For decades, Actors Theatre of Louisville has put on staple performances that have become well-known by the Louisville arts community and beyond. This year, they’re partnering with another performance tradition that is, by design, pushing traditional theater to new dimensions.
Louisville Fringe Festival performances will be held at Actors Theatre of Louisville’s Victor Jory Theatre Sept. 12-15. It will be the first time Louisville Fringe has partnered with Actors Theatre to present the festival.
Louisville Fringe Fest is one of many city-based offshoots of the original Fringe Festival in Edinburgh, Scotland meant to highlight new and non-traditional theater.
“We focus a lot on Louisville-based theater, as opposed to national, international or regional theater,” said Allie Fireel, Louisville Fringe Festival co-founder and its creative and artistic director.
Fireel said Louisville Fringe has invested in being a space for new works.
“A big part of our mission and statement is that we want to remove barriers that keep artists and audiences out of theaters, and I think the fringe model, in general, is aimed at letting artists in, and then we sort of add audiences to that,” Fireel said.
The partnership with Actors Theatre is an extension of this mission.
“When Allie [Fireel] and Nick [Hulstine, Lou Fringe Fest co-founder] approached Actors Theatre about hosting Fringe Festival, transparently, it was a huge hell yeah,” said Katie Peña-Van Zile, a producer with Actors Theatre. “We really are about uplifting the narratives that aren't necessarily going to find their way to Broadway instantaneously with a bunch of backers because the scrappy, weird, wonderful theater that is so so exciting and happening in Louisville needs to be lifted up.”
This year’s Fringe Fest features a festival staple called “SHOTZ!” It’s a series of 10-minute plays written and rehearsed over a short period.
Peña-Van Zile, who also writes plays, has a featured piece in the series this year.
All playwrights receive the same starting prompt and go from there.
“At the table read, it was really, really interesting to see how we all started with the same prompts, and ended up in wildly different corners of the theatrical universe,” said Peña-Van Zile.
The piece centers on the worst birthday party they’ve ever been to.
The first night of “SHOTZ!” will feature all premieres and the festival will conclude with a showcase of 10-minute plays from past Louisville Fringe Festivals.
Other performances feature three witches shakespeare, an LGTBQ+ focused group, a series of performances hosted and curated by Hannah DeWitt, Louisville Fringe Fest’s first poetry slam and a one-man show from Keith McGill.
The people behind the Louisville Fringe Festival said audiences shouldn’t be put off by the non-traditional theater showcased at the festival.
“It's weird and scary to mainstream theater. It's weird and means it's weird and scary to producers,” Fireel said. “But a lot of people are going to come and see something on stage that feels maybe for the first time that they've been in a theater, that's going to feel familiar.”
Fringe Fest runs at Victor Jory Theatre from Sept. 12 through Sept. 15.
Disclosure: Allie Fireel is married to an LPM employee.
Correction: This story has been updated to clarify that Hannah DeWitt is hosting and has curated a set of performances
