This weekend was all about the Fringe Festival! I took advantage of a free weekend – something that has always been a precious rarity for me in the business of theatre, but has only recently become a fairly attainable and welcome ritual – to take in as many free Fringe events as I could cram in. To be clear, there were a ton of Fringe shows I was intrigued by and would have loved to see. There were a ton of artists I would have loved to support financially…but that’s the beast of Fringe, isn’t it? 180 shows in five days is virtually impossible to start with, but generally those of us who are most excited to get out there and see these shows and support the arts – we’re artists ourselves, and at $8-$16+ a pop, it just wasn’t in the cards for me this year. So I did the next best thing. I traipsed myself to free event after free event and signed myself up to volunteer for a few Fringe box office shifts at Writers & Books – one of the Fringe venues (and a totally fantastic place in general!), for which I was rewarded with a nifty shirt, the opportunity to peek in on a few more shows, and a free ticket to one of the headliner shows.
I saw Bandaloop – the gravity-defying skyscraper wall dancers, a wearable technology fashion show, a comedy improv troupe comprised of both deaf and hearing actors who signed their performance, a children’s fairytale musical storyteller, a harmonious grass-roots all-Amerian banjo band, a stunningly touching multi-disciplinary collaboration between a writer, a dancer and a musician, a theatrical piece featuring the poetry (and ghosts) of Emily Dickens and H. P. Lovecraft, a rhythm and blues tap dance trio, a modern dance group, a whole tap dance show featuring a band, free-styled tap jams, and a tap dance tango, and the headliner show I collected a free ticket to – comedian Patton Oswalt (you may know his comedy work or remember him as Remy from Ratatouille or Spence from the TV show King of Queens), who is hilarious live and really does his best comedy work when he’s interacting with the audience and sign interpreter.
Between enjoying Fringe shows and volunteering for Fringe shows, I tried out mass at a new church, savored an authentic beef and onion empanada and “French Artichokes” (flour and egg washed pipping hot artichoke hearts sauteed in olive oil, lemon, wine, and Romano cheese), worked in a luxurious nap, met and made a new friend, learned about a fantastic new place for me to hang out and write, joined a book club for fun-loving young professionals, and learned the absolute joys of the public market…which is out-of-this-world incredible. I will be going back every Saturday morning. It easily could have been an all morning event – a cross between Cincinnati’s Findlay Market and Pike’s Market in Seattle. Though I drooled over baked goods, Polish and German eats, gorgeous blooms, fall pumpkins, corn and gourds, thousands of varieties of apples, sweet peppers of all shapes and colors, and the biggest squash and zucchini I have ever laid eyes on, I only walked away with a beautiful bunch of home-grown basil, a bundle of asparagus, a bushel of plums, and a bin of fresh cheese curds – which I consider a testament to my willpower. I may have to be bribed out of that market with kittens in the future.
All of this and beautiful fall weather too!
How was your weekend?
