New York International Fringe Festival begins

 

The New York International Fringe Festival begins this Friday, August 14th.  In years past, the start of the annual festival wouldn’t necessarily have piqued my interest.  But recently, the Fringe has provided the opportunity to see a high volume of quality theatre.

The festival still suffers from one major problem, but there’s nothing they can really do about it: there’s just so much theatre to see that it’s difficult to know what’s worth a look.  And, producers have traditionally tried to stand out from the crowd with eye-catching titles or quirky musicals.  Year after year, it seems there is an onslaught of shows with names like Cheerleader Sluts In Hell, or Attack of the Zombie People (An Existentialist Farce).  Everyone wants to be the next Urinetown, the only Fringe Festival participant to go on to a Broadway run, and yes, a quirky musical with an eye-catching title.

In early years of the festival, plays occasionally also suffered from the lack of a desirable venue (theatre spaces are assigned by the festival).  No matter how good your play is, it’s hard to convince people to see anything in an out of the way space with no air conditioning.  In August.  In New York.

Well, imagine my surprise to find that the first show on the calendar – the show that ostensibly opens the festival with a 5:00 curtain this Friday (although the Fringe Festival isn’t organized that way) – is a straight play, with four characters, called, simply, Look After You, and it’s at the Soho Playhouse.  The play, about a young couple dealing with the additional pressures brought on by a medical emergency, is the debut effort of playwright Louise Flory.  It is being presented by Maieutic Theatre Works, who had a hit at last year’s Fringe Festival with Anais Nin Goes To Hell, and whose production of The Oath I wrote about earlier in this space.  Look After You is directed by David Stallings, the Artistic Director of Maieutic Theatre Works, with a cast consisting of Jason Altman, Lowell Byers, Adi Kurtchik and Louise Flory.

Once you find a show that interests you like that, the key is to buy tickets quickly.  The Fringe Festival shows generally only get five performances (dates and times are assigned as well), and, as a result, the festival has taken shape as a launching pad for producers to find the next Urinetown for a longer run elsewhere.  That’s the reason why a quick perusal of the festival schedule will reveal that more and more Broadway performers and theatre heavyweights are showing up in Fringe shows.

For more information about Look After You, check out www.lookafteryoutheplay.com, and for information about the New York International Fringe Festival, you can find it at www.fringenyc.org.