CMU School of Drama


Friday, March 31, 2017

Pittsburgh Fringe Festival returns to the North Side

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette: When it comes to the Pittsburgh Fringe Festival, it’s easy to say when it is: Friday through Sunday.

It’s also pretty easy to say where: At four venues on the North Side.

But Fringe Festival is what?

That’s more difficult to say, even for someone who should know: executive director Xela Batchelder.

2 comments:

David Kelley said...

Fringe festival have always been interesting to me, this not necessarily that I love them but rather it is the type of theater that I more often either love and enjoy watching or the type of show that I think show be purged from the festival for just being that awful. And it is this reaction to it that has always fascinated me and lead me to do some small small work with people in Philly Fringe and it's most definitely a different animal. That being said I wonder what the fringe festival here is like? Because while Philadelphia may be a bigger city and have more universities than Pittsburgh (which tend to lend well to the fringe crowd), Pittsburgh's theater community feels far more active and vibrant. I wonder how or if that vibrancy will translate into Pittsburgh Fringe? Now to see if I can get tickets and if I'm going to be able to carve some time away to go see some shows.

wnlowe said...

This article is really interesting to me specifically because I thought I understood what a fringe festival is, but now I have many more questions. For example, are fringe festivals the same everywhere, or do some have different set-ups and guidelines than others? What is the oldest one in the US and is Pittsburgh’s surprisingly new or is that about right? Pittsburgh is usually considered one of the leaders in theater in the US, so such a new fringe festival would be interesting. I thought they were new plays or adaptations from local companies celebrating theater, but at least for Pittsburgh, this is not true. When I was younger I thought they just consisted of Shakespeare plays, but I have learned that to be quite false. I currently have an application out to capital fringe which is exciting because I have always heard of it and at least I want to go see it this summer.