Theater Bay Area Magazine
Expect the Unexpected at the SF Fringe
September 2006
Amber Adrian
Theater artists sick of rehearsing for eight weeks, performing for four, and netting a grand
total of a hundred dollars (before travel costs) should consider the Fringe. Christina Augello
dubs it "Christmas in the theater," in part because you can walk out with a pocketful of cash.
"I think that validates you as a professional performer," says Augello. The Fringe is
supported by the Exit Theater - where Augello is artistic director - but is not curated by
Augello or anyone else. The exit offers tech, publicity, box office, admin. support and an
audience, but no agenda is imposed on the artists. "It opens the doors to thinking outside
the box," says Augello. Artists show up for the opportunity to be innovative and take risks.
"Quite frankly," Augello says," the kind of work we're nurturing would not wind up on
Broadway. Yet the theater needs variety of material to exist and have a future. We can't
keep re-inventing musicals."

Edgy, creative and sometimes dark work blooms at the Fringe. It also has a reputation for
being patchy. "Curation does not dictate quality," asserts Augello. "It's hit and miss wherever
you go." The Fringe is condensed so it seems like more, but if you extend it out over an
eight month season somewhere, there's the same average of excellent, good, average and
ew." Some of the Bay Areas most respected companies - including Shotgun Players,
Crowded Fire, Lunatique Fantastique, Cutting Ball and Killing My Lobster - appeared at the
Fringe before going on to become important parts of the Bay area ecology. Augello also
notes that Fringe regular Banana Bag and Bodice was currently hailed in Time Out New
York, "The Fringe had something to do with that."
The Fringe is prime opportunity for new artists to dip in their toes and decide is theater is something they
want to do. It's also a shot for working performers to polish new work or tackle subjects that wouldn't sell
elsewhere, Augello says. "They'll be bad because they're allowed. It's uncensored theater."

The Fringe can also  serve as a stepping stone for enterprising artists on the great publicity mission - an
essential part of getting you work sen and making a living in the theater. Slash Coleman, performer and
playwright of The Neon Man and Me, aims to have his show booked Off-Broadway by the fall of 2007.
From Richmond, Virginia, Coleman will be crashing on a friends couch during the San Francisco Fringe
Festival, which he's using to gear up for the Edinburgh Fringe next year.

The exit support the risk taking by writing grants and raising money. "We rely on the kindness of friends
and strangers," says Augello," and word of mouth. It's really grassroots driven. But the Exit is a solid
investment for funders and performers (who contribute a performance fee that makes up a third of the
budget. "People respect us. People see us as a place where dangerous, edgy stuff happens. The Fringe
is right up our alley." Augello notes that the Fringe is here to support the artist. "Not because we're
do-gooders but because we love what we do. We love the work, we love the excitement of seeing new
work. Of watching artists grow and develop.

The Fringe open up the local community and morphs it into a national and international community for
a 12 day period. Local artists mingle with artists from as far away as Singapore and form connections
that help keep the art scene fresh and vibrant. "As theater artists, we are about community," says
Augello. "It's a communal sport" Networking is done, new projects are envisioned, new companies
formed. Everyone learns from everyone else work. It's important to me to keep those doors and windows
open, she says.
Slash Coleman
will perform a run
of eight shows at
the San Fran
Fringe Festival in
September.
(Photo: Mike
Coleman)
© Slash Coleman 2006