On Fringe Of Stardom At The Seattle Fringe Festival

By Author: Pam
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On Fringe of Stardom at the Seattle Fringe Festival

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The last thing you want to do in September in Seattle is rush indoors to see a show.

September is the most perfect of months here; it's summer as the poets intended it to be. It was with some trepidation that I gave up two of my rare perfect weekends to see as much theater as my brain could digest. A body can only take so much theater, and experimental theater, well, there's a limit on how much of that a person can be expected to tolerate. But I'd committed, I was going to see the Seattle Fringe Festival this year. Theater and plenty of it, that's how I was to pass the last two fine weekends of September.

I was not the least bit sorry. It was totally worth it. I had a great time.

Seattle has hosted a Fringe Theater for 12 years. . . In previous years, the Festival has been in February, when there's no weather enticing ...
... you outside, but this year the board decided to reschedule the Festival for September so that it didn't conflict with the Festival up the road in Vancouver, B.C.

The Fringe Festival takes place in Seattle's Capitol Hill neighborhood, home to punks and queers and artists and families and working folks and people just like me. It's (I think) the best neighborhood in the city. Capitol Hill hides a number of independent theater houses in former warehouses, basements, back alleys, and some venues that were actually built to be theater houses. I found myself walking through loading docks, climbing creaky back stairs, and squeezing in to rickety ancient elevators to enter the nine venues that hosted more than 500 performances of independent theater acts.

When you have 500 performances to pick from, there's no one good way to decide what to see. I opted for the Russian roulette approach and picked each show at random, based on how it fit in to my schedule. I opted for a Friday night, a Saturday matinee, a Saturday night, a Sunday early show, and, if I could take it, a late Sunday afternoon show. My goal was to squeeze in five shows each weekend, but I didn't quite make it. I saw eight shows total. Still, if you count the one show I saw that was actually four short plays, that jacks the number up to 12.

There are those who'd consider my commitment lightweight. Some folks take it upon themselves to see at least one show daily for the run of the eleven day Festival. Shows are performed until late at night and many of them are quite short. It's not unreasonable to try to see three shows a night. And it's not expensive - a pass for five shows cost US$40 dollars this year. Single shows ran between seven and 15 dollars, and the Festival offered a number of 2 for 1 shows, making it all that more fun to bring a friend.

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Pam, Jetsetters Magazine Correspondent - Read Jetsetters Magazine at www.jetsettersmagazine.com To book travel visit Jetstreams.com at www.jetstreams.com and for Beach Resorts visit Beach Booker at www.beachbooker.com


About the Author Pam, Jetsetters Magazine Correspondent. Join the Travel Writers Network in the logo at www.jetsettersmagazine.com Leave your email next to the logo for FREE e travel newsletter.