EDITOR’S NOTE: This is Part 2 of a two-part feature about the Great Salt Lake Fringe (GSLF) festival’s 10th anniversary, This year’s festival will comprise two weekends of performances (July 26-28 and August 2-4) at the Alliance Theater, connected to the Utah Arts Alliance, at Trolley Square. See Part 1 here, for a feature about the first decade of GSLF. The Utah Review has selected 10 shows over the two weekends to review.
ABOUT GSLF 2024
In 2023, the Great Salt Lake Fringe (GSLF) festival established its current home at the Alliance Theater, connected to the Utah Arts Alliance, at Trolley Square. What appears to be finally the anchor location GSLF has desired, this Fringe campus is accessible in the near downtown area, just north of the intersection at 600 South and 600 East, conveniently located close to the Trolley Square TRAX light-rail station on the Utah Transit Authority’s University Red Line train.
The move ensured Fringe shows will have access to the ideal professional technical capacities for producing top quality shows, according to Jay Perry, GSLF director. It was also the first time that all the Fringe shows were located centrally, with three venues: Alliance Theater (Venue 1), Alliance Black Box (Venue 2) and The Ballroom (Venue 3).The festival runs as a lean and machine performing arts machine, managing quite well on a budget of approximately $50,000, thanks to a dedicated corps of volunteers who facilitate the flow of the performance schedule and ensure all shows start and end on time.
There are 22 shows for the 2024 edition. Performances will take place over two consecutive weekends (July 26-28 and Aug. 2-4). The festival will have an opening party on July 25 (coinciding with Trolley Square’s monthly Party on the Plaza) beginning at 6 p.m. The event will feature short previews, food trucks, a beer garden, vendors and a performance by Jay Perry, co-festival director, and his band The Vitals.
2024 FRINGE SHOWS
Perry believes this year’s schedule and central locations will give Fringe patrons an opportunity to see as many shows as possible over both weekends. This year’s slate, as indicated below, features new and veteran performers and performers from both Utah as well as out of state.
While most of this year’s performing arts fare features independent theatrical productions, there are several offerings that hew toward cabaret, revue, improvisational and audience-interactive formats. Following a STEAM approach that incorporates the arts into the traditional STEM concept, Chiasm Cabaret will feature miniature comedy routines based on bits of science, with burlesque, drag, pole, and aerialist performers. Seasoned improvisational performers who comprise D’Arcy will offer a freestyle show based on audience suggestions. Performers include Fringe alumnus David Knoell (Second City, Chicago), Chris Last (Unexpected, Seattle) and Ryan Quenneville (iO, Los Angeles). A standup comedy performance in storytelling form How Did We Get Here? will feature local comedians Spencer Riley, Nami Eskandarian, Nicholas Don Smith, and Sam D’Antuono (who also will perform a solo standup comedy show called Space Cadet). A new group with a playful twist on a hallmark of Utah Mormon cuisine, The Funeral Potatehoes, will be performing their new show, Moments that Made Me Question Everything. To Be Frank is described as a vehicle for audience interactive theater, in which 20 plays are presented within a span of 40 minutes.
México Mágico features returning performer Pam Galleg Oz, who won Fringe honors last year for best one-person show. She will perform in Spanish (with English subtitles) a set of satirical monologues highlighting the trio of Mexico’s social pillars: family, politics, and religion, which she wrote with Petter Zhan and Héctor Soto. Last year, she performed Roxie Hart Syndrome, a compact entertaining This drag queen show (as she described it) which was a fine interpretation of some of the history and the actual crime drama behind the story of Roxie Hart, a character from the Broadway musical Chicago. If last year’s show is a reliable indicator, Galleg Oz’s show is recommended because she does her homework to produce smart contemporary sendups and satires.
The widely known Puppets in the City will invite the audience to participate in Puppet Karaoke, which has a twist: no singing by humans but audience members will select the song and will be placed behind the curtain so that puppets will carry all performing expectations. Another burlesque show, Save the Cow, is written, directed and produced by Fringe alum Merry Magee. Jac, a recent college graduate decides to uproot themselves and hitchhike across the country. They encounter numerous characters and eventually land on a gay bar in rural Iowa, where Jac meets a group of queer misfits who decide to rescue a cow which has been abused by a farmer.
New short theater productions include an absurdist comedy Hark! about a 17th-century pirate and a 1980s businesswoman who have died and are left in purgatorial limbo on an island guarded by a giant Kraken. Presented by Salt Monster Theatre Co., the one-act play is by A.B. Harrison, a multidisciplinary artist whose works have been produced in Manhattan, Milwaukee and Chicago, and Hark! represents his Utah debut. While contending with the absurd circumstances which have stranded them, this duo of characters – separated by centuries in their lived experiences – eventually converge on comprehending the circumstances of their lot in their respective lives that brought them to this purgatory. A 15-minute monologue, I’ve Decided to Become a Digital Pet will be performed by John Wesley Sandorf, a writer and film student at Weber State University, who reflects on how he decided to become a Tamagotchi to counter the loneliness of his childhood. One of Fringe’s regular staples is having one or more independent adaptations of a Shakespearean play and this year will be no different with Lady M, which explores Macbeth’s wife in a broader interpretation of her character.
One of the most anticipated Fringe premieres this year is Non, by well-known Utah playwright Matthew Ivan Bennett and directed by Tyson Baker. This is Bennett’s first Fringe show but his always incisive writing (for theater and film) should make for an impressive presence at this year’s festival. Non is well-timed fare to capture the zeitgeist of this most unusual and bizarre election year, as Bennett takes aim at the country’s entrenched two-party system. Quoting his description: “Candidates Puchis and Lémeau need to convince a sickly political independent (by the name of Burlap) to vote for them in a national election. Non is an absurdist, comic, and wildly ahistorical take on the US party duopoly. Puchis and Lémeau are deadlocked, having the same number of votes, and the law demands a non-voter to break their tie. Burlap, however, is not only a non-voter, they’re nonpartisan, allied with neither the Yellows nor the Purples. And, their intestines feel like they’re about to burst!”
Another political-themed production is Seize the Initiative,written by Yoram Bauman and directed by Josh Patterson, Fringe alum and audience choice winner. Bauman, who has a doctorate in economics describes himself as “the world’s first and only stand-up economist,” frames this uniquely styled rom-com accordingly: “Saul puts the action into climate action, flirting with young women and roping them into volunteering for a carbon tax campaign. But then he falls for Grace. Is there hope for them, or for the planet?”
A new independent theatrical organization, Fickle Mistress Theatre Co., will take the stage with Spiral Bound, written and directed by Madelyn Salazar, which, according to their description, “asks us to face the seemingly impossible task of building a life in contemporary America. Exploring gender in the workplace and family in the weird late-night diner, this funny, contemplative play raises the question: ‘What do we do with so much life left to live?’”
Shauna Cordelia Brand returns to Fringe for the second consecutive year, this time with a new comedy-drama The Kitchen Sink, about the memories of six families who have lived in a house variously over the last 50 years. Last year, Brand paid homage to old-time radio serials with The Advantageous Adventures of Mrs. Meddlesome, Episode 2: The Curse of the Tomb (which won the award for outstanding family friendly production at last year’s Fringe). The producing company is SpeaKEasy Theatre Company, which features work by female playwrights.
The Lawn is set in a suburb where the husband finds therapeutic escape in tending to his lawn, as an antidote to the pressures of an unsatisfactory job, a wife who is cheating on him and a son who has no respect for him. When his wife insists on hiring external lawn care services against his wishes, he has a revenge affair with his client, and his lawn (and marriage) are put to a dramatic test.
The Open Syrup: Oops We Did It Again!, a comedy by Élise Chantelle Hanson, will be presented by Kallisti Theatre Company, a performing arts group which has appeared at previous Fringes. What started out as a commission for a serial play venture, the work has taken on a shelf life of its own. The main character is Rhonda Saint-Cuthbert, owner and manager of The Open Syrup, the bed BUT NO BREAKFAST in Anytown (and anytime) U.S.. As the description indicates, “Along with her hapless superintendent Bradley Burgoyne, she welcomes all manner of madness into her hotel, from vampires to time-traveling space assassins to rat kings to mad scientists to Broadway divas to pickled egg-obsessed violinists. Just what will descend on her next?” A veteran of Fringe, Hanson has been creative director with Kallisti for seven years.
A new adaptation of the great Bengali literary classic and Nobel Prize winning The Post Office by Rabindranath Tagore, will be directed by Alexandra Harbold and Jacob Sen. The play’s story is simple. A boy who is confined to his home because of illness, on orders of the village doctor, is desperate to fulfill his restless curiosity about the outside world. Rich in mystical symbolism, the play, according to Indian writer and critic K. R. Srinivasa Iyengar (1908-1999), like so much of Tagore’s other work, seized the opportunity to articulate a theme universally: “The poet sees clear than others, farther than others.”
Western Minerals and their Origins, a Footpath Theatre Company production, which won awards at Fringe in 2021, is about three amateur rock hunters who venture into the deserts of southern Utah in search of a legendary deposit of Leopard Beryl, the rarest gem in the West, but unexpectedly turns into a much larger exploration going well beyond geology.
Another new performing arts organization, Salt Lake Children’s Theatre will present Wonderland Awaits, written by Mindy Curtis and directed by Zac Curtis. The description reads: “Through interactive storytelling, children become active participants in the adventure, encountering colorful characters and magical moments at every turn. From tea parties with the Mad Hatter to croquet games with the Queen of Hearts, the play immerses children in the fantastical world of Wonderland, encouraging their creativity and imagination.”
Finally, what would Fringe be without a show by R.J. Walker and the Lords of Misrule Theatre Co. Walker has a sly, keen skill for interactive and improvised productions. This year, he reprises the successful 2022 show, The Haunting Is You!, described as “an interactive horror comedy where the audience is the ghost.” In one respect, think of it as a zany outgrowth of the Scooby Doo cartoon franchise. There is a cast of five actors who confront the peculiar intersection of a Gen Z entrepreneur who wants to turn a burned-out theater into home for his new SwagCoin business. Also, there is a nearby gas leak to go along with this zany sendup of Macbeth (hey, what would any self-respecting Fringe be without at least one or two contemporary takes on Shakespeare).
Walker is the master of this interactive theatrical enterprise. The production is free to audience members but at the end of each act, he invites audience members to donate cash or to venmo their contribution. Lords of Misrule shows have raised money for The Road Home, Our Unsheltered Relatives, The U of U Prison Education Project, AAMP Utah, and Save The Kids Group. Lords of Misrule are part of AAMP Utah, a nonprofit organization dedicated to supporting alternative arts and music with a focus on access.
There will be four performances, including a midnight show on Aug. 2, all of which will take place at the company’s artistic residence, The Beehive at 666 South State St. For more information, see the organization’s website.
For tickets to all other Fringe shows, see the GSLF website.