The FRINGE-y 5: ERIC BUTLER'S Excellent Adventures on the Fringe

It's the most wonderful time of the year for Nashville's theater community: 2017 Sideshow Fringe Festival opened last with #ThrowbackThursdayLive! and continues for two weeks in venues all over town, offering all manner of entertaining and intriguing art to satisfy even the most discerning theater-goer.

Among the upcoming events is Eric Butler's The Intoxicated Travels of the Reverend Piano Man, featuring an all-star cast accompanied by live music from WT Davidson and Kevin Madill, on August 4 at 8:30 p.m. at the Darkhorse Theater.

Meet the Cast, Musicians, and Artists involved in The Intoxicated Travels of the Reverend Piano Man, and check out all the live show information and short story section at www.reverendpianomantravels.com

In the meantime, today you can read about Butler's own FRINGE-y experience in today's installment of The FRINGE-y 5!

What was your first Fringe experience and how did it inspire you as an artist? I first heard of the Fringe Festival in 2015. I was still new to the Nashville theatre community, so I didn't have a full understanding of what the festival actually was, but my cousin, who had worked a few of the productions at the time, explained to me the concept of a multi-venue festival that was dedicated to productions that were outside-the-box and, of course, I was immediately intrigued and thought to myself, "I am so glad that Nashville does things like this." The next year I was searching through the productions, trying to decide what I was going to go see, when I saw that Alexandra Huff had written an all-female stage adaptation of Reservoir Dogs. I was sold. It was everything that you could hope for, but what made the experience even better was that, not only was the audience having the time of their lives, but you could clearly tell that the actresses were as well. The whole thing, to me, was a great representation of everything that makes the Nashville theatre community so special. I knew I had to be a part of it.

What makes Sideshow Fringe so special? From an artist standpoint, one of the hardest things, obviously, is always finding a means in which to showcase/test your talents and ideas for an actual audience. Especially if your ideas and talents are a little less mainstream. There are so many factors involved in getting the public to see your projects. Which is why entertainment is as cut-throat and difficult as it is. So, it's always important to have the kind of opportunities, like the ones offered by the Sideshow Fringe Festival and Actor's Bridge Ensemble, for up-and-coming artist and even established artist. It gives people a chance to see and experience things that they may not normally get to. Also, from an audience standpoint, festivals like this are a great way to make the audience feel like they are a part of something. They get to go see a show at one venue, go grab a drink, and then head over to the next venue to see a different show. All the while knowing that they are playing an important role in a new creative process.

How would members of the theater-going public know you? What are some of your biggest/best/brightest and most infamous credits? They'll probably know me as that guy who plays all those "dark and twisted" characters. I've been lucky enough to have been cast in several shows, here in Nashville, over the past three years. I've worked with some of the best people and companies here in town, and I couldn't be more thankful. My roles have included Shane Mungitt in Take Me Out, Curly in Of Mice and Men, Jake in A Lie of the Mind, Mortimer in Arsenic and Old Lace and most recently Nate in The Water's Edge. I've been even luckier to have had the opportunity to have some of my original plays produced here as well. My full-length play Do We Know Each Other? was performed as a staged reading at the Street Theatre. My one-acts include The Revitalization of Kristen Gale and Cognition which were presented by ACT 1 (Artist Cooperative Theatre 1), and Social Anxiety which was presented as a staged reading with the Ten Minute Playhouse.

Besides your own project, what Fringe offering most excites/intrigues you this year? There is so much good stuff. It's hard to pinpoint. I'm hoping to get to see some of the aerial performances this year. I've never seen them, and I'm told they are really impressive. As always, I'm a fan of new works, so The Lost Medallion of Gondalor is definitely on my list, as is the show that I think is on everyone else's - Nine Exits. I've had the pleasure of working with both Mallory and Cassie from Sailors & Maidens, and the idea that they've cooked something up with Nate Eppler is definitely something I know I'm going to have to check out.

Why should people come see The Intoxicated Travels of the Reverend Piano Man? I think the first thing to mention is the cast that I've been lucky enough to shanghai into doing this production. I've got such an eclectic group of talent, who are all accomplished in the theatre community, and now are all going to be on stage together for the first time. It's definitely something to see. My hope is that we are telling a story that is not only entertaining, but that is also relatable to everyone on some level. We're dealing with themes like personal value and escapism. Seems fitting to approach those subjects with things like theatre and music. We are also testing the waters a little bit on how we are telling this story. It's not quite a staged reading and it's not exactly a live radio show, but we hope the audience will have a hell of a lot of fun in the process. We're taking the audience through a world that is very much inspired by music, so we've enlisted the talents of local blues and jazz musicians WT Davidson and Kevin Madill to help present this world and the tale of the Reverend Piano Man.

About 2017 Sideshow Fringe Festival Seventh Annual Sideshow Fringe Festival - billed as Nashville's Progressive Performing Arts Event, presented by Sideshow @ Actors Bridge - gathers hundreds of local artists for what promises to be its largest endeavor in its seven-year history. Sideshow Fringe runs July 27 through August 6 at various Nashville locales.

Named as one of CNN's Most Intriguing Festivals in its "Best of the US" compendium of events, Sideshow Fringe Festival gathers some of "the most exciting performing arts Music City has to offer" for two full weekends of "electrifying, gravity-defying performances."

The 2017 edition of Sideshow will include a wide variety of performance styles including circus, comedy, dance, theatre, performance art, storytelling, puppetry, aerial arts, improv and clowning.

"Nashville is growing by leaps and bounds all around and the Fringe Festival is, too!" says Jessika Malone, program director for Sideshow Fringe. "We are excited to expand to two weeks in our seventh summer of celebration to meet the demand for the most adventurous performing art our city has to offer. The fringe is my favorite time of the year because it's all about expressing yourself courageously, embracing eccentricity, and celebrating authenticity in all its forms."

Individual tickets for paid performances are $15 each. Sideshow also has a Triple Play package for viewers to pick any three shows for just $35. Audience members can also explore all of this year's eclectic performances with an All-Access Pass, which covers everything the festival has to offer for $150. Free pop-up performances and other programming will be available in various locations throughout the Festival, including Richland Park.

The Sideshow Fringe Festival is a program of the Actors Bridge Ensemble led by co-founders Jessika Malone and technical director, Mitch Massaro. Daniel Jones joins the team this year as creative producer.

Tickets: Tickets are $15 and 50% of all box office proceeds go to participating artists. Tickets are available at www.sideshowfringe.com and at all festival venues. All Events will be held in one of the festival's four main venues: The Black Box Theatre at Belmont university, The Darkhorse Theatre, The Actors Bridge Studio in Darkhorse Chapel and Richland Park.

Highlights of the 2017 Sideshow Fringe Festival include:

High-Flying Aerial Thrills This summer features five aerial offerings in the Black Box at Belmont including: FALL's special encore presentation of A Bending Of Its Own Kind, which debuted to a standing-room-only crowd at Oz Arts Nashville in June 2017 and features an all-new invented aerial apparatus based on the x-rays of artistic director Rebekah Hampton Barger's spine; New Altitude, featuring mother/daughter pair Thérèse Keegan and Lizard Walker, returns with Lines Interrupted - an all-new family-friendly aerial spectacular; Suspended Gravity spotlights the legendary women who have made music history in an original circus celebration Women Who Rock; and Chimerical Circus will make their fringe debut with an exploration of the identity of the performer and their many masks.

New Local Plays Nashville playwright Nate Eppler (Osborn Award Winner, Nashville Rep's Playwright-in-Residence) pairs with fringe favorite puppet troupe Sailors & Maidens for an Nine Exits; Britt Byrd, winner of Nashville Scene's Best Actress Award, makes her directorial debut with the patriarchy-smashing and gender-bending Marian Or, (The True Tale of Robin Hood); and Diego Gomez presents a world premiere workshop of The Backpack, an experimental performance format integrating traditional and forum theatre practices.

Returning Fan Favorites #ThrowbackThursday kicks off the 2017 Sideshow Fringe with the hottest, sexiest, most awkward tradition of them all - an interactive open mic where brave audience members can dust off their teenage diaries and reveal the inner thoughts of their younger selves hosted by Cassie Hamilton and Mallory Kimbrell of Sailors & Maidens / Meryl & Joyce.

Fringey Fun Sideshow fan favorites Conway Preston and Kara McLeland are back with an interactive comedy fantasy adventure, The Lost Medallion of Gondalor: A Choose Your Own Adventure, and filmmaker and puppeteer Madeleine Hicks will pop up her Sixty Second Cinema at select and secret locations throughout the festival and present your favorite films in a new format that gets in all the goods in under a minute!

Spinning Yarns abrasiveMedia presents an interactive live podcast Mixer Live: For the Love of Loving; Josh Campbell of Spillit Memphis returns to the Fringe to host both a free storytelling workshop and a new format story slam, The Nerve Slam; and F. Lynne Bachleda shares her tales of learning about life while driving for Lyft in Stories From The Backseat.

History of Fringe Fringe theatre is a term used to describe theatre and related performing arts that are not of the traditional two- or three-act play format. The term has been adopted by the Edinburgh Festival Fringe and by alterNative Theatre festivals internationally.

About Actors Bridge Actors Bridge Ensemble is a professional theatre company and actor-training program now in its third decade serving Nashville. Our mission is to tell the stories that impact our community by producing provocative and socially relevant theatre, creating new theatrical works, showcasing emotionally authentic ensemble acting and fostering a nurturing environment where theatre artists at any stage in their development may train and assist in the production of professional theatre.

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