The 17th annual The New York International Fringe Festival (FringeNYC), the largest multi-arts festival in North America, will run today, August 9 - 25, 2013. The festival offers programming from 185 of the world's best emerging theatre troupes and dance companies in 20 venues in downtown Manhattan. With attendance topping 75,000 people, FringeNYC is New York City's fifth largest event (just behind New York International Auto Show, Tribeca Film Festival, New York City Marathon, and New York Comic Con).
The 185 shows in FringeNYC 2013 represent 13 countries (including Spain, Sweden, Italy, Japan, Holland, Bulgaria, Slovakia and Australia) and 17 U.S. states (including New Jersey, California, Illinois, Ohio, Utah, Florida, Missouri and Minneapolis). Shows represent an array of genres including drama, comedy, classical theater, dance, performance art, puppetry, clowning, and children's theater. Titles include A Fallopian Fairy Tale, Not Another Teen Solo Show, The TomKat Project, Waiting for Waiting For Godot, Cowboys Don't Sing: A Western Musical, The Accidental Hamlet, Naked in Alaska, Occupy Olympus, The Dead Hooker Play, and What's Your Opinion on Spontaneous Human Combustion? A complete schedule of performances is available at
www.FringeNYC.org.
The 20 venues hosting FringeNYC events in 2013 include The
Lynn Redgrave Theater,
Players Theatre, CSV Cultural Center, The C.O.W, Connelly Theater, Theatre 80, The Theater at The 14th Street Y, Teatro Circulo, SubCulture, 440 Studios, Jimmy's No. 43, The Kraine, and La MaMa as well as FringeCentral and an outdoor FringeAlFresco location.
FringeNYC is a production of The
Present Company, under the leadership of Producing Artistic Director Elena K. Holy. In 1997, New York became the seventh U.S. city to host a fringe festival, joining Seattle, Chicago, Minneapolis, Houston, Orlando and San Francisco. FringeNYC has presented over 3000 performing groups representing every continent, prompting Switzerland's daily, New Zurich Zeitung, to declare FringeNYC as "the premiere meeting ground for alternative artists." In 2007, FringeNYC was honored by
Michael Bloomberg with the Mayor's Award for Arts & Culture for "showcasing the best and boldest theater and performance."
FringeNYC has also been the launching pad for numerous Off-Broadway and Broadway transfers, long-running downtown hits, and regional
Theater Productions including Urinetown, Matt & Ben, Never Swim Alone, Debbie Does Dallas, Dog Sees God, Brandon Teena, Dixie's Tupperware Party, 21 Dog Years, Bash'd, The Irish Curse, Jurassic Parq, The Fartiste, Silence! The Musical and 5 Lesbians Eating a Quiche; movies including WTC View and Armless; and even a TV show ('da Kink in My Hair). FringeNYC alumni include
Bradley Cooper,
Morgan Spurlock (Supersize Me,
One Direction's This Is Us, CNN's Inside Man),
Mindy Kaling (The Mindy Project), Tony Award winner
Diane Paulus (Pippin), W. Kamau Bell (Totally Biased), Dan O'Brien (NBC's Whitney),
Michael Urie (Ugly Betty) and Naomi Grossman (American Horror Story), among countless other success stories.
FringeNYC shows run 2pm - midnight weekdays and noon - midnight on weekends. Tickets are $15 in advance ($18 at the door) available beginning July 19 at
www.FringeNYC.org or 866-468.7619. Discount passes for multiple shows (including the Fiver and the Lunatic Pass) are also available. For more information visit
www.FringeNYC.org.
