ESL ROCHESTER FRINGE FESTIVAL to Feature 297 Productions in 15th Season

The ESL Rochester Fringe Festival held its annual “Big Reveal” has announced the full lineup for the 2026 Fringe, which takes place September 15 – 26.

Rochester's not-for-profit Fringe has become one of the largest, most successful, and most prominent fringe festivals in the nation, the largest multidisciplinary performing arts festivals in New York State, and one of the region's most anticipated festivals each year. The 2026 Fringe will feature 715 performances of 297 productions at 45 venue locations in just 12 days.

This comes after a record-breaking year for show applications, resulting in returning favorites, festival debuts and major U.S. premieres of Children's, Comedy, Dance, Multidisciplinary & Circus, Music, Spoken Word, Theatre, and Visual Arts & Film. This large-scale programming for everyone to enjoy is only made possible by funding from community sponsors.

“As we celebrate our second year as title sponsor of the ESL Rochester Fringe Festival, we're pleased to stand alongside a festival that has become an honored tradition in Rochester's arts landscape,” said ESL Federal Credit Union President & CEO, Tom Rogers. “We're proud to honor Fringe's 15th Anniversary this year and support their annual multi-day event that brings people together through creativity, connection, and shared experiences while also strengthening our local community and showcasing the very best of our city.”

During today's press conference, Founding Festival Producer and CEO Erica Fee said, “We are a festival that continues to present in unexpected ways. We push boundaries and we make the impossible, possible!”

Tickets for all events go on sale TODAY at 12 NOON at rochesterfringe.com or on the ESL Rochester Fringe Festival App, which is available for download from the Apple App Store or Google Play Store.

CIRCUS IN THE CITY

Each year, Rochester Fringe invites audiences to bring a sense of adventure, curiosity and wonder, and offers a dizzying array of ways to experience performances. The Fringe is often described by attendees as a 12-day “circus,” and it makes sense! The circus is widely known as the greatest show on earth, captivating audiences with spectacular performances and filling the air with excitement and anticipation. Rochester Fringe does that, too! This year, it's upping the ante by bringing CIRCUS IN THE CITY to Fringe.

CIRCUS IN THE CITY is a “festival within a festival” that will last the full 12 days of Fringe and is made possible through a Market New York grant awarded by Empire State Development and I LOVE NY, New York State's Division of Tourism. CIRCUS IN THE CITY will include free outdoor events, circus arts, street theater, interactive experience and fun themed food and beverages. This will also be the first-ever large-scale collection of outdoor circus performances in Western New York.

FRIDAY & SATURDAY ON THE FRINGE: Circus arts performances at the festival will reach a peak during Friday & Saturday on the Fringe, which takes place during the first full weekend of the festival in the afternoons and evenings on Friday, September 18 and Saturday, September 19. International Artists will join US-based performers (and some local favorites!) to put on spectacular shows across public spaces in the city of Rochester from Gibbs Street to Parcel 5. All shows will be completely FREE to the public with special performances by:

• SUMMER BREAK by FLIP FABRIQUE: A circus company based in Québec City, Canada. This troupe is renowned around the world for its beloved production and an uncanny ability to have fun and move the audience. It is composed of world-class artists and the troupe crafts contemporary circus shows, including SUMMER BREAK, which will be free at Rochester Fringe. In addition to its large-scale shows presented every summer in Québec City since 2015, the troupe is performing around the globe in the most prestigious circus institutions and festivals.
• THE PIECES by ALOFT: At Rochester Fringe this year, THE PIECES by Aloft—an acrobatic circus show where six artists explore eight ordinary ladders to build towers, cranes and bridges. Alone the ladders and the artists are wobbly, unsure and unstable, but in a metaphor for our times, when they come together they are strong, brave and can achieve great things. In a cultural moment defined by division and noise, The Pieces offers something physical and immediate: a reminder that resilience is built collectively, and that strength is not domination, but support.
•  FLOTSAM & JETSAM by BIG TEETH COLLECTIVE: Big Teeth Collective presents the physical theater piece, FLOTSAM & JETSAM at Fringe, which includes a duo trapeze act with partner acrobatics on an outdoor swinging trapeze rig. Founded in Vermont in 2017, Big Teeth makes funny shows about sad things by way of their favorite medium, the body.
• LOST TO ME by CIRCUS EVO: There is a unique power in reclaiming public space. Circus EVO's outdoor activations are designed to transform the familiar into the extraordinary—turning city parks, town squares, and industrial landscapes into breathtaking arenas of wonder. They will offer LOST TO ME by CIRCUS EVO with a Chinese pole performance and live musicians, accessible to all and impossible to forget.
• 3AM THEATRE: People can join 3AM Theatre on the streets in the crepuscular hours of the Rochester Fringe as they bring unforgettable, contemporary circus performances of hand balancing, contortion archery, acro juggling, tightwire, and original music. 3AM is based in New York City.

The allure of the public spectacle draws thousands of people to downtown Rochester each Fringe season. Outdoor arts have been found to consistently attract an audience that is representative of the population as a whole, as they are attracted by the social experience as well as the lack of barriers to experiencing the arts. The ESL Rochester Fringe is the only Fringe Festival in the world that offers such spectacular, large-scale, free public programming.

SPIEGELTENT

The Spiegeltent is a rare, jewel box theater presenting one of the most unique settings to experience theater arts and take in some of the wildest shows Fringe has in the lineup. Today, organizers revealed that the Edinburgh Fringe Festival cult hit, A Young Man Dressed as a Gorilla Dressed as an Old Man Sits Rocking in a Rocking Chair for Fifty-Six Minutes and Then Leaves, is coming to Rochester Fringe for one performance only. Of the experience, Edinburgh Evening News says, “The gorilla is obviously crucial to the event.” The show is scheduled for Thursday, September 17 at 9 p.m. in the Spiegeltent. People are encouraged to turn up early, as admission is free and seating is on a first come basis.

The Spiegeltent will also offer a spectacular way for audiences to enjoy more CIRCUS IN THE CITY programming. Las Vegas legends and Fringe favorites Matt and Heidi Morgan act as the ring leaders to a world premiere of Cirque du Fringe: Anchors Away. This murder mystery takes place on a cruise ship with all new acts, never seen before at Rochester Fringe. Audiences will ask themselves, “Is there a doctor in the house?!?” And, they may just need one! There is heart stopping entertainment aboard by a crew willing to whisk you away on the voyage of a lifetime. The show features miraculous acrobatic feats, mesmerizing aerialists, and…dun dun dunnnnnn, murder!?!? The cast includes world-renowned circus arts performers, including: Ashley Wolffe (Aerialist), Sai'len Jaegar (Aerialist), Maria Brown (Glass Balancer), Owen Sanchez (Hand Balancer, Chair Stacker), Esmerlada Onofre Sanchez (Slack Wire Hula Hoop Artists) and Seth Ingram (5x World Champion Jump Rope Artist), with credits from Atomic Saloon Show, Circus Circus, Cirque Mechanics, Teatro ZinZanni, Spiegelworld, NBA halftime shows and the World Circus Arts Championships in Las Vegas.

The multi-award-deserving deadpan Frenchman is back in the Spiegeltent with his acclaimed interactive, late-night show Marcel Lucont's Whine List.  In it, he serves up a unique Whine List from the audience's past woes and misdemeanors. A kind of group therapy experience, but one where everybody will probably leave more depressed. As seen on BBC1's “The John Bishop Show,” Comedy Central's “Live At The Comedy Store,” and Sky Atlantic's “Set List.” Marcel Lucont will also present an international Fringe family-favorite, Marcel Lucont: Les Enfants Terribles—a Gameshow for Awful Children. People will enjoy late-night at the Fringe with Shotspeare! They're putting the “lit” in literature with an adaptation of Shakespeare's Othello…soaking it in beer and flipping it on its head!

THE GARDEN STUDIO

Fringe programming supports a range of artists from local favorites to new and emerging talents. New this year to Rochester Fringe is The Garden Studio, which is a second performing arts space that has been added to Dawn's Spiegelgarden at One Fringe Place. The Garden Studio is a studio size theater space that offers a more intimate environment for shows with up to 60 audience members.

2026 Fringe highlights in The Garden Studio include: Just to Be Close to You by Cam Poter in a 10x award-winning contemporary clown show featuring dreamy lounge-singer, Carl Poteraychke. In 2026, the show has been awarded Best of Fringe New Zealand Fringe and Audience Choice Award Clown at Denver Fringe. Equal parts absurdist idiocy and heartfelt longing, the show combines contemporary clown, character comedy, and audience interaction for a night designed to tickle the senses. The artistry of creator and performer Jessica Creane is on full display with Tea Party at the End of the World, a small-audience, multi-sensory experience inviting participants to remain playful in dire circumstances. Guests of this intimate tea party are presented with exquisite tea and parlor games. Inspired by the creator's time in the Arctic Circle, the ritual comfort of loose-leaf tea, and the unfathomable cost that being alive in a beautiful and disappearing world, exacts on our ability to connect and find purpose. Rochester Fringe lovers know the name “Bushwhacked” as the amazingly talented comedic duo who serves up wild and whacky experiences every year, this time with Bushwhacked: Big Joy Fun Time Revival. It's an interactive, high-energy comedy spectacle hosted by the wildly charismatic Tim and Pammy Shea Fakker who will lead audiences through absurd testimonials, musical numbers and miraculous transformations (and there's a “boozy” version).

Site Specific Shows

The Fringe embraces immersive, unorthodox theatre and its ability to engage audiences in unexpected and often far-reaching ways. This year, the site-specific shows—productions with a specially adapted location other than a standard theatre—take place across the city of Rochester in parks, forests, campers, along canal trails and in storefront windows. Invisible No More, set in Mt. Hope Cemetery, pays tribute to the hundreds of people from the 19th century almshouse, insane asylum, and penitentiary who were re-buried after their discovery during a 1984 excavation of Highland Park. In Forest Music, people wander the trails throughout Washington Grove and experience the magic of live music in the city of Rochester's only old growth forest. The historical Austin Steward Plaza is hosting two shows, including the environmentally conscious EcoVibes – Oil and Water Don't Mix and The Sights and Sounds District, which explores the hidden history of Rochester. A total sell-out eleven years running, Dashboard Dramas XII is an intimate theatre experience unlike any other. People will find themselves immersed in four, all-new ten-minute plays as they rotate from one car to the next. Bushwhacked is also back this year with an all-new immersive experience—Tim and Pammy Shea's Pamper Camper—where people will be blessed by the radiant chaos of this revival of laughter inside one joyful little trailer. Finally, ROC'ing the Streets is a free event that brings local artists and musicians to sidewalks, plazas, parks, and other spaces downtown during the final day of the Fringe.

Family-Favorites

Fringe offers programming for people of all ages, including families and children. Kids Day is a National Day of Play celebration this year with Healthi Kids and the Western NY IPA on Saturday, September 26 with events in the Spiegelgarden and Parcel 5 in downtown Rochester. There will be chalk art, pumpkin painting and Disco Kids. Street Beat regional breakdancing and all-style dance competition at MLK Park rocks the city once again with crazy energy, positive vibes and sick moves on Saturday, September 26, and Gospel Sunday operates on a higher vibrational plane on Sunday, September 20 in the Spiegeltent. Nearly a quarter of the Fringe's 715 performances are completely free. Additionally, Fringe has partnered with the Mary Cariola Center and Center for Disability Rights to have all Fringe venues assessed for accessibility and inclusion.

Fringe Magic: LET'S GO!

The reason Fringe is such an expansive and successful festival is due to the hard work and dedication of the 45 venue partners who curate and host shows at their locations in their traditional and nontraditional spaces every year. The Fringe in Rochester is unique due to our bi-furcated system—or Rochester Model—where both the Fringe organization and local venues curate shows for the festival and are complemented by large-scale, public performances. This results in a highly collaborative and unique mix of performances, where the shows are as unique as the venues themselves. This year, venue shows include world class musicians, renowned dancers and documentarians, alongside emerging, exquisite, exciting, quirky, new talents.  Audiences are in store for everything from dinner theater to even wrestling at Fringe! People can get married in a school, take mass in a bar, or enjoy a sauna at church. They can push boundaries and experience a show completely in the dark or even in the belly of a whale. (We're serious.)

2026 venues include:

Aerial Arts of Rochester, Austin Steward Plaza, Biltmore Bar & Lounge, Blackfriars Theatre, Bop Shop Records, Centerstage Theatre at the JCC, Central Library of Rochester, Century Club at the Strathallan, Downtown United Presbyterian Church, Delmonico and Dugdale, Eastman School of Music, The Focus Theater, Garth Fagan Dance Studio, Genesee Valley Park, George Eastman Museum, Gibbs Street, The Harley School, The Hochstein School, Java's, Joseph Ave Arts and Culture Alliance at the Lincoln Library, Kodak Hall at the Eastman School of Music, La Marketa at the International Plaza, Martin Luther King, Jr. Park, Memorial Art Gallery, Mt. Hope Cemetery, MuCCC, Parcel 5, Photo City Music Hall, The Little, RIT City Art Space, RMSC Strasenburgh Planetarium, RMSC: Garden of Fragrance, ROC Cinema, Roc City Circus, Rochester Contemporary Art Center, The Rose Room, Salena's, School of the Arts, Dawn's Spiegelgarden, Spiegeltent, St. Paul's Episcopal Church, University of Rochester – Sloan Performing Arts Center, Vanni's Jazz Lounge at the Inn on Broadway and Washington Grove.

All of this and so much more will again make the 15th season of Fringe the event of the year–including the previously announced comedy headliner Pete Davidson, performing on Saturday, September 25 at 8pm, at Kodak Hall at Eastman Theatre.

The full 2026 ESL Rochester Fringe Festival program can be found at rochesterfringe.com, where tickets are also available for all events. The printed festival guide will be available in mid-August at all ESL branch locations, as well as in the September issue of CITY Magazine. People can also build their Fringe schedules and purchase tickets with the ESL Rochester Fringe Festival App (Apple App Store or Google Play Store).

The Show Must Go On

To ensure the future and stability of Fringe in Rochester, the organization announced today that it is 84 percent of the way to meeting its first-ever Fringe Comprehensive Campaign goal of $1.575 million. The campaign committee reports that it is in its final stage of fundraising. This endeavor will enable the capital acquisition of a rare Spiegeltent, which is one of the world's most unique performing arts venues and will be available for rental opportunities. To purchase naming opportunities for Spiegeltent booths, stained glass or floorboards, visit rochesterfringe.com. Funds raised during this effort will also be used to support international and domestic artists in bringing their shows to Fringe, as well as provide arts education and built-in reserves so that we can continue to deliver outstanding programming for years to come. 

ABOUT THE ESL ROCHESTER FRINGE FESTIVAL:

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