Results tagged “thefringe”

Back before the turn of the century, and concurrent with the spread of air conditioning in Off-Off Broadway theaters, theater buffs John Clancy and Elena K. Holy seized a golden opportunity to exploit the only brief lull in New York’s raging theater scene – when conventional wisdom held that no slob stuck in town during mid-August would want to get stickier in a stuffy theater up two flights of stairs. And so The New York International Fringe Festival slouched toward downtown to be born. Now in its 11th year, and with smash hits like Urinetown under its belt, FringeNYC has swelled to Category 4 proportions – featuring 188 productions in some 20 theaters, it’s expected to make landfall as early as tomorrow! [Disclosure: We participated in the festival in ‘02 and ’04.]

THEATER: The Fringe Festival is over and pretty much every stage in town is dark tonight, but the Abingdon Theater Co. is producing a reading of Stephen Cone's Lacrimosa, about an famed evangelist and his wife who seclude themselves in their big mansion, thinking the Second Coming is near, but instead a strange girl arrives, and the evangelist's volatile brother, and with them all the problems and craziness of our mixed-up world, jolting them from their comfortable complacency. This reading will be even more interesting because minster and evangelical expert Cathy Gilliard is on hand for a talk-back. - Mallory Jensen

In case you haven’t been counting down, today marks the beginning of the New York International Fringe Festival, the country’s largest theatre festival! Though ten years is typically the amount of time people say one needs to be in New York before being a “New Yorker,” the Fringe Festival has had such an impact on the downtown Broadway theatre scene that, were it a human, it probably would have attained resident status without anything near such a delay. But this year is its tenth anniversary, so it’s official, and there are tons of great-looking shows to see to celebrate. Not only are there the usual 200+ new plays and musicals showing at 21 different venues below 14th Street, they’ve also brought back a number of Fringe “alumni” – favorites from years past such as The Bicycle Men (a musical comedy from LA that was in the ’04 Fringe), The Complete Lost Works of Samuel Beckett… (a riff by Chicago’s Neo-Futurists that won raves in 2000), and Daniel MacIvor’s play Never Swim Alone, of ’99 vintage. Over the next couple of weeks we’ll be bringing you brief reviews of as many shows as we can possibly see, as well as reports on various extra Fringe happenings (there are panels, free outdoor performances, and speed painting) and some glimpses behind the scenes, but you should definitely go to the festival’s website and check out the listings (programs are also available at Borders stores in the city). With shows like Corleone: The Shakespeare Godfather, The Fartiste, Muscle-Man vs. Skeletonman: A Love Story…The Musical, The Happiness of Schizophrenia and Walmartopia, we can’t imagine you’ll have any difficulty finding something to spark your interest, even if you’re not normally much of a “theatre person.” Lower Manhattan will be overrun by Fringe-goers for the duration of the festival, so give in and join the madness!

yamaholiday!

As we head into the final weekend of FringeNYC, Gothamist finds ourselves thinking two things: First, we're incredibly surprised at how enjoyable so many of this year's Fringe festival shows have been. Certainly we have managed to attend only a fraction of the complete offerings, but as samplings go, we have to give this year's organizers some props.

The Fringe is upon us! Since Gothamist is sure you’re every bit as psyched as we are, but less sure that others have as much time to spend poring over programs and schedules, here’s the essentials of what you need to know to get around the festival and see the coolest of this year’s batch (in our opinion, at least). You can always go to the Fringe website FringeNYC.org for the official take on it, too.

The Fringe Festival is coming soon, this means that approximately 200 companies will be bringing over 1300 performances to 20 venues in 16 days. Tonight Rule of 3 Productions is hosting a benefit for This Isn't Working, which was accepted into Fringe and now wants to celebrate that fact and raise some money to finance the production.

It was sheer coincidence that Gothamist made plans to see the new musical at the Fringe Festival the night before Little Steven�s Garage Rock Festival, but the timing was sweet. What a great way to get revved up for the big rock show (which also kicked ass, we might add).