KeyBank Rochester Fringe Festival Board Chairman Mark Costello borrowed from Joni Mitchell’s “Big Yellow Taxi” at Monday morning’s Rochester Fringe Reveal: “You don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone.”
Indeed, The Rochester Fringe returns to its original format after two years of programming modified for the pandemic, the event’s organizers announced at the Louis S. Wolk JCC of Greater Rochester’s CanalSide Stage. The festival will feature more than 500 in-person performances and events, including more than 125 free shows, taking place over 12 days and nights.
The JCC will be one of more than 30 festival venues along for the ride. That’s the largest number of venues ever for Rochester Fringe. The 11th annual event, running from Sept. 13 through 24, will feature comedy, dance, multidisciplinary shows, music, spoken word, theater, visual art, and film screenings. It’ll also present Kids Fringe, a day of events and activities for younger audiences.
“We are thrilled to announce that we are bringing back the Cristal Palace Spiegeltent for the first time since 2019,” Rochester Fringe Producer Erica Fee told the crowd of elected officials, Fringe workers, performers and media, all applauding appreciatively at Monday’s announcement. “For all 12 nights of the Fringe. We’re also delighted to announce that we’ll present a world premiere of a show starring a duo who haven’t performed in Rochester, together, since 2019, it’s Matt and Heidi Morgan and ‘Cirque du Fringe: Afterglow.’”
The Las Vegas-based Fringe favorite Morgans bring their variety show to the jewel-like Spiegeltent and adjacent Spiegelgarden at One Fringe Place at the corner of E. Main and Gibbs Streets, across from Eastman Theatre. The production features an all-new cast.
“I’m so excited to get back to my home away from home, the epic Rochester Fringe,”
Heidi Brucker Morgan said. “We will finally be reunited… and it feels so good.”
This year’s Rochester Fringe also includes the return of the spectacular Bandaloop, an aerial act that left its footprints on the side of the downtown Five Star Plaza building at the 2012 and ’13 Fringe Festivals. Bandaloop’s free performances will be easily visible from Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Park.
The Flying Españas, a fifth-generation family circus, will perform its world premiere of Flippin Metal Circus on Sept. 16 and 17, when it headlines free shows at Parcel 5. Expect a massive motorcycle highwire, flying trapeze, and punk elements — all set to a live soundtrack from NYC-based band Mountain Girl — as part of the performance.
“We are a festival town,” said County Executive Adam Bello, praising the wide range of acts coming to Rochester Fringe. Bello would soon be speaking first hand on that, as well as Rochester Mayor Malik Evans, who said he has attended every one of these “crazy, zany festivals.”
Bello stood onstage between local jugglers Ted Baumhauer and Jeff Peden as they passed clubs past his face. Evans was called upon to inspect the integrity of a large trunk that Magician Leon Etienne would escape from moments later. Etienne, a Utica native who now performs worldwide, also coaxed a bowling ball to somehow drop out of a sketch pad.
Alongside the usual observations on the economic impact that such events delivers, Bello and Evans applauded the efforts of Rochester Fringe to keep the arts alive in the face of the pandemic. Communities that cut back on funding the arts, Evans said, “are paying for it now.”
One act that had been planned for Kodak Hall at Eastman Theatre was forced to cancel. Fee said she hopes to book another performer for the venue soon.
Meanwhile, here’s a quick rundown on what to expect:
Sept. 16, 17: Immersive artist Juhyung Leehe French art collective Galmae will bring its premiere tour of “C’est Pas Là, C’est Par Là (It’s Not Here, It’s Over Here)” to Fringe. The free, audience-interactive performance, inspired by a pro-democracy rally in Seoul, South Korea, is a collective arts experience that will task the audience with working together to unravel five kilometers of string. Performances will take place at City Blue Imaging.
Sept. 16, 17, 23, 24: The annual sell-out Silent Disco, introduced to Rochester in 2013, returns this year for four late weekend nights in the Spiegeltent. A brand-new “Dashboard Dramas VIII,” featuring four short plays performed in four parked cars, will return, along with the debut of “Bushwhacked British Bake Off: Game of Scones,” an improvised take on “The Great British Baking Show;” and “Bushwhacked Bridgerfun Ball(s),” a “Bridgerton” spoof.
Sept. 18: Gospel Sunday, Fringe’s annual celebration of local gospel greats hosted by the Rev. Dr. Rickey Harvey in the Spiegelgarden. Later, the Pedestrian Drive-In will again feature nightly films on the big screen (with audio delivered via provided headphones), outdoors in the Spiegelgarden.
Sept. 23, 24: Rochester Fringe alum Bandaloop will return to give four free performances for the festival’s Finale Weekend. The California-based group will use climbing tech to dance on the side of 21-story Five Star Plaza at 100 Chestnut Street as crowds watch from Martin Luther King, Jr. Park.
Sept. 24: Also at Martin Luther King, Jr., Memorial Park, is the annual all-styles dance and breakdancing competition Fringe Street Beat, with prelims from 5 to 7:30 p.m. and finals from 8 to 9:30 p.m. Free to watch, the event features teams from all over the Northeast competing for a cash prize, with nationally known judges and live music by Ithaca’s DJ ha-MEEN.
Sept. 24: The annual, activity-packed, free Kids Day will take place in the Spiegelgarden and at The Strong National Museum of Play, where attendees can take part in a Guinness World Record Attempt for Largest Juggling Lesson at noon.
Though state and county health regulations have loosened up greatly on indoor and outdoor arts performances, the shadow of COVID remains and Fringe will have some precautions in place.
While the Fringe does not currently require vaccine checks or masking at this time for the Spiegeltent and outdoor venues, each participating venue in the festival will independently establish its own masking and vaccine guidelines, which can be found at rochesterfringe.com/covid-protocols.
Those rules will be updated, and audience members should check them at the time of a performance they plan to attend. The Rochester Fringe Festival encourages mask wearing regardless of the rules set forth by each venue.
Ticketed shows are on sale now at rochesterfringe.com.
Rebecca Rafferty is CITY’s Life editor. She can be reached at becca@rochester-citynews.com.
Jeff Spevak is WXXI’s Arts & Life editor. He can be reached at jspevak@wxxi.org.
This article appears in Jun 1-30, 2021.
