A week on the Fringe

Twin Cities Fringe Festival
WHEN: Times vary
WHERE: Locations vary
PRICE: Admission Button: $4
Single: $10-$12

Twin Cities’ residents might’ve felt a sudden influx in creativity with August’s arrival. In addition to last weekends’ art fairs, August 5th marked the start of Minnesota’s annual Fringe Festival — a sprawling Twin Cities-wide, anything-goes performance arts bonanza featuring more than 160 shows scattered throughout the city.
Supported by local venues such as Bryant-Lake Bowl , Jungle Theater and University of Minnesota’s own Rarig Center , the Fringe Festival, now in its 16th year, runs over the course of ten days with participants decided through a lottery-based selection process.
Whether you’re an actor or struggling comedian, the performance arts don’t offer much stability to begin with, but for aspiring playwrights like recent New York University graduate Dylan Lamb, the Fringe Festival is an opportunity for exposure that’s hard to come by for new faces in the game.
“It was a nice way to have a grass roots entry into a very big pool of a lot of eclectic and talented artists and shows,” Lamb said.
After applying last February, Lamb was selected from a group of more than 300 applicants.
While the shows can be found everywhere from Northeast to St. Paul, several are already in full swing at the University’s Rarig Center listed below.

Entwined: Amy Salloway
Rarig Center Arena
8/11 – 10 p.m.
8/12 – 5:30 p.m.
8/14 – 4:00 p.m.

Critically acclaimed Minneapolis performer Amy Salloway stars in this solo narrative-based performance. Frequenting the North American fringe circuits since 2004, Salloway is lauded for her awkward antics and colorful humor and her latest “work-in-progress” sees no exception.

KRAP-FM: The Adventures of a Radio Station Receptionist
Rarig Center Proscenium
8/12 – 7:00 p.m.
8/15 – 5:30 p.m.

Take an inside look into the world of corporate radio with Jason Schommer . Inspired by his job at a radio station conglomerate, Schommer employs more than a dozen actors and recounts his “glory days” with gaudy celebrities, outlandish listener call-ins and, worst of all, the depraved office politics of the music business.

Trouble in Tahiti: Dead Composers Society
U of M Rarig Center Thrust
8/11 – 7:00 p.m.
8/14 – 5:30 p.m.

Combining elements of opera, Broadway and jazz, “Trouble in Tahiti,” is a classic 50’s suburban tragedy that features music from world-renowned director and McNally Smith College of Music professor Dr. Andrew Fleser.

There is No Isabelle: Dylan Lamb
Rarig Center Xperimental
8/11 ¬– 5:30 p.m.
8/12 – 8:30 p.m.
8/14 – 5:30 p.m.”

Lamb’s play, “There is No Isabelle” was his NYU thesis. It’s the story of a college drop-out who, after coming home and announcing his recent engagement to his parents, finds himself entangled in a frivolous argument with his family. Lamb describes it as “three liars fighting for their own delusions at the dining room table.”