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For a week and a half
every August, the Massachusetts avenue cultural district
explodes with a host of street performers, artists, and
inexpensive unique shows written and produced by both local
artists and artists from around the world. This is the
Indianapolis
Theatre Fringe Festival, or
Indyfringe. Since its inception in 2005, the IndyFringe
festival is a chance to recognize, explore, and support new
talent, as all of the ticket proceeds go directly to the
performers.
Indyfringe is played out
in the open on Massachusetts Avenue and in several of the
theatres that have their home in the district, including the
Phoenix, Theatre on the Square, Comedysportz, the
American
Cabaret Theatre, and the Murat Egyptian Room. Over 200 shows
are performed during the run of the festival by over 30
different companies, not to mention the free events, like
the professional street buskers, the public poetry
performances, performance art, and the other free
performances and parties taking place throughout the Mass
Ave district. The kids aren’t left out either – though a lot
of the fringe festival performances are for adults, the
FringeNext project aims to involve young people in the
project, giving a venue over to youth performances.
 Fringe
festivals in general got their start in Scotland in
1947, when Edinburgh launched a theatre festival to
try and reunite post-war Europe through the arts and
culture. Performers, both invited and uninvited,
came from around the globe, and those uninvited
performers set up shop outside the official festival
grounds and began performing, attracting more and
more crowds every day. The name Fringe Festival was
dubbed by Robert Kemp, a reporter for the evening
news, as the Fringe Festival performers drew more of
the crowd away from the mainstage.
Canada was the next
country to adopt the Fringe mentality, and the
United States followed. The Indianapolis Fringe
Festival was inspired in 2001 by a public meeting
called “Theatre City Indianapolis 2012,” attended by
Mayor Bart Peterson and a panel of Indianapolis
theatre experts, where they brainstormed ideas to
make Indianapolis’ theatre community grow even
stronger and faster than it already was. The fringe
festival idea answered everyone’s individual need
and also fed the growing need in Indianapolis and
the rest of the country for collaborative efforts
from arts organizations to help us define and
strengthen our cultural identities and celebrate our
diverse natures.
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