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Fringe binge
Sample solos, satires and step dancers at the new Chicago Fringe Festival.
When I spoke to Sarah Mikayla Brown a year ago, she laid out a vision for an annual event that would join the burgeoning network of fringe fests across the U.S. and Canada. The Chicago Fringe Festival would bring in performers from around the country to interact with our homegrown artists and audiences; an uncurated selection process would bolster the sense of discovery she’d found at fringe fests in other cities. I liked the idea but was a bit skeptical that it could be pulled together in a year’s time.
I shouldn’t have doubted Brown. Assembling a staff of 16 (all working pro bono), she fielded 156 applicants and secured eight Pilsen venues. Beginning Wednesday 1, theater, dance, sketch comedy and other performance pieces will take over EP Theater and Dream Theatre, art galleries Chicago Art Department and Temple Gallery, salvage-chic bar and grill Simone’s, the Casa Aztlán community center and a pair of empty storefronts dubbed the Edinburgh Stage and Adelaide Stage (after the world’s two largest fringe fests). An open-air lot at 1714 South Racine Avenue will serve as Fringe Central, where festgoers can mingle over drinks and live music; after 10pm each night, the party moves inside to Honky Tonk Barbecue (1213 W 18th St).
The inaugural Chicago Fringe features 46 lottery-selected entries: 25 by Chicago-area performers and 21 from across the U.S. and Canada. With each coming in under an hour and at ten bucks a pop (five for $45, ten for $80 or an unlimited pass for $175), the idea is to take in as many as possible. Here are a few that caught our eye.
A.D. The titular initials might stand for Attention Deficits, Anxiety Disorders or American Dreams. Performer Annie Huey bounces among multiple identities in David J. Loehr’s solo piece about the frenzy of modern life, an entry from Madison, Indiana’s Riverrun Theatre Company. Edinburgh Stage (2003 S Halsted St).
Annee Pocalypse In this camp reworking of everyone’s favorite sickly sweet orphan-girl musical, Lil’ Whor’n Annee battles zombies and searches for a good threesome in a dystopian Palin-led future. Jason Dabrowski, Jacob Christopher Green and Calidonia Olivares of Chicago’s Hubris Productions penned the parody, with John Kamys, a.k.a. Jinx Titanic, offering reinterpreted ditties such as “Hard Cock Life.” Edinburgh Stage.
The Bad Arm: Confessions of a Dodgy Irish Dancer An “antidote to Riverdance,” London-raised performer Máire Clerkin’s solo comedy about growing up the daughter of a neglectful Irish dance teacher received critical praise in L.A., where it was part of the Hollywood Fringe earlier this year. Adelaide Stage (1832 S Halsted St).
Christmas in Bakersfield Les’s white boyfriend brings him home to meet his conservative family—but forgets to tell the fam Les is black. This piece by West Hollywood–based solo performer Les Kurkendaal has garnered good reviews at fringe fests in Indianapolis and the Twin Cities. Simone’s (960 W 18th St).
Get Rich Cheating Progressive comedian Jeff Kreisler’s “wealth-building seminar” is based on his book of the same name, which was blurbed by Rachel Maddow and The Daily Show creator Lizz Winstead. The New York–based comic skewers the obscenely wealthy and ethics-free types who got us into the ongoing financial meltdown. Casa Aztlán (1831 S Racine Ave).
The Lonely Visitors RE|Dance, a collaboration between Chicagoan Lucy Riner and Wisconsinite Michael Estanich, debuts a dance-theater piece for nine performers that uses a musical-chairs motif to explore the vagaries of love in 30 short vignettes. Adelaide Stage.
Machito Pichon Four female dancers portray men in this new work dealing with the behavioral phenomenon of Latin machismo, by the young Chicago-based company Piel Morena Contemporary Dance. Adelaide Stage.
Uncovering the Mirrors Transgender performance artist Rebecca Kling, a Northwestern grad and instructor at Piven Theatre Workshop, debuts a solo work about her daily experiences with gender identity and presentation. Temple Gallery (1749 S Halsted St).
The Chicago Fringe Festival runs Wednesday 1–September 5. See chicagofringe.org for a complete schedule.
