New Orleans Fringe Opens the Cages for Adult Petting Zoo, May 6-8

On May 6th, 7th, and 8th, New Orleans Fringe presents the second annual Adult Petting Zoo, transforming the Marigny Theatre and Allways Lounge, 2240 St. Claude Avenue, into a den of theater antics and live unnatural acts. Tickets are $15 and can be purchased online at www.nofringe.org or at the door. Raising an eyebrow and asking yourself, "Hmmm, just what is an Adult Petting Zoo?"? In addition to being a brazen initiative of FATI, the Fringe AlterNative Theatre Incubator, and a welcoming platform for challenging, risky performances, Adult Petting Zoo brings together a range of original theater for a weekend affair that is titillating, thought-provoking, and fun.

Emilie Whelan, newly anointed Performance Coordinator for the New Orleans Fringe, is thrilled to direct this event because, as she pronounces with an irresistibly come-hither allure, "there is nothing too big, too bold, or too dangerous for Fringe." Jazz Hand Job returns from Providence, RI with the Fringe Festival favorite, "Rigorous Disco of Doom," reinvented as the main feature. A crackpot swamp wedding turns into zombie mayhem as "Rigorous Disco of Doom" celebrates the writhing undead with exploding mirror balls and throbbing suits of sound. This dark dance of comedy is by turns gruesome and jubilant; a sepulchral story of love, lust and lascivious last rites.

Foreplay is on offer, to suit a variety of tastes - audience members are invited to circulate through a number of "exhibits" in the lounge. Goat in the Road Productions takes us behind the curtain of government "in action" as our legislators wrestle with each other over morality and pornography in an interactive installation piece, "The Meese Papers - A Government Mandated Performance Investigation". Skin Horse Theater plays doctor on issues of gender and sex in a surrealist night club variety act based on a medical treatise in "Psychopathia Sexualis with Especial Reference to the Antipathic Sexual Instinct". Local playwright, Gabrielle Reisman works the street performance life, Monique Moss draws out passions through her delirious dance and Alyson Perry teasingly plays with what it is to be a clown.

FATI aims to maintain the creative spirit of the Fringe Festival and promote the cultural economy of New Orleans year-round. And while there are family-oriented events on our annual calendar, Adult Petting Zoo is specifically for our more mature audiences, ages 18 and up. So, in addition to fearless, provocative theater, audiences can anticipate boundaries to be pushed, cages to be opened, and a profusion of petting.

The event will take place Marigny Theatre on May 6th, 7th at 8:00pm and May 8th at 8:00pm and midnight. Tickets for the event are $15 online www.nofringe.org or at the door.

The Fringe is a 501(c)3 non-profit that was founded by local arts organizers to nurture fearless theater in New Orleans and to benefit artists, venues, neighborhoods and local businesses. For more information, visit www.nofringe.org.

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