(8.4) The following guide to the Providence Fringe Festival comes courtesy of Wilbury superfan, and friend of The Dose, Renee Bessette. There are many moving parts to this week-long festival and Renee is just the person to make sense of it all. An opening night reception will be held Monday at the Wilbury Theatre’s new home (details below). The festival runs from Tuesday, July 29th, through Saturday, August 4th.
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Monday marks the start of the FringePVD, the Fifth Annual Providence Fringe Festival.
Presented by the Wilbury Theatre Group, FringePVD features more than 250 performing artists from across the country sharing their work in theatre, dance, visual arts, and everything in between.
FringePVD has expanded its footprint across the Woonasquatucket River corridor, from its festival home base at the Waterfire Arts Center to The Steel Yard to the Wilbury’s new home in Olneyville and at its neighbors, Riffraff Bookstore and Yellow Peril Gallery.
This year’s festival features performances that are highly interactive — attendees are not just an audience, they’re part of the show. Enter the world of black beauty shops in 2018 Providence Public Library Creative Fellow Becci Davis’ Beacon Beauty Shop. Part stand up, part game show, in Good Joke / Bad Joke Bingo, host Shawn Wickens’ jokes are selected by a random numbers control and audience members can play along (and win not-so-fabulous prizes). Quite literally, The Artist Presents: Fitness, with Marina Abramović is an exercise class led by the grandmother of performance art (be ready to be moved!).
The festival also hosts a variety of variety shows, including 50 Shades of Gay and The Bernard Morton Variety Hour Presents A Very Bernard Morton Halloween, hosted by said acclaimed French theremin maestro.
After this summer’s hot and humid spell, chill out in the Immersive Igloo, a nightly psychedelic pop-up sound art installation at the WaterFire Arts Center. Our Town Plus Zombies updates the Thornton Wilder classic with its “lost” third act, Grover’s Corner besieged by the recently dead.
On Saturday, Family Fringe returns for its fourth year, offering free performances, games, music storytelling, and a bounce house all afternoon at the Waterfire Arts Center, capped by the Manton Avenue Project’s Saving the World: The Climate Change Play Festival.
Get a sneak peak of FringePVD at its free opening night party on Monday July 30th at the Wilbury Theatre Group’s new home on Sonoma Court (located around the corner from Rising Sun Mill). Performers include Zoink Zulag and the Galactic Shag, Christopher Johnson, the Passive Aggressive Novelty Company, and the Scruffy Aristocrats.
Closing night party: The Law and Order Party’s Matthew Lawrence will host the festival’s first ever awards ceremony at Troop, presenting his own awards as well as superlatives suggested by any FringePVD attendee! And it’s free.
All performances are $15 or less (some are free) and 100% of the door goes to the artists.
The festival runs from Tuesday, July 29th, through Saturday, August 4th.
Opening reception, free, 7pm to 9pm, Monday, July 30, Wilbury Theatre, 40 Sonoma Court, (directions)