Detroit Fringe Festival Kicks Off Next Week

CMAP (Carrie Morris Arts Production) has announced the return of the much anticipated 'Detroit Fringe Festival'. Now in its sixth year, this grassroots performing arts festival has featured the work of over 200 artists, highlighting new and work-in-progress creations from Michigan playwrights and performers. Spanning 4-days at different venues in Detroit and Hamtramck this year's Fest runs Thursday to Sunday, September 19 - 22.

Each year an advisory council of local arts professionals select performances from a pool of applicants, after a month-long open call. This 'selection by peers' fosters a wholly unique and diverse spotlight on the performing arts landscape here in Southeastern Michigan. Selected participants are not only given material stipends and production assistance but more importantly the Fest creates a marketed and oftentimes sold-out platform to showcase their work to the public at large.

Scott Crandall a local, Hamtramck-based, performance artist who was selected to showcase his cocollaborated works in 2018, and again this year, expressed gratitude for the opportunity as an emerging artist in Southeast Michigan: "Detroit Fringe Festival is a fantastic opportunity to show my work, and a rare chance to have a paid and fully produced show as an emerging artist. It's also a great way to be inspired by other Detroit artists!"

This year, the Fest will soft-launch at The Jam Handy on Thursday, September 19 with Emergency INDEX, which is an annual performance publication, published by Ugly Duckling Presse, documenting a wide range of performance events in the words of their creators. To celebrate the launch of the digital edition of Volume 7, a group of Detroit artists will offer a "state of the field" view by re-staging, reinterpreting, and re presenting performance works made elsewhere in the preceding year.

Official Performance Line-up:

• Cloud Spinner: An Environmental Fairytale by: Black and Brown Theatre
• New Works for Clock Chime Rod Boxes by: Frank Pahl, with Terri Sarris
• There Will Be A Test by: Thank You So Much For Coming
• Aztec Traditions as Cultural Resistance by: Kiauitzin ix Arriaga
• The Unrecordables by: Joo Won Park, with an electronic ensemble by: EMEWS
• Latin American Prayers by: Karilú Forshee, with guitarist Steve Jarosz
• The failure of Demetrius by: James Abbott
• AtattaratattA - traveling through... dimensional portals to... written, directed, and produced by: North as Iris Rainbow, with puppetry by North and Fenris Mar
• The Adventures of Georgina Ginger Snap Washington by: Madelyn Etzcorn and Scott Crandall
• The Fly & Incredibly Dope Adventures of Tyrone Jenkins by: Darius Buckley
• Welcome Back by: Shaina and Bryan Baira
• Puppet Suit by: John Wood
• Romeo & Juliet Meet the Hatfields & the McCoys by: Nancy Florkowski & Motor City Youth Theater
• To Begin, Organize in Layers by: Monica Brady-Barnard/Among Women
• When the Moon Yells by: Shawntai Brown
• The Whore of Shomron: A Love Story by: Angela G. King, directed by: Lillian Washington

2026 Theater Fans' Choice Awards - Live Stats

Best Sound Design - Top 3

1. Adam Fisher - The Lost Boys

30.4% of votes

2. John Shivers - Chess

15.6% of votes

3. Tony Gayle - Two Strangers (Carry a Cake Across New York)

8.3% of votes

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