DOTS’ Fringe Festival is a collection of original performances by local playwrights, many of which venture into the “fringe” of what is considered normal for theatrical performances.
It subverts what people expect theater to be, making it a little bit more interesting and edgy in that way and a lot more dynamic and fun to watch,” said Kristin Farr, a founding member and director of outreach for DOTS.
The DOTS event is based on the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in Scotland.
“The history of it is that there was a theater festival and that the festival didn't accept some entries. And so, those artists were like, whatever, we're going to make our own. And so, it literally was on the fringe of this theater festival,” said Dr. Gretchen Teague, executive director of DOTS.
The event grew from there, and now there are multiple fringe organizations across the world, which Teague said often connect with one another.
“We connected recently with Kansas City. Last summer, we took a show up to Kansas City to perform. We met a lot of artists there and have had conversations about our way of working and how that's different from other festivals,” said Teague. “I, in my heart, imagine someday we'll be like Edinburgh and just huge, and every space will be taken over with theater people.”
At the DOTS Fringe Festival, a variety of genres are featured.
“We’ve had horror and gore, we’ve had musicals, we’ve had plays, we’ve had nonspoken production pieces that were more based on movement,” said Farr. “So the gamut is very wide as far as what we bring into a fringe festival. It’s not a traditional theatre piece.”
Over the years, the DOTS Fringe Festival has evolved quite a bit, which Farr predicts will continue.
“Our first year, we started out, and we had two locations downtown and it was quite nice. It worked well with what we were trying to accomplish then. Last year we centralized it a little bit more to kind of take a step back and focus it a little bit more so that we can figure out a little bit more about the actual event itself,” said Farr. “We will be doing that again this year, and we are also adding a third theater so that we can work in the youth program as well.”
But now that the group has added more performances, Farr said she believes they will outgrow The Judy and eventually need to spread back into downtown, where Fringe Festival performances once took place.
“You never know what you're going to see when you walk in because it could be anything, and that's what's fun about going to see a fringe show,” said Teague.
“It gives us lots of opportunities to showcase not only our performers, but the creatives behind the scenes. We see some new directors popping out for these fringe pieces,” she said.
To connect with DOTS or to learn more about the Fringe Festival, check out their Instagram, Facebook and website.
