Guest Review: Frigid Fest (New York City)

By Guest Reviewer: Chris Harcum

Guest Festival Ranking: 5 out of 5

Mr. Fringey's Description: A wing and a prayer and a staple gun filled with frozen gummy bears.

Overview:

The Sunny-side: (Give 3 reasons this fringe is the bomb)

1. It's contained. 30 shows in 3 venues with over 150 performances in 12 days on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. 2 venues are in the same building. The other venue is a short, easy walk so you can catch almost any performance back to back to back.

2. It's connected. Horse Trade and EXIT Theatre/San Francisco Fringe Festival + Canadian Association of Fringe Festivals = a truly fringe-tastic experience.

3. It's a smooth ride. The Horse Trade people really care and help you.

The Flip-side: (Give 3 reasons this fringe sucks or what makes it difficult)

1. It's in its third year. It's getting a good reputation. It hasn't made household names yet but it's becoming tough to jump in there. It's not going to get bigger so you have to pounce on the entry. The online entries are 1/3 of the number of participants. That registration filled up in under 2 minutes this year. The next 1/3 are Canadian participants. The final 1/3 are drawn from a hat at midnight on Halloween. That's how I got in when I was in it in '08.

2. It's still a fringe. You need to have your game together. Your show needs to be at a performance level, your marketing plan needs to be in place, your tech needs to collapse or expand at a moment's notice and you have to hustle. Some people are good fringe citizens and some are self-involved jerks. From my experience, Frigid has more of the former. Actually, last year's Frigid only had 2 groups I did my best to avoid.

3. Canadian fringe people have a frisky tradition of handing out postcards and busking at other people's shows to generate audience. New Yorkers have a caustic tradition of hating this because of the guys hawking specials for strip clubs in Times Square. You can always tell the Canadian participants by this. I know it works elsewhere but in NYC it's like watching your kids lose a soccer match.

Potential to Make Money:

Do you get 100% of door? If not, how much. 100%

Do performers see other shows for free? Yes if they are available.

Do you get paid each night? If not how? Were you paid on time if the money was sent to you? Yes.

Fringe Specs:
Age in Fringe Years: 3
Festival Dates: Feb 25 – March 8
Application Deadline: October 31
And: “Our audience numbers were up more than 20% from last year, almost a 50% increase from our first festival only three years ago, this is amazing.”
Applying: $35: On-line at http://frigidnewyork.info
Festival Cost: The Kraine Theater $850, The Red Room $550, UNDER St. Marks $675

Ticket Prices: $15 and under.

Navigation of the City

What city do you fly into and how did you get to your destination? Laguardia, JFK or Newark International. Public transportation from any of these airports can get you to midtown. The F, V and 6 subway trains are close.

About Mr. Fringey Guest Reviewer:

Name: Chris Harcum

Show Name: American Badass (or 12 Characters in Search of a National Identity).

Check him out: www.chrisharcum.com

Bully Award: The New York Fringe

As if the New York Fringe Festival didn’t have a bad enough reputation already, it gets this years, Bully Award once again for basically telling the Long Island Fringe Festival that it couldn’t use the name “Fringe” in it’s festival name.

I guess having Brooklyn and Ellis Island, isn’t enough, they have to have the word fringe too? Warning to all you other fringes out there who may get a cease and desist warning in the future- you’ve been warned.

Here’s a letter that the good peeps in charge of the LI fringe sent to The New York City International Fringe Festival

Dear NYCIFF,
We would like to take this opportunity to address issues which have been brought to our attention. The New York City International Fringe Festival has managed to get a service mark, the equivalent of a trademark, on the words “Fringe Festival” in the state of New York. This is the equivalent of service marking the words “Pet Shop”, “Bakery” or “Drug Store”, generic phrases used to describe a type of service.

Well, our friends at the NYCIFF have decided that we are confusing people by referring to ourselves as the Long Island Fringe Festival and have demanded that we stop immediately or face legal action.

First of all, if they had actually looked closely, they would have known that the name of the festival is “Fringe 2009 - Experience Long Island”. While it is true that we are the first Long Island Fringe Festival, that is just what we are and that cannot be ruled on in a court of law, it is just a fact.

When we started to put together the festival in September of 2008, it was meant to be a tribute and a celebration of the long and proud tradition of Fringe, an event that started in Edinburgh, Scotland in 1947 at the first International Performance Festival, not on New York City in 1992, and is now an annual event celebrated by 100’s of Fringe Festivals world wide.

If anyone should be allowed to lay claim to the words fringe festival, Edinburgh should be in front of the line with no one behind them. In the true spirit of theatrical collegiality, however, they have let this celebration of creative arts expand and encircle the globe with the spirit and name Fringe Festival. This is what the original fringers had set out to do, entertain and enlighten the general public with a wide range of creative talent assembled into a Fringe Festival.

With an abundance of dancers, musicians, poets, playwrights, visual artists and more on Long Island and around the world, it seems that the more opportunities there are to showcase these people the better. Unfortunately The Present Co., organizers of the NYCIFF, believes that they are the only one who should be allowed to be called a “Fringe Festival”.
May I also add that this seems to be a selective enforcement as no other fringe festival in New York has been told to stop other than the Long Island Fringe. It is also strange that instead of trying to contact us and discuss their concerns, they instead went directly to a lawyer and decided to threaten a lawsuit.

The organizers of Fringe 2009 are not difficult to find. Our names, phone numbers and e mail address are public knowledge and are posted on many websites. So it makes us wonder how a little first year festival could cause such a problem for a well established event such as the New York City International Fringe Festival.

To anyone out there who was confused we apologize. Fringe 2009 is in no way connected to the NYCIFF and we definitely want that to be clear. We are our own festival of Fringe, the first on Long Island, and we are proud to have done this and for that we offer no apology.

“Fringe 2009 - Experience Long Island”

Sort of Fringy Dud Alert! The One Festival

Dud Alert!

The One Festival

About The One

In 2007, yours truly was praying each and every morning that ”the one” would come into his life. Like a typical, single, fringe performer who had only experienced bad things on match.com, he turned to the secrets in “The Secret.” Each morning he would rise and say “The One is coming to me now! The One is coming to me now!” Well, a few months later he got a call from a theatre in New York (officially Off-Broadway) that he was officially invited to perform his solo show in “The One Festival,” which takes place at Teatro La Tea. How’s that for karma. Here he was praying for a girl and he gets a festival instead…. And a dud at that. No pay. No audience. But a chance to vie for the best show in the festival. He’s been afraid to post this festival entry on his resume ever since. On the plus side is a fully produced show in New York. If you have a good NYC theatre fan base it might be worth it, if you don’t cringe at the thought of performing with theatre side dishes.

Save the Date

When: April 6-19, 2009

Where: Teatro La Tea Theatre – New Yawk City, NY

What: And annual festival that showcases theatrical solo performances.

And: Accepts 10 original non-published theatrical works (full length and shorts).

Info for Performers

Shows: Solo shows only. Full Length: 45 min – 1hr 15 min. Short Length: 30 minutes or less

You get: 3 performances, a technician and theatre space.

Performer Split: $0

And: Two of the theatrical works produced by the festival will receive $500 cash prize, plus a full theatrical production at Teatro LA TEA at The Clemente Soto Velez Cultural Center in NYC’s Lower East Side. The audience will be the judges by voting for their favorite play. Only finalists with 75 votes or more will qualify for the cash prize. The performance with the highest votes will be the ONE winner!

Fringe Info

Selection process: Jury w/ DVD, script, etc.

Application Deadline: Feb 13, 2009

Cost: $15- $30

More Info: Veronica Caicedo at 212-529-1948

Website: www.caicedoproductions.com/events.htm

Apply

Snail Mail to:

TEATRO LA TEA

P.O. Box 20673

New York, NY 10009

Attn: Veronica Caicedo

Top Ten Fringe Awards

Mr. Fringey’s Top Ten

Fringe Awards of 2008

1. Best City to Get Rich

Minnesota Fringe

2. Best “Fringe Central” Show

Boulder Fringe’s Eddie the Eskimo Show

3. Strongest On-line Presence

Capital Fringe

4. Best Community

San Francisco Fringe

5. Lamest Attitude

New York Fringe

6. Best Use of The Silent Treatment

Prague Fringe

7. Best Party

Montreal Fringe

8. Most Mysterious Fringe Experience

Provincetown Fringe

9. Most Anticipated Upcoming Fringe

Hollywood Fringe

10. Most Likely to Yelp for Help

Indianapolis Fringe

Fringe Alert! Long Island Fringe Fest

Fringe Baby Alert!

Mr. Fringey absolutely loves it when a new fringe baby is born. This one, in Long Island, New York, looks good from all the calculations too, in terms of size, weight, and birth mother. Although Mr. Fringey is somewhat reserved in committing to a new festival because the return isn't usually worth the investment, if you're looking for a great way to make it out to New York, this fringe seems to be the way to do it. With a built in audience connected to Long Island University, my prediction is that this fringe won't suffer the same ticket sale problems that Frigid Fest and the New York Fringe suffer from. Stay tuned for a review of this one when it's all done.

Long Island Fringe Festival

Save the Date

When: September 25-27, 2009

Times of Fringe: September 25 -3pm-11pm

September 26 12pm-11pm

September 27 10am-7pm

Where: CW Post College of Long Island University

Info for Performers

What: Shows must be between 30 and 45 minutes only!

You get: At least 2 performances a day.

Performer Split: Performers get 100% except for certain main stage events where the split is 50/50.

Ticket Prices: No more than $10

Fringe Info

Selection process: Jury/Lottery Combo (15 juried spots and the rest by Fringe lottery)

Application Deadline: January 30, 2009

Cost: $50 or $100 for groups of 3 or more.

Additional Costs: Venue rental from $5 - $200/show.

Questions: e-mail fringe@debbydoll.com or call 516-931-6849.

Apply

- Download application from http://www.freewebs.com/longislandfringefestival

- Send snail mail application, demo, resume, etc to:

ATTN: Robert Goida

Long Island Fringe Festival

Tilles Center

720 Northern Boulevard

Brookville, New York 11548