The New York International Fringe Festival was founded in 1997 by John Clancy, Aaron Beall, Ezra Buzzington (Jonathan Harris) and Elena K. Holy, making New York City the seventh city in the United States to host a fringe theatre festival, alongside Chicago, Houston, Minneapolis, Orlando, San Francisco, and Seattle. The event is produced by The Present Theatre Company and supported by the New York State Council of the Arts.
In 2017, the festival team took a one-year hiatus from producing the event in order to re-imagine it. The New York International Fringe Festival returned a year later as a two-segment event consisting of FringeNYC and FringeBYOV. FringeNYC is a theatre festival for diverse, innovative and vibrant emerging performers from around the world. Unlike most fringe festivals, it uses a juried selection process to provide opportunities for under-represented voices and help build cultural equity.
Along with the main program, FringeNYC offers a variety of parallel programs and special events. They include Fringe JR (productions for families with children aged 5 to 12), FringeHIGH (shows for high school students and young adults), FringePLUS (performances followed by discussions with the cast and creative stuff on the themes and social issues addressed in the shows), and the Indie Convening (a series of workshops, panel discussions and other events for the theatre community).
FringeBYOV (“Bring Your Own Venue”) is an open access segment of the festival. While FringeNYC is held in Manhattan, FringeBYOV takes place in indie, pop-up and standalone venues in the outer boroughs of Brooklyn (FringeBKLYN), Queens (FringeQNS) and Staten Island (FringeSI).
Since its inception, the New York International Fringe Festival has presented over 3,000 performing groups from all other the world. It has also been a launching part for numerous regional theatre productions, Off-Broadway and Broadway transfers, The festival’s notable alumni include Chris Lowell, Naomi Grossman, Michael Urie, W. Kamau Bell, Leigh Silverman, Alex Timbers, Diane Paulus, Mindy Kaling, Morgan Spurlock, Melissa Rauch, Bradley Cooper, and others.
Photo: villagevoice.com
