The Tucson Fringe Theater Festival is six years old.
And it’s showing its age.
The annual theaterpalooza, which unfolds here Jan. 13-15, just keeps getting bigger.
Fringe festivals — there are about 70 around the world, all independent and unique — present plays written by tested and untested playwrights.
Among the signs of the Tucson Fringe’s growth:
- In 2011, there were 12 entries. This year, there were 40.
- In that inaugural year, six plays were presented over a weekend, all by Tucsonans. There are 19 this year, and the majority of playwrights are from other states — that’s an indication of the local event’s growing attraction and prestige.
- About 400 attended the festival in that first year. Last year, attendance was at 800, says Maryann Green, the president of the Tucson Fringe board.
“It’s really exciting,” says Green about the festival. “We’re bringing something to Tucson that no one else is bringing.”
Here’s how fringe festivals work: A playwright submits an entry, it’s thrown into a hat and participants are randomly picked. For an artist, it means the chance to expand and experiment.
“We give them a place to take an artistic risk,” says Green.
For an audience, it means unfiltered, uncensored, brand new theater at an affordable price. The plays run the gamut: comedies, dramas, musicals, even magic. Some pieces may soar, some may not; that’s part of the thrill of a fringe fest.
The Tucson festival’s growth is a good sign: It has the potential to become a major arts event that draws playwrights, actors and, especially, tourists. And that means a hefty economic boost for Tucson.
Don’t scoff.
The granddaddy of all Fringe Fests, the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, features artists and audiences from around the world. A study found that the 2015 festival had a $347 million impact on Edinburgh, Scotland, and attendance topped 1 million, the majority of those visitors to the city.
Granted, Edinburgh’s fest is 70 years old, takes place over three weeks and last year the massive event had 50,266 performances of 3,269 shows in 294 venues.
But hey, who’s to say Tucson’s festival can’t grow like that?
Economic impact is important, but fringe festivals offer something much more important than money: art.
“Art is a nation’s most precious heritage,” President Lyndon B. Johnson said when he created the National Endowment for the Arts.
“For it is in our works of art that we reveal to ourselves and to others the inner vision which guides us as a nation. And where there is no vision, the people perish.”
It’s a glut of theater with the Fringe Fest, but Green says with a good spread sheet and careful planning, you can see them all.
Green is a veteran Fringe Fester — she first got hooked on them when she attended the Edinburgh festival years ago. Her best advice for catching plays: Pick the three or four you definitely want to see and build your schedule around them.
Picking three or four might be tough. The offerings sound enticing. Among them:
- “Meet Your Realtor” is about an aging real estate agent who battles the market and sabotaging competitors to try make a living selling homes. The comedy is by Sherrie Martin from Spokane, Washington, and she knows what she’s talking about: she’s a Realtor who hustles for the next sale.
- “Vaudeville” comes from the imagination of Salt Lake City-based Elias “Lefty” Caress, who incorporates magic, comedy and all sorts of mysterious elements into his show.
- Shamed Olympic ice skater Tonya Harding and her quest for redemption after her involvement with an attack on a fellow skater are at the center of,“The Love Song of Tonya Harding.” It’s written and performed by New York playwright Clara Elser.
- Lion Fludd hails from Las Vegas, where he works his magic for a living. In his piece, “The Hustle,” which he also performs, he tells about his journey “from the streets to the strip,” according to press materials.
If you go
The 2017 Tucson Fringe Theater Festival will be staged at Hotel Congress, 311 E. Congress St., Zuzi, 738 N. 5th Ave.; The Flycatcher, 360 E. 6th St., and The Screening Room, 127 E. Congress St. Tickets are $10 each; passes are also available at various prices. For a full schedule and descriptions of the plays, go to tucsonfringe.org
Did you know
The Tucson Fringe Theater Festival was founded by long-time friends and University High School graduates Sara Habib and Yasmine Jahanmir. Habib manages a travel company in Tucson and Jahanmir is working on her Ph.D. in theater at University of California Santa Barbara. Both continue to be deeply involved in the non-profit festival.
