The Philadelphia Fringe Festival was founded in 1997 by two of Philadelphia’s most dynamic performing artists, Nick Stuccio, a former corps member of Pennsylvania Ballet and independent arts producer, and Eric Schoefer, a choreographer and performance artist. Stuccio and Schoefer were part of a growing group of experimental artists and companies working and living in Philadelphia in the mid-1990s. These dancers, actors, musicians and puppeteers were manipulating traditional genres, redefining their crafts and collaborating in ways that the greater art world had yet to see. What these artists lacked was an effective venue for broader exposure to national and international arts communities. After experiencing Festival Time in Edinburgh—three weeks in August when Scotland’s capital city hosts both the International Festival and the Edinburgh Festival Fringe—Stuccio and Schoefer decided that Philadelphia was ready to join the international fringe movement.

The Original Fringe
Edinburgh’s Festival Fringe first occurred as one network of artists’ response to the Western cultural standard of “high” art. In 1947, the first Edinburgh International Festival presented an esteemed group of European performing arts companies in an effort to reunite post-war Europe through culture and the arts. During that same week, eight uninvited theatre groups descended on the festivities without warning, adopting and inventing venues wherever they could, mostly on the fringes of the city’s center, and thereby creating an unofficial festival of their own. And so the fringe was born. Since then, the Edinburgh Festival Fringe has grown from a tiny group of rebel artists to a large, fully staffed organization, presenting hundreds of groups each year, co-existing peacefully with the International Festival, and inspiring artists in cities all over the world to found their own festivals and add fuel to the fire of the international fringe movement.

The Philadelphia Fringe Festival
Stuccio and Schoefer returned from Edinburgh inspired, energized and ready to create a much-needed venue for experimental artists of all kinds in Philadelphia. The first Festival took over the Old City neighborhood of Philadelphia for five days in September of 1997 and featured 60 performance groups presenting their work in theaters, nightclubs, galleries, alleys, abandoned buildings and at least one parked car. The Festival created an opportunity for artists taking creative risks to present their work in an inspiring and exciting environment for audiences. Their work reached a new, dynamic and experimental edge that thrilled the local artistic community and audiences alike. The fearlessness exhibited by this group of artists set the tone for the ten festivals that have followed.

Since 1997, our organization has grown tremendously by galvanizing the energy and passion of the local performing arts community while reaching out to an ever-broadening network of nationally and internationally renowned artists who are forming the cutting-edge of performance world-wide. The Philadelphia Live Arts Festival and Philly Fringe now present sixteen days of performing arts events each year, beginning on the Labor Day holiday weekend. In 2008, the festivals will take place from August 29th through September 13th, 2008.

The Live Arts Festival features selected, boundary-breaking performing arts events, created by some of the most innovative and successful contemporary artists from our region and around the world. In 2007, Live Arts shows included Vietnamese-born Ea Sola with her dance company's anti-war statement Drought and Rain Vol. 2; The Wooster Group's provocative production of Eugene O'Neill's The Emperor Jones; and Pig Iron Theatre Company's Isabella, a re-imagining of Shakespeare's Measure for Measure set in a morgue. In previous years, presentations have included Italian-born choreographer Emio Greco and Dutch director Pieter Scholten’s Hell, inspired by Sartre’s Huis Clos and Dante’s Inferno; The U-Haul Trilogy, Venezuelan choreographer Juan Souki’s three-part performance set in the trailer of a U-Haul truck; and Amnesia Curiosa, a dramatic tale of 19th century pseudo-science performed by local actors Trey Lyford and Geoff Sobelle in the nation’s oldest surgical amphitheater at Pennsylvania Hospital.

The Philly Fringe provides opportunities for any artist, independent of a selection process, to self-produce his or her work. The artists of the Philly Fringe are a rare and inspired breed; they write, choreograph, direct, design and produce their own work. They build their own sets, manage their own shows and find or invent their own venues. And they take the ultimate risk by putting themselves on display and leaving the judgments to you. To classify the Fringe into set genres would be impossible; over the past eleven years, artists have presented cabaret, capoeira, klezmer, lit-pop, pop-opera, free trade parades, poetry slams, toilet tricycle races, trapeze extravaganzas, vaudeville, video art, and everything in between. Fringe favorites over the years have included Azuka Theatre’s walking tour of eavesdropping one-acts in Old City; ten-year veterans of long form improvisation, LunchLady Doris; giant puppet parades with Spiral Q Puppet Theatre; Baudelaire-inspired rock and video art from The Absinthe Drinkers; and a twenty-four-hour version of Ionesco’s Bald Soprano by BRAT Productions.

Fringe Works
Through these two festivals, our organization currently presents the creative works of 1,000-2,000 artists annually. We are renowned as champions of Philadelphia-based artists. The Festivals are often the first and only opportunity for emerging, local artists to present their work, and over the last eleven years we have helped thousands of artists by giving them a critical foundation for their emergence into the arts world. We offer formal and informal support through workshops and year-round advice and information on administration, marketing, fundraising and show production. We commission work by established Philadelphia-based artists and actively work to connect them to national networks of presenters. We invite presenters to the festivals, offering them complimentary tickets and advocating on behalf of artists and their work. Live Arts and Fringe artists have gone on to perform at festivals and venues such as On the Boards in Seattle; Spoleto in Charleston, South Carolina and at St. Ann’s Warehouse in Brooklyn, New York. The Live Arts and Philly Fringe bring together artists from many different disciplines, backgrounds and geographical regions, generating a network of artistic cross-pollination and bringing a palpable creative power surge to the region. Each year, we seek to create a cultural center where artists on the cutting-edge of their craft can present their work, exchange creative energies and ideas, and share their artistic visions with audiences and the international arts community, and the results we see are astounding. If the Live Arts and Philly Fringe sound like something you want to be a part of, check out the rest of our website and read about all of the ways that you can get involved.