Plymouth Fringe to Present Month-Long Festival of Online Performances

Throughout August 2020, Plymouth Fringe Festival will be presenting a series of live-streamed performances showcasing some of the far South West's most exciting theatre-makers, comedians, poets, dancers and live performance artists.

Founded in 2015, Plymouth Fringe Festival is the city's annual celebration of theatre and live performance and usually takes place across three theatre venues within the city: Theatre Royal Plymouth, Barbican Theatre and The House (the University of Plymouth's performing arts centre) each May.

The 2020 iteration of the festival, which would have marked the sixth year of the festival, was cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic. However, the event's organisers have collaborated with artists due to perform at Plymouth Fringe Festival 2020 in order to re-imagine their work as online performances.

Performances will be free and will be streamed "as live" on YouTube every Monday and Wednesday throughout August, with the performances remaining available for audiences to watch for the rest of the month.

The festival aims to take advantage of the present circumstances in order to showcase exciting work by up-and-coming theatre-makers, comedians, poets, dancers and live performance artists based in the South West to a wider audience than would usually be able to attend the physical festival.

The festival will host 20 performances of varying lengths over nine nights.

Performances include The House Never Wins, a critically-acclaimed interactive game/theatre piece exploring the climate crisis by Kill The Cat Theatre, A Summer of Birds, a new short play by Laura Horton, Into Utopia, a dance-circus film by ALATS Dance Circus Company and Finding Freedom, an exploration of what "freedom" means to Black people in Plymouth in 2020 by Shaday Barrowes and Emily Rossette.

Plymouth Fringe Festival Co-Producer Dan Baker said: "After five increasingly successful years, it was a huge blow to have to cancel this year's Plymouth Fringe Festival. Nevertheless, we're excited to have the opportunity to showcase some of the exciting theatre and live performance work being created in the far South West and hope that Plymouth Fringe Online will be a testament to the region's creative vitality".

Plymouth Fringe Online is curated by Toast, a collaboration between Dan Baker, Matt Hall and Tom Nicholas which aims to develop and celebrate Plymouth's theatre scene. It is supported by Arts Council England.

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