Has the fringe gone mainstream?

The first “Fringe Festival” began in Edinburgh, Scotland in 1947. The latest, launched in 2010, is the Chicago Fringe Festival, which features 46 performance groups that were selected by lottery, and runs September 1 to September 5, 2010.
There are now more than 50 Fringe festivals around the world, from Adelaide to Winnipeg. There are at least 15 fringe theater festivals in the United States alone – so many that there is now even a United States Association of Fringe Festivals.

What is a fringe festival?

Most happen in the summer, are low-budget, “alternative” and hit-or-miss. Many of the shows have funny names, most famously “Urinetown,” which was such a hit at the New York Fringe that it is the only show so far to move to Broadway, where it was a hit yet again. Most fringe festivals are really marathons, offering an overwhelming number of shows in a limited number of days – the three-week-long 2010 Edinburgh Fringe offered 2,453! Fringe festivals by definition began by offering theater but have expanded to dance, puppetry, performance art, stand-up comedy and some performing arts categories that have yet to be named. Fringes supposedly offer audiences an opportunity to experience cutting-edge work at affordable prices – and cutting-edge artists to get an audience for their work.

Some festivals, though, have grown so enormous it is difficult to consider them fringe anymore. This year’s Edinburgh Fringe (admittedly the largest) sold nearly two million tickets. The New York International Fringe Festival attracts some 75,000 theatergoers, making it the fifth largest cultural event in the most populous city in the United States.

The New York International Fringe Festival, in fact, is so successful that the most popular shows are presented in the Fringe Encore Series. This year’s series runs from September 9 to September 26th
Similarly, the Capital Fringe in Washington D.C. during the summer segues into the Fall Fringe, November 4 to November 21, where “your favorite Fringe artists bring their stories back.”
Here are some American fringe festivals coming up:

Philadelphia Live Arts Festival/Philly Fringe
September 3 – September 18, 2010

San Francisco Fringe Festival
September 8 – September 19, 2010

Fringe Wilmington
September 29 – October 3, 2010

New Orleans Fringe Festival
November 17 – November 21, 2010

Stay tuned to 2011, for a new batch of unhinged Fringe.