It was a wild scene at Know Theatre’s Underground Bar in Over-the-Rhine on Saturday evening after the final production of the 13th-annual Cincinnati Fringe Festival. Everyone converged to hear the winners of the Picks of the Fringe for outstanding productions.
I arrived a few minutes late to discover some preliminary shenanigans already underway, including improv artist Dave Powell onstage in a Jedi robe and Cincy Shakes actress Miranda McGee pouring a can of Hudy Delite over her head to the approval of the crowd jammed into the bar.
Finally, around 11:30 p.m., Fringe producer Chris Wesselman and Know Theatre artistic director Andrew Hungerford stepped onstage to announce the 2016 results. Sales, we learned, were up 19 percent, including a 45 percent increase in people purchasing Full Frontal passes, which provide access to any and all performances.
Overall attendance increased by 14 percent from 2015, driven largely by a 15 percent increase in single ticket sales. The record for sold-out performances set in 2015 was surpassed by four this year.
I attended about three-quarters of this year’s productions at the festival, which began on May 31. My bottom-line observation is that the average quality of shows this year was high. Even those I didn’t much care for were well-produced. There was no breakout hit, but several shows sold out every one of their performances.
The 2016 festival ran like clockwork with on-time scheduling. (A particular note: Saturday night’s finale started only a few minutes late and wrapped up before midnight, a first in my experience.) Box office operations proved efficient and trouble-free as far as I could tell. That means a shout-out to the corps of more than 100 volunteers who augment Know’s hard-working, Segway-riding staff. Without this legion of folks who step up for the fun of it, the Fringe simply wouldn’t happen.
Wesselman and Hungerford announced six top picks for productions. The Audience Pick went to Clara, a locally produced dance piece directed by Aly Michaud based on her grandmother’s recollections, with choreography by Carley Wilson. It sold out every one of its five performances, which certainly helped it win the popular vote for a work that was heartfelt and truly earned its recognition.
Erika Kate MacDonald’s Ice Candle, a solo rumination on memory about her teenage experience as an exchange student in Indonesia, received the 2016 Critics’ Pick. She’s a recent newcomer to town, attracted by the theater scene and the Fringe in particular. Another much-deserved award.
Fringe performers get to vote for their favorite show, and this year’s Artists’ Pick went to touring artist Antonia Lassar’s Post Traumatic Super Delightful, an unusual show about sexual assault couched in “super delightful” humor.
Another touring solo artist, Mariah MacCarthy, picked up the Producers’ Pick for Baby Mama. The folks who put on the Fringe liked her amusing performance about “one woman’s quest to give her child to gay people.”
One of my personal favorites was Fruit Flies Like a Banana, featuring three Boston-based musician/dancers who performed 22 zany musical pieces in 60 minutes on bass trombone, vibraphone and flute while contorting themselves and offering witty, enthusiastic banter with the audience between numbers.
They received the Linda Bowen Full Frontal Pick from purchasers of the Fringe’s all-access passes and acknowledged it via smartphone since they had to leave on Saturday for a performance in Maryland.
Students from Highlands High School in Fort Thomas received the award for the year’s best FringeNext production, Here’s Hoping There’s a Radioactive Spider in Your Future.
I want to recognize the writers who kept CityBeat’s coverage of Fringe shows flowing on a timely basis. Thanks go out to Bart Bishop, Ed Cohen, Jane Durrell, McKenzie Graham, Alan Jozwiak, Nicholas Korn, Erica Minton, Rodger Pille, Kirk Sheppard, Stacy Sims and Walnut Hills High School student Griffin Daly (who covered two FringeNext productions).
Ultimately 48 separate reviews or reports were posted there (that’s another 2016 Fringe record). It’s what we do to keep theater lovers in touch Cincy Fringe’s weirdness.
CONTACT RICK PENDER: rpender@citybeat.com
This article appears in Jun 15-22, 2016.
