At the 12-day KeyBank Rochester Fringe Festival

 

Rochester, NY – The 2019 KeyBank Rochester Fringe Festival opens one week from today on Tuesday, September 10 and runs for 12 days through Saturday, September 21. The eighth annual Rochester Fringe will offer more than 575 performances and events in 25+ venues in downtown Rochester.

This year’s theme – “Leap a Little” – is meant to encourage attendees to try something new, and reflects both the accessibility and diversity of Fringe.

“We truly have something for everyone at Fringe,” says Festival Producer Erica Fee. “The variety of offerings is so incredible and so simple to sample that we want to inspire visitors to be just a little adventurous!” 

More than 150 free performances and events make taking that leap a little easier, starting with the large-scale, outdoor entertainment on both weekends of the festival. 

Fringe’s signature, spectacular Friday & Saturday on the Fringe this year (Sept. 13 & 14) features the return of French street theatre company Plasticiens Volants (pronunciation here), which made its U.S. debut at Fringe two years ago with a show called BIG BANG to more than 20,000 enthralled audience members. This year, the internationally renowned group will turn downtown into a giant aquarium with another U.S. premiere: Pearl: Secrets of the Sea. Using their giant inflatable puppets, Plasticiens Volants’ two, 8 p.m. performances will begin with a 20-minute promenade, as sea creatures – including a 60-foot whale – “swim” down Chestnut and Main Streets. Then, at Parcel 5, a dramatic story involving a gigantic sea serpent, an enormous octopus, and a precious pearl will unfold to enchant audiences of all ages. 

The new Fringe Finale Weekend features the return of the U.K.’s MASSAOKE, which made its U.S. debut at last year’s Friday & Saturday on the Fringe. This year, the sing-along sensation will perform its rock-anthem show, MixTape, on Friday, Sept. 20, and its Massaoke: Night at the Musicals show – the North American premiere – on Saturday, Sept. 21, the final night of Fringe. Both free performances feature the world-renowned live band plus giant projected lyrics and videos, and will take place on a new Chestnut Street stage. 

Other free shows:  The Spiegelgarden, a public, pop-up, outdoor lounge at One Fringe Place (corner of East Main and Gibbs Streets), will feature free KIDS DAY activities (Saturday, Sept. 21) and Pedestrian Drive-In – a free, nightly, big-screen movie series that kicks off with a special showing of RBG, the Ruth Bader Ginsburg documentary. Other free Fringe favorites include the exciting, all-styles dance battle featuring teams from all over the Northeast called Fringe Street Beat (Chestnut St. on Saturday, Sept. 21), and Gospel Sunday (the best of the Rochester gospel scene in Kilbourn Hall on Sunday, Sept. 15). All venue-curated performances and events at The Little, RIT City Art Space, and Java’s are also free.

Turning to ticketed shows, Fringe headliners include:

  • Fringe’s 2019 comedy headliner: award-winning comedian, actor, director and author Mike Birbiglia in An Evening with Mike Birbiglia in Kodak Hall at Eastman Theatre on Friday, September 20 at 7:30 p.m. 
  • Fringe presents Nate DiMeo’s The Memory Palace, a Peabody-nominated history podcast, in The Memory Palace Live at the Eastman School of Music’s Kilbourn Hall on Thursday and Saturday, Sept. 19 & 21, as well as The Memory Palace On-Site Listening Experience at High Falls, a free, site-specific show running throughout the festival. Both events will feature world premieres of specially commissioned Rochester stories.
  • New in the Cristal Palace Spiegeltent this year will be the fifth world-premiere comedy/variety show created especially for Fringe by Las Vegas masterminds, Matt and Heidi Morgan: Cirque du Fringe: D’illusion, with an all-new cast featuring Japanese “danger magician” TanBA. The Morgans will also debut a brand-new Shotspeare show for late-night entertainment, this time a bawdy remake of Macbeth. Another late-night Speigeltent sell-out, Silent Disco, returns, along with its equally popular, daytime edition: Disco Kids. This year’s debut of Drag Brunch on Sunday, Sept. 15 is sold out. 

Note: the vast majority of Fringe performances and events are booked by the venues themselves from applications received from shows during the spring submission process: The Avyarium, Blackfriars Theatre, Central Library of Rochester, Eastman School of Music, Garth Fagan Dance, George Eastman Museum, Geva Theatre Center, Java’s, Joseph Avenue Arts & Culture Alliance, The Little, The Lyric Theatre, Multi-use Community Cultural Center (MuCCC), Nox, RIT City Art Space, RMSC’s Strasenburgh Planetarium, School of the Arts, and Writers & Books. Additional site-specific venues this year are: High Falls, Memorial Art Gallery, Merriman Street (between Atlantic & University), Rochester Dance Theatre, and UUU Art Collective.

Everything Fringe can be found at rochesterfringe.com, which also features a variety of helpful search options (search shows by venue, age, dates, free, ASL interpreted, etc.). The free, 120-page Fringe Guide is currently at more than 40 Rochester locations (full list at https://rochesterfringe.com/visitor-info/festival-guide). The free Fringe app is now available for download via Google Play and the Apple App Store. 

Tickets may be purchased online (no fees), by phone at 585-957-9837 (phone fees apply), or in person starting Sunday, Sept. 8 at the Fringe Box Office (corner of Main & Gibbs Streets, schedule here: https://rochesterfringe.com/tickets-and-shows/box-office) and at the venue door one hour before show time (if tickets remain). 

From its five-day debut in 2012, the KeyBank Rochester Fringe Festival has become one of the fastest-growing and most-attended fringe festivals in the U.S. Attracting more than 78,000 attendees in 2018, it is also the largest multi-arts festival in New York State. As a bifurcated festival, it allows for a combination of headline entertainment curated by the non-profit Rochester Fringe Festival as well as an open-access portion programmed by the venues themselves. Renowned among the world’s 200+ fringe festivals for its spectacular, outdoor, free events as well as its large number of free performances in general, Rochester’s Fringe was also the first in North America to feature a Spiegeltent. From comedy to theatre, from music to dance, from visual art and film to spoken word, and from children’s entertainment to multi-disciplinary collaborations, the festival’s diversity also extends to venues that span the gamut from parked cars to grand theatres. 

Rochester Fringe Festival connects and empowers artists, audiences, venues, educational institutions, and the community to celebrate, explore, and inspire creativity via an annual, multi-genre arts festival. It was pioneered by several of Rochester’s esteemed cultural institutions including Geva Theatre Center, the George Eastman House and Garth Fagan Dance; up-and-coming arts groups like PUSH Physical Theatre and Method Machine; and higher-education partners such as the University of Rochester and Rochester Institute of Technology. The organization’s overarching mission is to make arts readily accessible to audiences, as well as to provide a platform for artists to share their ideas and develop their skills, while stimulating downtown Rochester both culturally and economically.

Rochester Fringe Festival, a not-for-profit, 501(c)3 corporation, is made possible with support from New York State through Market NY/Empire State Development under the Regional Economic Development Council initiative. Other 2019 Fringe sponsors include: KeyBank; I Love New York; New York State Council on the Arts; University of Rochester; RIT; Rochester Area Community Foundation; Waldron Rise Foundation; City of Rochester; Ames Amzalak Memorial Trust; National Endowment for the Arts; Imagine Monroe; Estate of Marianne L. Rohack; Richard U. & Elaine P. Wilson Foundation; Daisy Marquis Jones Foundation; Nocon & Associates; Konar Properties; SUNY Geneseo; Ronald Fielding; Max and Marian Farash Charitable Foundation; Hyatt Regency Rochester; The Pike Company; Louis S. & Molly B. Wolk Foundation; Big Slide Creative; 13WHAM TV; CITY Newspaper, D&C Digital; Broccolo Tree & Lawncare; McCarthy Tents & Events; Nazareth College; The College at Brockport; St. John Fisher College; The Rubens Family Foundation; Genesee Beer; Wegmans; Fred & Floy Willmott Foundation; Gouvernet Arts Fund at the Rochester Area Community Foundation; Visit Rochester; Wilson Foundation; ESL Charitable Foundation; Hamilton A/V; Scott Miller; House of Guitars; City Blue; Yelp!; WXXI; KidsOutandAbout.com; Midtown Athletic Club; Mary Cariola Children’s Center; Canandaigua National Bank; and the YMCA of Greater Rochester. Also supported by the Cultural Services of the French Embassy. 

About KeyBank: KeyBank’s roots trace back 190 years to Albany, New York. Headquartered in Cleveland, Ohio, KeyCorp is one of the nation’s largest bank-based financial services companies, with assets of approximately $144.5 billion at June 30, 2019. Key provides deposit, lending, cash management and investment services to individuals and businesses in 15 states under the name KeyBank National Association through a network of approximately 1,100 branches and more than 1,500 ATMs. Key also provides a broad range of sophisticated corporate and investment banking products, such as merger and acquisition advice, public and private debt and equity, syndications and derivatives to middle market companies in selected industries throughout the United States under the KeyBanc Capital Markets trade name. For more information, visit https://www.key.com/. KeyBank is Member FDIC.

Media please note: High-resolution photos, video and other press assets – including a link to request reviewer tickets – may be found at https://www.rochesterfringe.com/press. 

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