Hollywood Fringe Festival

I always enjoy working with the Hollywood Fringe Festival every year! For the past three years, I have been editing the FringeTV episodes, and I have had a blast. It is quite a busy month trying to edit the videos and watch as many shows as possible, but we make it happen! Thanks to the great organization of Ben, Stacy, and the entire crew for keeping theatre alive in LA.

As we go. contemplations on water
Saw the preview last night and I was very impressed with all aspects of this production. The concept, acting, singing and movements were spot on. We totally enjoyed this performance and are looking forward to enjoying the many other offerings.
Bravo Fringe for introducing us to theatre not ordinary!

We’re still in the throes of this year’s festival, and I’ve still got tickets burning in my e-​mail inbox.
A few years back, when our Fringe started, I said, «It’s about time.» So many acting troupes from here were traveling all over the world to go to different fringes (Winnipeg and Edinburgh, the most popular I’d heard of), while the so-​called Entertainment Capitol of the World seemingly ignored the idea of celebrating and showcasing live performance.
The first year they had it, I saw so many shows sprawled all over the city. Most of the ones I saw were FREE.
There are still free shows in the fringe, but it doesn’t seem like as many as before and the festival definitely doesn’t make it all that easy to track them down. I ended up going through this year’s festival book and highlighting all the frees and pay-​what-​you-​cans. I’ve got tickets for this week’s «Ministers of Grace» (Shakespearean Ghostbusters), but otherwise I’ve paid the $ 12 – 15 for the tickets I’ve gotten thus far (but hooray for getting into «The Cave: A Folk Opera» for free thanks to their promo code). It’s not cheap putting on live theater in L.A., so I can understand charging for entry. At the same time, I’m sure there are many more shows than there were when the festival was conceived.
But speaking of making things easy, I’ve been having issues with the website throughout this season. Just checking it now, I keep getting gateway errors clicking the «SHOWS» button on the main page. The only way I’ve been able to find the shows I’m looking for is to type in their names and MAYBE they’ll come up (they have been as of late, so kudos for fixing that).
It would be nice if they could create a database for searching for shows based on subject matter, ticket price, etc. (sort of like a Unilocal search), but I’m pretty sure this is a grassroots project, so it’s probably too much to ask.
All right, getting away from my criticism, I truly appreciate that this festival exists. From what I understand, it’s first-​come-​first-​serve for getting your show into the festival. So ostensibly no matter how professional-​looking your show may be, you can still get it in and be advertised and seen. Great news for indie productions, which is what… EVERYBODY? So many wonderful shows that I otherwise would not have heard of or thought to check out are playing all this month, and I’ve gotten to see a few already.
The venues are all so different, as well. Many are sort of like shoe boxes, others are cabaret style. I’m pretty happy to see all these places getting business. Three Clubs might just be my favorite.
The festival is still quite young, and some things could stand to be smoothed out, but it’s the change that I want to see in this world and it should be nurtured.

I would give this five stars for the show alone (we saw «An Evening with Marie Curie») as the show was acted, written and directed brilliantly, but just a note about the facility… stuffy first act and the chairs were very uncomfortable, I still would see it again in a heartbeat.