New Orleans Fringe Hosts 2nd Annual Theater Festival, 11/11

On November 11-15, New Orleans Fringe will host its second annual theater festival: over 45 theater groups from New Orleans and around the country will present over 120 shows at venues throughout the city. This year's Fringe will be a extraordinary week of theater of all types: opera, drama, cryptic revival, physical clown-theater, dark comedy, cabaret, romance noir, overhead projector shadow puppetry, butoh, hip hop, dance theater, environmental performance, puppet aerial musical, and many more.

The Festival organizes seven venues at grassroots theaters and unusual spaces in the downtown neighborhoods of the Bywater and Marigny, including the Marigny Theatre, Sidearm Gallery, Hi-Ho Lounge, Skull Club, Backyard Ballroom, Peter's Piano Place and the Holy Trinity Church on St. Ferdinand. There is also a Bring Your Own Venue option, where artists organize their own venues throughout the city. In total, over 15 venues throughout the city will be presenting innovative, wild, weird and original theater at the 2009 Festival.

Highlights of visiting groups include "Rigorous Disco of Doom" from Providence, RI, a crackpot swamp wedding that turns into zombie mayhem; "Play. Music. Heal." from Lafayette is a beautifully crafted drama of interlaced stories from South Louisiana characters; the Nana Project returns from Baltimore with "Alonzo's Lullaby", a luminous, richly-hued, shadow puppet play for adults; "Boom Bap Tourism" is butoh hip-hop dance theater from Philadelphia, "Carnarsie Suite" is a carnival of dance, song, knife throwing, gorillas, and melodrama from New York City; "The House of Butoh" is a fantastic visual dance experience; "Some Editing and Some Theme Music" is an innovative drama that was hailed as one of the best shows of the NYC Fringe.

Highlights of local groups include "Bang the Law", an original opera buffa created by New Orleans musician Jonathan Freilich; "Shipwrecked" is told with live music, fantastic dancing, original films and acting by Tsunami Dance; "The Goats of Belle Reve" is an enchanting dance-drama performance of Streetcar Named Desire; "Arugula" is a German death-glam band puppet show; "The Pomology of Sweetness and Light" is an aerial musical puppet show about Johnny Appleseed; "Major Swelling's Salvation Salve Medicine Show" is an original piece of old-time showmanship by Goat in the Road and Cripple Creek; Ed Bishop presents "Heaven's Waiting" four penetrating dramas about life's end; "En Route" is an old/new world cabaret, circus, art and variety show in Michalopoulos Warehouse.  See the entire lineup here.

The week includes free events as well. On Thursday Nov 12 from 5-7 pm audiences can preview Fringe shows at the Festival tent and party with free beer provided by NOLA Brewing Co. There will be Busker's Happy Hour Friday and Saturday from 5-7 pm, and free parties at a different venue every night, including the big Fringe Friday bash at the Festival Tent on November 13 featuring Eggyolk Jubilee and Voices of the Big Easy. On Saturday November 14 at 3 pm the Fringe Parade will roll down St. Claude, organized and hosted by the Good Children Social Aid and Pleasure Club and sponsored by St. Claude Avenue Main Street. Sunday will feature a Paint Party by NOLA Rising and a poetry brunch.

For the non-free events, tickets are $7 with the one-time purchase of a festival button ($3), and attendees can buy a 5-show pass for $30. One ticket is good for any one show. Tickets can be purchased online atwww.nofringe.org, at the Festival Tent at the corner of Press and Dauphine or at any venue before shows. Shows are every day of the Festival and run 30-60 minutes each. See the Fringe web site for the schedule here.

 

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