Photo by Zack Smith
"We Don't Eat Here," a 2014 Fringe Fest performance.
On a cool night last November, a dingy, crowded little bar called Hi Ho Lounge on St. Claude Avenue overflowed with people there to see a sideshow family/burlesque/surreal sitcom, featuring a granny striptease, aerial acrobatics, fire, and lots of glitter. If you were one of the lucky few sitting in front, you were picking the stuff out of your hair for weeks. Ginger Licious’ “A Beaver Licious Family Affair,” as the sitcom was billed, was just one of many magical, weird, sexy—and sometimes confusing—experimental theatrical productions taking place throughout the city during last year’s New Orleans Fringe Festival; and event producer B.E. Mintz said this year’s will bring even more of the raucous art and fun associated with Fringe via its new-and-improved incarnation, called Faux/Real.
Fringe festivals are an international phenomenon, started in Edinburgh, Scotland, in the late 1940s as an alternative to the Edinburgh International Festival and encompassing theatre that is experimental in style or subject matter. New Orleans’ festival, which began in 2008, has become an important part of the burgeoning artist movement in the Marigny and Bywater. Over the years, it has featured more than 1,500 performances and drawn in tens of thousands of visitors, according to organizers. Last year, about fifteen thousand people attended.
In response to the increased interest and due to an effort to further promote experimental art and theatre, the festival aims to expand in time and scope. This November, there will be three weeks of weirdness, rather than one, and events will pour out of artist-hub Marigny-Bywater and into the French Quarter, Central Business District, Central City, and even Uptown. Faux/Real will run November 4 through 22 and showcase about eighty productions at more than thirty-five venues across the city, both conventional and non-conventional, including street performances, second lines, and theatrical parties.
Mintz, publisher of the online news and culture magazine NOLA Defender, took on the role of producer when Fringe Festival organizers “felt like the festival needed to evolve.” He was well positioned to help; his publication has provided exhaustive coverage from the beginning, hiring freelancers each season to try and turn performance reviews overnight. After talking with organizers about the challenges of managing so many local and visiting performers, Mintz helped them to expand the festival’s length and include a broader array of arts disciplines.
The goal is to provide one-of-a-kind experiences for a wide and diverse audience as well as provide a platform for artists to perform on a national stage. “It [the festival] has the fringe at its core; and that kind of creativity—pushing the line, pushing the boundaries, radical creativity—is still at its center,” said Mintz.
Organizers have met with minimal resistance from artists who prefer the anarchistic tradition of the past, a predictable reaction, according to Mintz: “If you make a pot of gumbo you’re going to get pushback from someone who does it differently,” he explained. In order to support visiting performers and bigger companies, the box office will run ticketing but allow performers to set their own ticket price and collect one hundred percent of the profits, a change from past festivals’ less organized structure, when each venue determined ticket price and worked out compensation with performers. “The nature of this city is that no one is always happy; but for the most part people have really embraced it, and we’ve been able to keep at the core this grassroots performance community but also bring in a lot more people from out of town and a lot more people locally.”
Working from the festival’s headquarters in a tiny coffeehouse tucked in the back of Mag’s 940 bar on Elysian Field, Mintz said this year’s performances will feature everything from conventional opera to modern dance, one-man plays, aerialists, and nerd-themed burlesque. And this year, the definition of fringe art will expand to include literature, food, and drink. “There’s lots of formal cocktail and food education down here, and that’s not what we’re trying to do. We’re trying to do stuff that is smart and educated, but still kind of ridiculous,” said Mintz.
When he shared the idea with food-and-drink industry professionals, they all agreed that bartending was a form of performance. “Every time a bartender steps behind the sticks,” added Mintz, “they’re kind of getting on stage … especially with the craft-cocktail-type stuff, there is an element of physical drama in that.”
Collaborators include craft-drink specialists from Cure and Tiki Tolteca, some of whom plan to make the world’s largest Flip, a cocktail that often includes beer, rum, and molasses heated with a red-hot iron. The Faux/Real version will be prepared in a cauldron with a cannonball and crawfish burner. Insurance for the event was pricey; Mintz recommends you add it to your checklist.
NOLA Project Artistic Director A.J. Allegra oversaw a practice of his performance group’s Faux/Real performance on a recent night at Lusher Charter School. Director James Yeargain brainstormed with Alex Martinez Wallace and Kali Russell as they acted out a comedic romance scene from Clown Bar, which Allegra described as “Goodfellas meets Maltese Falcon meets Bozo the Clown.” The performance, which would be incorrectly described as a “play,” is about an ex-clown who seeks to avenge his brother’s death and confronts ghost clowns of the past at a clown bar. It will take place at The Little Gem Saloon and involve audience members who will not watch passively but will be surrounded by the interactive experience.
It’s not necessarily representative of the type of work the company normally does, but Allegra said the performance is true to the company’s creative roots. Plus, having a venue tailor-made for these types of alternative performances allows the company to get creative. “Faux/Real is a great venue for this type of work because this is different, and it is more fringe for us and boundary-pushing,” said Allegra, who wrote a play based on the iconic video game The Oregon Trail for a past Fringe Fest and has since sold the rights to companies across the nation. “I think that the type of work Faux/Real is looking to include is anything that feels new, fresh, different … I think that this festival is all about promoting new ways of thinking and new ways of storytelling.” That’s exactly the sentiment Mintz hopes Faux/Real fosters in performers—the confidence to expand their ideas about art and take chances within the supportive, creative space of the festival.
Details. Details. Details.
Faux/Real November 4—22 at venues throughout New Orleans
Buy tickets online at fauxrealnola.com or, before the festival starts, at the temporary box office at the Healing Center, 2372 St. Claude Avenue.
Cost varies by performance, but you will need to purchase a $5 button for entry, which can be used throughout the entire festival.
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