Lake Effect Fringe Festival Presents NO OUTLET IMPROV and More

The Lake Effect Fringe Festival kicks off its 3rd year of bringing new theatre to West Michigan on Friday, February 6, 2015 with a performance by No Outlet Improv at 8:00 pm. Troupe members Katie Fahey, Lizzy Sulkowski, Eirann Betka, Mackenzie McElroy, Ryan Hinkle, and Nick Milbratz come together with new cast members Cleo Patra, Mike Nichols, Colleen Watt and TJ Corbett to bring short-form, fast-paced, interactive fun to audiences of all ages. Audience members may also be treated to a few sneak peaks of things to come during the month-long festival. There is a full calendar of events guaranteed to have something for everybody slated for the Dog Story Theater, 7 Jefferson SE, Grand Rapids throughout the month, culminating with the Stark Turn Players' popular 10 Minute Plays - the hyper-local playwriting contest celebrating the best area playwrights.

Along with the Dog Story Theater, organizing partners include; GEM Theatrics, Pigeon Creek Shakespeare Company, and the Stark Turn Players. A complete schedule of all performances can be found on the Dog Story Theater website: www.dogstorytheater.com. Tickets can be purchased on the site as well as at the door, but advanced reservations are recommended for the intimate black box venue.

The full schedule includes:

February 7, Saturday performance 8pm

Theatre 616 (formerly Southside Theatre) maintains a mission of offering modern classics and Avant garde masterpieces to Grand Rapids audiences. Theatre 616 will present a 24-Hour Play Fest 3.0, in which a series of short plays are written, rehearsed, and performed within the space of 24 hours, featuring the work of a variety of local playwrights, directors, and actors.

February 13-15, 8pm Friday & Saturday, 3pm Sunday

GEM Theatrics, the husband and wife acting team of Gary E. Mitchell and Mary Beth Quillin, present a West Michigan premiere of Old Love, by Norm Foster. He's divorced, she's recently widowed. He sets out to woo her starting the day of her husband's funeral in this contemporary romantic comedy by the playwright hailed as "Canada's Neil Simon". A great Valentine's Day gift for lovers of all ages!

February 20 - 22; 8pm Friday & Saturday, 3pm Sunday

The Pigeon Creek Shakespeare Company, a touring company based in West Michigan, will present a cross-gendered cast production of Shakespeare's As You Like It. In Shakespeare's play, the heroine, Rosalind, disguises herself as a man when she is forced to run away to the Forest of Arden by her tyrannical uncle. In Shakespeare's own time period, women's roles were played by teenage boys, so Rosalind would have been played by a boy, playing a woman, disguised as a man. Pigeon Creek's production plays on this tradition by casting men as women and women as men.

February 21 - 22; 3pm Saturday, 8pm Sunday

Alea Iacta Est under the direction of Kiara Pipino is a Michigan-based theatre company specializing in contemporary playwriting. Alea Iacta Est will present Indoor/Outdoor by Kenny Finkle. The play follows the adventures of a kitten who leaves home to find herself. Featuring:

Sarah Tryon, Justin Mackey, Cody Robison and Mallory Caillaud-Jones.

February 24-25, Tuesday & Wednesday, 8pm

Grand Rapids playwright Christopher VanderArk will present a new play in his Zodiac Sequence, [exit, Mrs. Behn] or The Leo Play, in which he seeks to focus on strong, active female characters. Aphra Behn: England's first professional, female writer. Part-time playwright, part-time courtier, and part-time spy-- Behn's was a life of many identities. [Exit Mrs. Behn] details Behn's sudden fall from the stage. Speculating what the opening night of her infamous play Like Father, Like Son, which not only infuriated the King, but also got her arrested for libel-- [Exit Mrs. Behn] imagines what that night may have looked like.

Sometimes farce, sometimes docudrama-- [Exit Mrs. Behn] brings to life the woman "that wore so many masks, yet was impossible to unmask."

Featuring Mackenzie McElroy, Madeline Jones, Lizzy Sulkowski, Kendra Jones, Walt Reigler, Sean Kelley, Janna Rosenkranz, and starring Claire Mahave, as the Leo.

February 27 - March 1, 8pm Friday & Saturday, 3 pm Sunday

Stark Turn Players present the best of the 3rd Annual 10 Minute Playwriting Competition. Eight 10 minute plays by area playwrights will be produced with "Best in Show" announced after the Sunday performance. Plays this year are on the theme Family/Generations and are: Kennedy and the Kitchen Table, by Christopher Andrus, Glassman in Limbo, by Lori Jacobs, Driving Daughters, by
William Juntunen, Pops and the Princess, by Bill Iddings, Can You Hear the Love, by Matt Tawney, Untitled, by Sean Kelly, Family Fun, by Mary G. Kron and The Eulogy, by Kristin Hanratty. There are four comedies and four dramas directed by Sue Bradford and Adam Hyde and all are guaranteed to hit home!

The Lake Effect Fringe Festival seeks to highlight performer-focused theater in a non-traditional theater space, creating an intimate performance experience for audiences who can expect different seating configurations and differing levels of interaction with the performers at any given performance. All performances take place in the black box performance space of the Dog Story Theater, 7 Jefferson SE, Grand Rapids, 49503. Tickets for all events can be purchased in advance on the Dog Story Theatre's website: www.dogstorytheater.com, and are $14/adults and $8/students and seniors.

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