Horse Trade's 2013 FRIGID NEW YORK FESTIVAL Begins 2/20

Riding the fringe of winter, the hit celebration of independent theater will run February 20-March 3, 2013 at The Kraine Theater & The Red Room(85 East 4th Street between 2nd Ave and Bowery) and UNDER St. Marks (94 St. Marks Place between 1st Ave and Ave A). Tickets for all shows will go on sale Wednesday, December 19th. 

 

Four years after a brief rendezvous Annie and Patrick reunite at Heathrow Airport and discover how life-changing 36 hours can be.

 

The mysterious Miss Hiccup lives alone, but is definitely not lonely. She is forever accompanied by a raucous cast of sounds and music that make her life an absurd adventure. A hilarious and beautiful story by an award-winning Japanese performer.

 

A steampunk collaboration of prohibitionistic proportions!  Sneak into a world of slapstick, stand-up, and vaudeville with Jersey's finest speakeasy entrepreneur and her curmudgeonly ex-con husband as they embark on poorly judged money-making schemes, erotic escapades gone awry, run-ins with a keystone cop, and vignettes that include accordion, ukulele, clarinet, spoons, and trumpet.

 

The beautiful Kelli eagerly anticipates the blind date her friends have set her up on. To her dismay, it turns out her date is one very disappointed lesbian named Arlin. Mutually appalled, yet appallingly intrigued, they proceed to pull the screws loose on both straight and gay women's culture, to find The Common ground between them in the search for true love and self acceptance.

 

How many layers must you lose to get to the center of yourself? Come join award-winning and critically acclaimed writer/performer Una Aya Osato and her burlesque alter ego exHOTic other as they take on the world and take off their clothes.

 

What happens when the magical world of your average South American person is transplanted to a more northern, less magical, more real location? Join Octavio as he discovers poetry, satire, love, birds, chocolate, hippies and explosives on the way from the Andes to San Francisco during the fragrant 1960s.

 

Inspired by irretrievable hours sucked into Angry Birds, YouTube, and deciphering privacy settings. Each "app" opens a window into the bizarre, addictive, and sometimes surprisingly human things we follow, share and become with our gadgets. iMime tells the stories of our lives, both real and virtual, through stylized, poetic movement. 

 

Who Killed JonBenét? And when? And how much? The creators of the off-Broadway hit, Bayside! The Unmusical! (Saved by the Bell Musical)proudly presents a true crime musical comedy. We boldly recreate that fateful night of the fateful murder in that fateful town of Boulder, Colorado. With music! 

 

John Grady's true tales of being picked on, chased down, and beat up, from his youth to adulthood. Will he ever stand and fight? Are bullies and the bullied destined to fine each other? If so, who will save him? From the creator of the fringe hit, Fear Factor: Canine Edition. 

 

A hysterical romp through America's spiritual enterprise exposing the blurry line between self-help and faith. Yoga gurus, healthy chocolate peddlers and Buddhists with God complexes ego-trip their way toward absurdity.

 

Once upon a time, Klein and Gabrielle broke up. And that was the end of it. OR WAS IT?! In a world where time's arrow spins like a compass needle at the North Pole, do the actions of two people amount to a hill of beans? Sure, but what does that hill of beans amount to? I don't know, you're the bean expert!

 

In 1909 Alexe Popova confessed to killing over 300 men, liberating women of her community from their abusive husbands. For 30 years she fought the War on Women in her own way, with a little lethal poison. Come 'try' her for yourself at Maison des Reves!

 

"I'm not sure I'm good enough to make something bad enough that today's society will hate enough to love." - Killy. My BoX is a dark comedy exploring pop culture shock in this digital age of simultaneous connection and isolation.  Weaving storytelling, performance art, experimental projection and original live music, this "Mock$tar" creates a unique experience nightly.

 

A vibrant, 78 year old woman, discovering the purrin' stirrin's of sex at age 12 (oh! Camp Takawalananakiki!), admits to the many lies of her life and discovers no matter how the world has tried to stop her adventurous soul-- her pussy's purrin again! Comedy, song, dance, and a glockenspiel, too.

 

One birthed her, one nursed her, one raised her. Now she's burying all three. A daughter is called back to the red clay of Georgia to bury her moms and shape her own identity

 

Come be a fly on the wall, high in the mountains at the home of Pops- watch this master manipulator of a bygone era in razor sharp form, as fists fly, tops come off, and bodies hit the floor-  Will Pop's legacy be preserved? Or will the secrets of the Sickie Room be uncovered at last?

 

Ski bum Alexa Fitzpatrick serves up jokes about sushi and dating in a land locked mountain town where the men outnumber the women two to one. As a bartender at a very high-end sushi restaurant, she amusingly stumbles through the moral dilemmas of serving very expensive bait to rich people.

 

A hilarious look behind the curtain. Find out how Jack really met the Giant and what happens between the scenes of a traveling musical children's theater troupe. No children allowed. 

 

Stuckey and Ferro have been doing this dance since high school. Hometown hero Stuckey stayed behind in their small town while smart, ambitious Ferro went off to discover her own future. A lifetime later, she's back and the conversation continues. Will it ever end?

 

Mallory is an agoraphopic baker who never leaves her shop, eager to experience the world but terrified to try. The circus comes to town with Mallory's best childhood friend – the acrobat Gitano – with whom she's always been secretly in love. To be with him, she must overcome her fears and join the outside world before the circus leaves.

 

Written & Performed by Antonia Lassar – Brooklyn, NY 

A "bagels and schmeaaah" mother discovers her daughter wasn't a practicing Jew. The God Box is a hilarious and poignant tale of how faith is passed on, and what happens when it isn't. 

 

Lulled by nursery rhymes, a man's thoughts are haunted by what separates his identity from his addiction. Finding life's beauty and embracing addiction's lifeblood entangle when what is real is only perceived through touch. Dance, multi-media, and text weave together for a chilling look into the world of an addict.

 

Voilà, enlightenment's blind side! Set in eighteenth-century Paris, The history of Braille begins at a sideshow spectacle and ends with revolution. Hear intimate stories of triumph and degradation embedded in sound and visionscapes. Think Ken Burns on hallucinogenic steroids!

 

The mustachioed Professor Penelope Vindlevoss discovers Edward the Zombie on her recent anthropological expedition, and takes it upon herself to domesticate him. What is Edward's final lesson? To put on a circus, of course! Physical comedy and undead logic collide in this quirky fable about how to be truly human.

 

Traditional Dances of Sri Lanka

Mind and spirit in one as the body sways to the tunes of the yakka (devil).

 

Twisted Beats & Circus Feats tells a uniquely heartfelt story through the eyes of a slightly deranged clown who, in his quest to become a hip-hop superstar, falls in love with a wind-up ballerina. A breathtaking fusion of clowning, juggling, contortion, hip-hop rhyming, storytelling, and puppetry.

 

Written by Chris Harcum, Directed by Aimee Todoroff 

Chris Harcum (American Badass, Rabbit Island and Some Kind of Pink Breakfast) returns to the Frigid Festival with a stand-up and storytelling fueled solo performance on feuds, gunslinging and what you get when you go up against the impossible. 

 

Inspired by a scientific study showing that hallucinogenic mushrooms can effectively treat obsessive-compulsive disorder, Adam Strauss embarked on his own program of vigilante psychopharmacology. 

 

Sick and tired of short jokes and snobbery amongst the gay population, Lucas, a sexually frustrated and vertically challenged young top, is ready to fight back. Armed with only a laptop and a quick wit, our gallant hero addresses the loaded topic of sex and how it divides us, rather than unites us, in a time of need.

 

Accident. Murder. Evan must navigate the drugs, debts, and relationships he inherits after his twin brother is killed. Darkly visceral, strangely intimate and set to a deeply emotional score, "Wearing Black" trespasses into of the hearts and minds of those left behind and demands to know what place love has in death. 

 

FRIGID New York was founded by Horse Trade and EXIT Theatre in 2007. Since founding The San Francisco Fringe Festival - the 2nd oldest fringe in the United States - nearly 17 years ago, EXIT has learned a thing or two about festival running. They introduced Horse Trade to the Canadian Association of Fringe Festivals (CAFF) in mid-2006. Besides feedback from dozens of thrilled CAFF participants and artists, Horse Trade was drawn to its main principle: "...to provide all artists, emerging and established, with the opportunity to produce their play no matter the content, form or style and to make the event as affordable and accessible as possible for the members of the community," Horse Trade is proud to sign on to the tradition and chill out the New York independent theatre scene's ideas of what a theatre festival can be.