to make it to the spotlight.
To further support the artists, ticket prices are affordable, so patrons can see many shows. All of the box office proceeds go directly to the performers.
“The Fringe Festival gives performers the opportunity to do their own thing; it’s a place where first time and long term professionals work for years perfecting their craft” EXIT Theatre Publicist Gary Carr said.
With over 44 shows in 12 days the festival features monologues, original plays, improv, a wide variety of musicals, dance and the wildly unexpected. The schedule is stacked in slots each night or day and patrons may attend as many as nine performances in a single day.
The San Francisco Fringe organizers also provide a space and platform for theater companies who perform in the streets for anyone who shows up.
This year a non-traditional free performance in a dumpster at an unspecific location near the EXIT Theatre will introduce “the newest trend of 21st century living… the High End Dumpster home” to anyone who happens to stumble upon it, according to the program guide.
“Elite Waste” by Oakland’s Gregory Kloeh performs Saturday and Sunday, “but exact location depends on where they can park it (the dumpster) each day,” said Carr in an email.
The festival brings local and non-local performers to one of the four EXIT Theatre stages in the Tenderloin District. While the majority of theater companies are San Francisco-based, Los Angeles, Oakland, New York and Missouri are also represented. One of the free shows, “The Madogs of Diego” is travelling from Mauritius, an island in the middle of the Indian Ocean.
City College’s Theater Arts Department is excited about the upcoming festival.
“It’s a cheap way to see plays that are up and running,” Director and Scenic Designer John Wilk said.
“It’s a great resource for people to get their work out there and see the audience’s reaction to it,” he added.
Wilk himself has directed 30 plays, three of which have appeared at The Edinburgh International Festival in Scotland, from which the Fringe Festival was derived. He brought “Redwood Curtain,” “Metamorphosis” and “Savage Love” to the Scottish art festival, the world’s largest, which runs for four weeks in August.
Susan Jackson, theatre department faculty, acted and directed the play “Blessings” which got into the top ten best shows in the San Francisco Fringe in 2009.
This year, City College students are participating in the festival box office, as volunteers and as actors.
Simon Warner is acting in “Attachments,” which include “FIT” and “ON A BENCH,” a two-part play which focuses on the unusual inhabitants of the City of Angels and the City that Never Sleeps.
“The theater department has a lot of work on our hands putting on our own productions for the school, but the students usually participate at Fringe,” Wilk said.
In 2002, former students premiered their production at the festival, “The Rape Poems,” which they created from Frances Driscoll’s book entitled “Rape Poems.” The play went on to the Edinburgh Fringe that same year.
Once at the festival, make sure to check out the “Execution of Nancy Drew in Waco Texas,” by a San Francisco local production company who is Fringing for the seventh time, and 2010 festival winner for Best Musical Revue, “Joe’s Cafe” which returns to San Francisco from New York.
“The Fringe Festival is a place where you get to see things that won’t be done anywhere else; its wide-open and uncensored,” Carr proclaims.
While tickets are usually $10 or less at the door, and frequent fringer passes are good for five shows for $40, the festival also encourages the community to volunteer at the festival which allows patrons to be part of the events and see performances for free.
The full 12-day festival schedule and volunteering information is at www.sffringe.org.
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