The 9th annual New York International Fringe Festival (FringeNYC), the largest multi-arts festival in North America, will run from August 12th to 28th; it will feature programming by nearly 180 of the world's best emerging theatre troupes and dance companies from 8 countries including Korea, Australia, Italy, Denmark and France and 22 US states including Alaska, Hawaii, North Carolina, Texas, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Colorado, and Minnesota.
The shows will be presented in twenty venues in Lower Manhattan, including The Players Theatre, The Village Theater, P.S. 122, The Flea, Ace of Clubs, Lucille Lortel, 13th Street Repertory Company, Collective: Unconscious, SoHo Rep and The Connelly with performances encompassing theater, performance art, dance, children's theater, spoken word, puppetry, and multimedia. Nearly 70,000 people are expected to attend the this year's FringeNYC, which is a production of The Present Company, under Producing Artistic Director Elena K. Holy.The Fringe Festival was founded in 1997, when New York City followed the leads of Seattle, Chicago, Minneapolis/St. Paul, Houston, Orlando and San Francisco. In its first eight years, FringeNYC has presented over 1500 performing groups from the U.K., Canada, Poland, Ireland, Japan, Singapore, Germany, the Czech Republic and across the U.S. The festival has also launched numerous Off-Broadway and Broadway transfers, long-running downtown hits, and regional theater productions including Urinetown, Never Swim Alone, Last Train to Nibroc, Debbie Does Dallas, The Joys of Sex, Pith!, Sides: The Fear is Real and Matt & Ben.
Tickets to FringeNYC will go on sale on Saturday, July 30th. Tickets to all shows are $15 each; multi-show discount passes are also available. For more information call 212-279-4488 (inside NY) or 1-888-FringeNYC (outside NY). A complete guide to the festival is now available online in several formats at www.fringenyc.org.