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2022 ROCHESTER FRINGE FESTIVAL RECAP

Oct 21st, 2022

 

CONTACT

Leah Stacy

Publicist

585.749.2947 

leah@rochesterfringe.com

 

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

October 21, 2022

 

2022 ROCHESTER FRINGE FESTIVAL RECAP

               Eager Audiences Return in Full Force; Year 12 Dates Set for September 12-23, 2023

     

Rochester, NY – For the first time since 2019, the 11th annual Rochester Fringe Festival returned to full, in-person performances during its 12-day duration. Fringe hosted more than 500 shows and events this year – of which 130 were free of charge – in 34 traditional and site-specific venues. 

 

Rochester Fringe is a bifurcated festival, in that the festival itself curates a small selection of performances – including large-scale, outdoor shows in public places and all performances in the Spiegeltent – with  the venues curating the remainder. 

 

“Seeing One Fringe Place bustling with activity again was really gratifying for the Fringe team. We were thrilled to bring the excitement, joy, and wonder of live performance back to our community on a grand scale this year,” said Erica Fee, Festival Producer and CEO. “I'm very grateful to our artists, venues, sponsors, board, staff, and volunteers – none of this could have happened without them.”

 

The Rochester Fringe Festival Board of Directors also announced today that the 2023 dates will be September 12-23, and show submissions will open in late winter 2023. 

 

This year’s Fringe, above all, honored its non-profit mission of providing platforms for artists, giving the community unique, mind-blowing experiences – particularly in public spaces – and showcasing participant venues to new patrons who will return to attend performances year-round.

 

The first weekend of Friday and Saturday on the Fringe kicked off with the world premiere of The Flying Españas in Flippin’ Metal Circus on Parcel 5 downtown. The heavy-metal, psychedelic, circus event was created especially for Fringe by the globally-renowned circus company, The Flying Españas, and creative director Matt Morgan. Thousands of attendees showed up for the four free performances, and food trucks, bars, buskers, and beats from DJ ha-MEEN added to the festive atmosphere. 

 

The first weekend also featured the Rochester engagement of the U.S. Premiere Tour of C’est Pas Là, C’est Par Là  (It’s Not Here, It’s Over Here) direct from Marseille, France. The unique, site-specific show at City Blue conceived by South Korean street artist Juhyung Lee and produced by the arts collective Compagnie Galmae invited the community to come together and maneuver through a massive web of string 6 kilometers (nearly 4 miles) long, drawing nearly 1,200 audience members.

 

After delighting tens of thousands of Fringe-goers in 2012 and 2013, renowned aerial dance company BANDALOOP returned to the 21-story Five Star Plaza building at 100 Chestnut Street. They performed four free shows for record-breaking audiences who watched in awe from Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Park during Fringe Finale Weekend. On the final Saturday of Fringe, unseasonably chilly temperatures warmed just in time for the annual Fringe Street Beat competition, an all-styles dance and breakdancing contest featuring teams from all over the Northeast competing for the title of Fringe Street Beat Champions and a cash prize. The winning team was Rochester-based TNT: John Davis Jr. (AKA Bass), Ernest Ringo (AKA Jaedo), and Jermaine Barber (AKA Maine).

Hundreds of visitors flocked to One Fringe Place nightly to attend the headliner shows in the glamorous Cristal Palace Spiegeltent and Spiegelgarden. The Spiegelgarden also featured the free Pedestrian Drive-In movies, giant games, outdoor lounge seating, fire pits, and a rotating selection of food trucks.

 

More than 30% of this year’s ticketed shows were sold-out, including Cirque du Fringe: Afterglow, Shotspeare, Late & Live, Silent Disco, Dashboard Dramas VIII, Bushwhacked, The 24-Hour Plays, You Know the Old Slaying, The Fiddle Witch, Etched Glass Decanter, BARDBENDING: A Same-Sex Shakespeare Sampler, We Will Give You Wings, Thank You Kiss Presents: Slippery Slopes, Gilbert and Sullivan's Improbable New Musical: Less Miserable, Cell Outs, Runaway Princess: A Hopeful Tale of Heroin, Hooking, and Happiness, Almost Magic Show! 2.0, The Velvet Noose, Choise of Valentines, Stand-Up Through the Ages, Folk Music from Around the World, The Painter, Charming Disaster: Our Lady of Radium, At Home with Garth Fagan Dance, and How To Meditate: A Burlesque Show. Overall, attendance at both ticketed and free shows was up over 2021 levels.  

“This was our third Rochester Fringe, and it was one of the highlights of our 2022 touring season. The Fringe gave us the chance to connect with new audiences, longtime fans, and other artists, and it gave us new opportunities to let the world know about our work (including a radio interview and a positive review in the paper),” said Ellia Bisker of Charming Disaster: Our Lady of Radium, which played four shows at The Spirit Room. “We took artistic risks, we sold out two of our performances, and we made our Spiegeltent debut alongside some seriously amazing talent. We're already looking ahead to next year. 

Located in neighborhoods scattered throughout the heart of the city, the 2022 venues included the Spiegeltent and Spiegelgarden, Parcel 5, Martin Luther King, Jr. Park, Aerial Arts of Rochester,  CenterStage Theatre at the JCC, Central Library, Eastman School of Music and Hatch Hall, The Focus Theater, Garth Fagan Dance, George Eastman Museum, Geva Theatre Center, Java's, Joseph Avenue Arts and Cultural Alliance, La Marketa at The International Plaza, The Little Theatre, MuCCC - Multi-use Community Cultural Center, RIT City Art Space, Rochester Contemporary Art Center - RoCo, Rochester Music Hall of Fame, Salena's, School of the Arts, Sloan Performing Arts Center at the University of Rochester, The Spirit Room, The Theater at Innovation Square, and Writers & Books. This year’s site-specific locations were: City Blue Imaging, Ellison Park, Mt. Hope Cemetery, ROC City Circus, St. Joseph’s Park, The Strong National Museum of Play, and the Lawn of Third Presbyterian Church. In addition, multiple Virtual Fringe productions were available online for audiences to see at their convenience.

“It was a thrill to be part of Fringe again. The audiences are returning to pre-pandemic levels with multiple shows selling out and enthusiastic crowds,” said Ralph Meranto, JCC CenterStage Theatre Artistic Director. “We look forward to being part of the festival for many years to come.”

The Focus Theater, now located in the historic Sibley Square building, timed the grand opening of its brand-new theater to coincide with the kickoff  of Fringe 2022. 

“The Focus takes comedy seriously. We hosted two dozen hysterical shows and the attendance exceeded our expectations. People found us. People rediscovered downtown. People reminisced about the Sibley Building,” said Roger Sutphen, Focus Business Manager and Partner. “We feel we opened people’s eyes about what is good in this city and what downtown Rochester has to offer.”

Joseph Avenue Arts and Cultural Alliance, an active community organization, was a Fringe venue again this year and hosted several free family events.

"The 2022 Rochester Fringe Festival absolutely launched our fall programming to new heights and welcomed more children and families than ever to our community,” said David Pacific, Executive Director of Joseph Avenue Arts and Culture Alliance. “To see families join us from across the city and make memories together through new experiences is exactly what the Joseph Avenue Arts and Culture Alliance is all about, and we could not be more thrilled than to see the arts have such an immeasurable impact on so many this year."

RCSD’s School of the Arts returned to the Fringe for the first time since 2019 due to forced, pandemic-related closure. This powerhouse of a venue presented the largest quantity of shows during the festival.

“School of the Arts was delighted to be back as a venue for the 2022 Rochester Fringe Festival. The artistic energy the festival brings to our building is a wonderful way for us to start our school year,” said Andrea Gregoire, Arts Center Director. “The Fringe artists who engaged with our students, and the patrons and volunteers who supported our student activities made this year’s festival a great success for SOTA.”

 

More About Rochester Fringe Festival: 

The 12-day Rochester Fringe Festival has become the largest multidisciplinary performing arts festival in New York State and one of the top three attended Fringe Festivals in the United States. More than 500,000 people have attended nearly 4,000 performances and events at the Fringe since its inception in 2012. The non-profit organization’s mission is to offer a platform for artists to share their creativity and develop their skills, while also providing unparalleled public access to the arts. It strives to be diverse and inclusive, and to stimulate downtown Rochester both culturally and economically. It showcases the work of regional, national, and international artists from emerging to superstar.

 

More About Fringe Festivals:

In 1947, eight theatre groups showed up - uninvited - to perform at the newly established Edinburgh International Festival in Scotland. Although not listed in the official program, the groups performed anyway, at venues they found for themselves. The following year, a Scottish journalist coined the term “festival fringe” to describe these non-curated shows that began turning up annually. The Edinburgh Fringe is now the world’s largest arts festival and the third largest event after the Olympics and the World Cup. Today, there are more than 250 Fringe Festivals worldwide, with nearly 50 in the United States. The Rochester Fringe Festival was the first in Upstate New York.

 

2022 Sponsors Include

New York State Council on the Arts; City of Rochester; University of Rochester; Monroe County; Ames Amzalak Memorial Trust; Daisy Marquis Jones Foundation;  Rochester Area Community Foundation; Nocon & Associates; ESL Foundation; RIT; Waldron Rise; Elaine P. and Richard U. Wilson Foundation; Louis S. and Molly B. Wolk Foundation; Konar Enterprises; Mary Mulligan Trust; J.M. McDonald Foundation; Max and Marian Farash Charitable Foundation; VisitRochester; Nazareth College; St. John Fisher University; Monroe Community College; The Pike Company; 13WHAM TV; CITY Magazine; D&C Digital; WXXI; Fred & Floy Willmott Foundation; Wegmans; Hyatt Regency Rochester; Canandaigua National Bank; Genesee Beer; The Rubens Family Foundation; City Blue; Aspire Transformation Services; Benderson Development; Hamilton A/V; Wilkins RV; McCarthy Tents & Events; Broccolo Tree & Lawn Care; The Harley School; Boylan Code; Bond Schoeneck & King; Yelp!; and the House of Guitars.

Media please note: High-resolution photos from the 2022 Rochester Fringe Festival may be requested by emailing leah@rochesterfringe.com.

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