The Great Salt Lake Fringe Festival “serves as a launching pad for the next generation of original theater to come out of Utah.”
Ongoing for 11 years now, the festival will take off at the Alliance Theater in downtown Salt Lake City, July 24 through Aug. 3. For the first year, the MadKing Fellowship Theater at The Gateway will also host shows. With a lineup of 24 shows, all locally created and performed, audiences can expect something fresh from every corner of the stage.
What is Fringe Fest?
Shianne Gray, festival co-director, said, “What always excites me about Fringe is the variety of shows on offer. With a large range of genres and performance styles, from intimate dramas to rambunctious variety shows, there is truly something for everyone at Fringe.”
The Great Salt Lake Fringe Festival is described as “the forge for independent theater in Utah.” It is one of the best ways for young artists and independent dreamers to see their work on stage in front of fresh eyes. “While some Fringe festivals see lots of touring shows, the Great Salt Lake Fringe tends to showcase home-grown talent,” Gray said.
Festival co-director Jay Perry added that the Fringe is the “state’s largest and longest-running festival for independent theater.”
The festival’s “home-grown talent” includes many alumni of the University of Utah, including Kelsie Jepsen, Max Ricks and Autumn Bay. Jepsen wrote and will be performing in “Welcome to Fat School,” which is a project created from the work that she does as a fatphobia activist. Olivia Custodio, playwright of Salt Lake Acting Company’s latest summer show “The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives in the Salt Lake Hive,” is partnered with Jepsen in this two-woman show.
“Fringe is such a lovely place to try out new work,” Jepsen said. “And I don’t think anyone has ever written a play about fat activism, not that I know, and especially not the way that we’re writing it.”
Jepsen leads an activism workshop in Salt Lake and based the story from what she talks about with the people involved in her group. She described that the show is part TED Talk and part sketch comedy. Jepsen also added that Fringe Fest is a space where people are open to all kinds of “weird performance art.”
“It just seemed like the perfect avenue to really start [the project], and then we might want to build it out after this and workshop it somewhere else,” she said.
“Welcome to Fat School” will be shown on July 25, 26, 27, Aug. 2 and 3.
Max Ricks and Autumn Bay will be performing in “A Haircut in Salt Lake City.” Both originally from Provo, Utah, these performers met once again in college and worked together on this play in a new play workshop at the University of Utah. From a place of vulnerability, Ricks described this show as not only unique to Utah, but also to his and Bay’s personal experiences.
“[The show] takes the setting of just a haircut that a male college student goes to get from an older female barber,” Ricks said. “And they end up finding out that both of them are queer … And they just kind of really go into the really complicated dynamics that come from that and what it means to be yourself and be vulnerable in times when it’s scary.”
Ricks and Bay said that they want audiences to come out of the show with an open mind and an understanding of the complexity of other people’s stories. “A Haircut in Salt Lake City” will be showing on July 27, Aug. 2 and 3.
Other University of Utah alumni include Nicholas Dunn, Emily Tatum, RJ Walker, Jason Hackney and many others. Support local arts this summer with the Great Salt Lake Fringe Festival. Tickets are on sale now, and you can find them at their website here.
