Hello again! Sorry my posting has been so intermittent… weddings and the last day at my fulltime job and, of course, FRINGE! I’m going to try and get back into my regular schedule of writing, and figured I’d first share my experiences from the first annual Chicago Fringe Festival.

'Till next year!

First and foremost: the Fringe Festival was AWESOME! It was great to perform, fun to volunteer, a blast to be able to see other shows, and an all-in-all wonderful experience.

Some Fringe thoughts, in no particular order:

Selling out on Saturday night was really wonderful. The Festival started off rocky for me, because on Tuesday night (the last rehearsal) I was very cranky, unsure if I would ever get off book, exhausted by dealing with technical issues, and at the edge of tears (and occasionally over the edge). Wednesday night (opening) went well, and it was good being able to improve on the show each night. Saturday night was both the strongest show and the largest house, although I finished off Sunday with a really strong show and a good house as well, which was great.

I performed at the Temple Gallery, home to Posterchild, which was great. The two people who lived there were lovely, and generously opened their home (and badass performance space) to us. Chatting with them and bonding with their cats made the Festival seem that much more community-based, and I’m excited to see Posterchild perform in Andersonville in a few weeks. The stage managers assigned to the venue, Rose and Amanda, went above and beyond, and I was lucky to have ‘em.

Part of being an artist at a Fringe Festival is going to see other shows, and I was able to see a bunch (of which I’ll try to give more mini-reviews later this week): Skinny Dipping, Christmas in Bakersfield, Playdating, Bridges, Peter Panties, and Inner Cartography, just to mention a few. They ran the range from really fantastic to kind of unfortunate, but it was cool having a single festival where anyone and everyone was performing.

I was also able to hang out with a bunch of other artists and volunteers. I volunteered in Temple Gallery on Thursday night, which let me meet people and see the other three shows in that venue. That – and connecting with artists throughout the festival – was a good idea, since as a solo performer I wasn’t able to go out with my cast or anything. I successfully made both local and non-local friends, and was glad to be able to have people to hang out with at the bar.

Ahh, the bar. The after party every night was at Honky Tonk BBQ, and consisted of good but WAY TOO LOUD music, and yummy and reasonably priced drinks. (Ace Cider is fucking delicious.) This was a great mingling place, too, and I got good advice on how to pursue future Fringe Festivals and some other festivals and conferences to look into. It was also fun exploring Pilsen a bit – it’s a cool neighborhood, but I (being a north-sider) don’t have much opportunity to head down there.

From chatting with other artists, they said that the whole festival – being the first Chicago Fringe – was a bit disorganized, and I could understand their points. For example, having shows at 4PM on Wednesday and Thursday really makes it difficult, if not impossible, to get good audiences. It might be better to push the last show of the evening to 11:30PM, rather than start so early. Likewise, the volunteers were all great and dedicated, but not always the most organized. But the artists seemed forgiving, and everyone I met was really nice.

I’m now starting on my To Do List, which included this post. (Other To Do highlights: researching conferences and festivals, putting together more posts, updating my website, and more!)

Stay tuned, and it’s nice to be back.