The Atlanta Fringe Festival begins its festivities with a free preview party on Wednesday, June 5 at 7 Stages Theater. Guests can grab festival guides and take in three minute previews from each act on the 2013 roster.
At $10 per ticket, with discounted multi-day passes available, audiences can enjoy nearly every spectrum of live performance. The Fringe is home to traditional ensemble theater, puppetry, comedic monologues, dance theater, opera and circus performance.
“Our goal is to promote the culture of self-producing theater,to give underground artists more exposure, and to be a platform for audiences to experience something different and original,” Fringe Festival’s executive director Diana Brown said.
Accompanied by a few other local performers, Brown and company began producing small scale stage productions 10 years ago at the Atlanta-based, non-profit Twinhead Theatre. The ensemble, comprised of many former Georgia State students, started as an arts collaborative.
The small non-profit theater company with a big idea started the Fringe Festival with zero startup money. Twinhead Theatre used a grassroots marketing campaign to fund the Fringe, utilizing Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Indie GO GO to raise over $5,000 in the name of independent art.
The masterminds behind Atlanta Fringe Festival are seeing a positive buzz of excitement surround this year’s festival as the kick-off date draws near.
“People are a lot more positive this year,” Brown said. The public’s optimism and excitement for this year’s Fringe has to put the production team at ease going into the four day long festivity.
Atlanta Fringe’s name derives from the Edinburgh International Festival of the Arts, now one of the world’s largest arts collaborative. In 1947, the festival became so popular that it began to attract underground, uninvited theater companies, to which Scottish playwrite Robert Kemp said, “Round the fringe of official festival drama, there seems to be more private enterprise than before!”
This year Atlanta Fringe Festival will partner with Kansas City’s Hear Now Festival to stream traditional radio drama, storytelling, and unique and experimental soundscapes via their podcast network. Check them out from now until June 30 at http://official.fm/fringeradio2013
The mission of the Festival is to provide an accessible outlet for artists to produce work. The 12th annual Fringe takes place June 5-9 in Little Five Points. View the 2013 Fringe schedule on their website.
For more information on the Atlanta Fringe, visit their Facebook page or follow on Twitter @AtlantaFringe
