Fringe Binge: Annual Downtown Manhattan Theatre Festival Fires Starting Gun

By Robert Simonson
12 Aug 2005

An assortment of postcards from this year's Fringe selections
An assortment of postcards from this year's Fringe selections

The scrappy theatre blitz known as the 2005 New York International Fringe Festival will lay seige to lower Manhattan Aug. 12, as dozens upon dozens of shows get underway.

Tickets for all the shows at the 2005 New York International Fringe Festival went on sale July 30, and the popular downtown theatre event took in just under $25,000 in sales (all at $15 per ticket) in its first 24 hours, according to a spokesperson. As of Aug. 8, $100,000 worth of tickets had been purchased.

The festival's big first-day intake was up about 45% over the previous year's at this time. Among the early hot tickets for the ninth annual summer event are Bridezilla Strikes Back!, Fleet Week, Extraordinary and Fluffy Bunnies in a Field of Daisies.

The Rude Pundit in the Year of Living Rudely has sold out its run, and Silence! The Musical is well on its way.

A complete guide for all the shows at this year's New York International Fringe Festival, Aug. 12-28, is now available online at www.FringeNYC.org. Tickets to all shows are $15 each, and multi-show discount passes are also available. For more information, call (212) 279-4488 (in NY) or (888) FringeNYC (outside NY).

More than 200 submissions were invited to FringeNYC 2005 (almost 180 of which will participate). As in previous years (e.g. The Passion of George W. Bush and Infertility, The Musical That's Hard to Conceive), some shows employ unique titles to vie for attention among the many works to be seen at this year's festival.

Among the eye-catching titles this year are:

  • A Lesbian in the Pantry
  • A Play with Myself
  • BRIDEZILLA STRIKES BACK!
  • by Oscar Micheaux
  • BYUIOO
  • Cemetery of Lips
  • Dance With Me, Harker
  • DYKAPALOOZA
  • FLUFFY BUNNIES IN A FIELD OF DAISIES
  • Fucking Ibsen Takes Time
  • GRANDMOTHERFUCKER & THE SEDUCERS
  • JESUS IN MONTANA: Adventures in a Doomsday Cult
  • LOL
  • My Pony's in the Garage
  • SITCHAASSDOWN
  • Slow Children Playing
  • Sunset Bitch
  • TEST TITLE
  • The Greatest B-Movie Ever Told
  • The Mayor Who Would Be Sondheim
  • The Miss Education of Jenna Bush
  • The Monster Under My Bed Drank My Vodka
  • Weddings of Mass Destruction
  • Yes, We have No Bananas!
  • You Wanna Piece of Me?

    Following in the Urinetown formula, a number of musicals are announcing their genre within their name, including:

  • Billionaires for Bush — The Musical
  • Byzantium: A New Musical
  • FLEET WEEK: The Musical
  • SILENCE! the Musical
  • SUV: The Musical!
  • The Banger's Flopera - A Musical Perversion
  • The Great Official Subway Musical
  • Treaty 321! A Musical
  • WARFIELD, USA: The Musical
  • You Again, a musical about cloning

    Lastly (though pared down from previous years), there are the standard long-named shows including:

  • Animal Farm project I - Version White: Funny Pigs
  • Edna St. Vincent Millay Speaks to the Committee on Immortality
  • Professor Dilexi Presents Dramatis Personae of the Apocryphal Menagerie
  • Sex with Jake Gyllenhaal and Other Fables of the Northeast Corridor
  • The Last Two Minutes of The Complete Works of Henrik Ibsen
  • Uncle Sam's Satiric Spectacular: On Democracy and Other Fictions Featuring Patriotism Acts and Blue Songs from a Red State
  • UNSPEAKABLE: Richard Pryor Live & Uncensored, a dramatic fantasia

    Among the more famous of Fringe alumni are the Off-Broadway stagings of Never Swim Alone, 21 Dog Years: Doing Time @ Amazon.com, Debbie Does Dallas, Matt & Ben, The Joys of Sex and the upcoming Off-Broadway show, Dog Sees God. The grande dame of all Fringe alum is the Tony Award-winning Urinetown, which graduated to Off-Broadway, then Broadway and has since toured across the country.

    Tickets to the Fringe Festival will be $15. For more information, including volunteer details, call (212) 279-4488 or visit the website at www.FringeNYC.org.