The history of the festival began in 2001, when Mayor Bart Peterson launched the Cultural Tourism Initiative. A group of experts and more than 250 citizens came up with the idea for an independent theater festival modeled after the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, the world’s first open-access independent theater festival. Seed money was donated by Central Indiana Community foundation.
The inaugural Indianapolis Theater Fringe Festival took place in 2005. It drew nearly 5,000 performing arts enthusiasts. Due a substantial increase in media coverage and publicity, the second IndyFringe attracted nearly twice as many attendees. The festival continued to grow and now draws almost 20,000 festival-goers each year.
IndyFringe seeks to support independent artists by providing an accessible and affordable platform to showcase their talent. Its other goals include inspiring creative experience through the arts, introducing new ideas and experiences to the audiences, and bringing the community closer together. The festival presents every genre of traditional and non-traditional theater (comedy, drama, music, dance, musicals, cabaret, improvisation, multimedia) as well as a wide range of other performing and visual arts.
Like most other fringe festivals, IndyFringe is an open access festival. It welcomes artists of any style, experience level, ethnicity or background. The festival doesn’t have a selection process and imposes no censorship on the content of the performances. To participate, solo performers and groups need to apply and pay an application fee. Approximately half of the groups that perform at IndyFringe are local and the rest are national and international.
IndyFringe features over 50 performance groups each year. They perform on eight stages in five different venues across Indianapolis, including Theater on the Square, ComedySportz, the Phoenix Theater, IndyFringe, and Firefighter’s Union Hall. All venues are located within walking distance of one another.
Photo: indyfringe.org
