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IndyFringe Festival represents an annual “big tent revival” for the city’s theater community, in the words of Callie Burk-Hartz, the festival’s director.
This year, the tent is bigger than ever. IndyFringe, the gathering of actors, dancers, comedians and magicians that debuted in 2005, will add White Rabbit Cabaret and Dance Kaleidoscope’s studio as venues. It will be the first time IndyFringe performances will be staged outside of the Mass Ave Cultural Arts District.
Scheduled Aug. 15-25, the festival is planning 43 performances of 13 shows at the Dance Kaleidoscope space in the Circle City Industrial Complex and 18 performances of six shows at Fountain Square’s White Rabbit Cabaret.
IndyFringe Festival will feature 250 performances of 70 shows overall. Artists traveling to participate include Kansas City-based comic Abby Bland, who will present the one-person show “Godzilla’s Not a Dinosaur,” and Berlin-based comic Paco Erhard, who will present the one-person show “5-Step Guide to Being German.”
More than half of the festival’s 500 performers are based in Indiana. IndyFringe will host 25 world premieres and 16 regional premieres.
The festival is expanding its physical footprint during a time of leadership transition. Burk-Hartz, who’s been an IndyFringe staff member for more than a decade, served as the organization’s interim director after Jennifer Cooper exited the executive director role in April to become executive director of the Indianapolis Symphonic Choir.
Paul Daily, a Kokomo native who served as artistic director for Ivy Tech Community College in Bloomington for a decade, was hired as IndyFringe’s executive director in June.
“This is the place that feels like where I belong,” Daily said of his new role. “This kind of work—the minimalism, the risk and daring, the new and experimental—is everything I love. Supporting artists in doing that is thrilling.”
Cooper worked at IndyFringe for 13 months, following a two-year stint by Justin Brady in the role of executive director. Pauline Moffat, now managing director of the District Theatre, served as executive director of IndyFringe from 2005 to 2020.
The District Theatre, 627 Massachusetts Ave., will supply two of the festival’s six stages:
- IndyFringe Basile Theatre, 719 E. St. Clair St.
- The Everwise Stage, 719 E. St. Clair St.
- The District Main Stage, 627 Massachusetts St.
- The District Cabaret, 627 Massachusetts St.
- The Dance Kaleidoscope Stage, 1125 Brookside Ave.
- White Rabbit Cabaret, 1116 Prospect St.
Daily said IndyFringe artists can take creative risks without facing excessive financial barriers. Each show pays no more than $325 to secure a spot in the lineup, and sponsorship from Everwise Credit Union makes it possible for artists to receive 70% of box office revenue.
The organization’s annual operating budget is $600,000, Daily said.
“Our hope is that [artists] make a little bit of money,” Daily said. “Nobody’s going to keep doing this if they just have to pay to do it every time. … We make it easy for them to do the work and get paid for it.”
For more information about IndyFringe tickets, which are priced from $10 to $32, visit indyfringe.org.
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The best way to avoid fixing something that isn’t broken is to know your history.
The “big tent” is only bigger in geographical size, not in the number of venues. The festival has always had six venues. The difference this year will be that rather than all the venues being a short walking distance apart along Mass Ave and its many restaurant options, a third of them will now be miles apart. It is important to note as well, that unlike the previous years venues, one of the new ones this year is limited to adults only.
The new venue locations will also have a negative parking impact for attendees too. Attendees will now have to find/pay for parking up to three times as opposed to once as in the past.
And finally, due to the extended travel time (distance/traffic) resulting from the venue changes, the easy coordinating of scheduling shows back to back to back in a timely manner for attendees as in the past, will no longer be an option.