If you want to produce and perform your own plays, the best advice might be: don’t start a theater festival. It may sound counterintuitive, but that’s the lesson learned by the three young founding artistic directors of Berkshire Fringe: Peter Wise, 32; Sara Katzoff, 31; and Timothy Ryan Olson, 33 (in photo, above, by Betsy Wise). Though active in the performing arts in their non-Fringe lives, the trio long ago discovered, to their surprise, that the rigors of planning and executing a three-week festival crowded out any time they might have had to develop and present their own work, even at their own showcase for new theater. This year, for the first time, the Festival’s founders have created their own show as part of the Fringe. Dark: An End of the World Play with Music and an Exercise Bike, the first production of the season, is fully homegrown: Olson wrote and directs; Wise composed the music; and Katzoff is one of a cast of three. “It is certainly a big moment for us to have our first full-length produced work at our own festival,” says Wise. Adds Olson, “We needed to. For our souls. If we didn't make it happen, it would have been very challenging for us to continue permanently with the festival the way it was.” The trio’s debut will be followed by four other productions by four visiting companies after the Fringe kicks off with a gala—really more of a dance party preceded by some fun, short theater pieces —on July 23. Tickets to the gala, called REMIX 2012, come in two categories: “fancy pants” for the entire evening; and “dancey pants” for the dance party only. Though the trio has presented shorter pieces in previous years, this season they've changed the festival structure a bit to give themselves time to participate onstage, inviting fewer companies—four this year, in contrast to last year's seven visiting companies— and keeping each one in residence longer to enable visiting artists to hold extra performances and open rehearsals where they’ll develop new work. The change also enhances the role of Berkshire Fringe as an incubator of new plays.
In another twist, the Fringe will present two productions by overseas troupes: Riot: An Epic Tale of Geed, Lust, and Cheap Sofas, by the U.K.’s Wardrobe Ensemble (seen left), and Bathtub Play, below, which makes its U.S. premiere here after its debut, in Korean-language form, in Seoul. In addition to the open rehearsals each troupe will hold while in residence, the mainstage shows—all held at the Daniel Arts Center of Bard College of Simon’s Rock—are augmented by theater workshops for the public and free, twice-weekly pre-show concerts of the 30 Live series.
The idea behind the Fringe is to bring edgy, avant-garde theater to the Berkshires, where it can rub scruffy elbow patches with the Shakespeare, Oscar Wilde, and Arthur Miller onstage elsewhere. As opposed to the more traditional productions prevalent in a typical Berkshire summer, Fringe fare is irreverent and unconventional, often featuring non-linear structures, multimedia experiments, and contemporary subject matter. “With the idea of ‘fringe’ theater, I think people associate large urban areas with having those kinds of work, and people everywhere else are somehow completely isolated from it. We wanted to change that,” says Katzoff. The Fringe’s artistic roots in the community run deep. Both Katzoff and Wise are Great Barrington natives who performed in Shakespeare & Company’s Fall Festival of Shakespeare while they were students at Monument Mountain Regional High School. Wise graduated from there, but Katzoff transferred after sophomore year to Simon’s Rock, where she met Olson, a New York native. Since then, both Katzoff and Olson have been adjunct faculty in the theater program at Simon’s Rock (Katzoff is also theater director at the Mountain Road Elementary School in New Lebanon). Wise has played with the Silk Road Ensemble at Tanglewood and the Bang On A Can Summer Institute at MASS MoCA, and the Fringe has co-produced programs and small shows with MoCA as well as with Berkshire Pulse and Railroad Street Youth Project. Along the way, Wise and Katzoff became a couple; they’re set to wed in September. For several years they kept apartments in Housatonic and Brooklyn, but the double-rent model is not very starving-artist-friendly. Now all three founders are based in New York; they stay with Wise’s parents in Stockbridge when they’re in town on Fringe business. During the festival, they bunk with the visiting artists, plus six staff members and six interns, in student housing at Simon’s Rock. All three founders acknowledge they might not have known quite what they were getting into when they decided to create their own theater festival. But they hope their efforts may blaze a trail for others. “Part of what we're doing in the Berkshires is changing the landscape,” Katzoff says. “You can be a young person and spearhead an initiative or head an organization. I think there's a lot of young people in the Berkshires doing really interesting, innovative things today that need to be taken seriously.” –Jeremy D. Goodwin
Michael Brahce, Emma Dweck and Sara Katzoff in "Dark: An End Of The World Play With Music and an Exercise Bike."Berkshire FringeDaniel Arts Center Bard College at Simon's Rock 84 Alford Road Great Barrington, Massachusetts (Consult driving directions on the Fringe website rather than relying on an automated GPS system.) 413.320.4175 July 23 through August 13 Tickets are available online, over the phone, or at the door; $15 in advance, $20 at the door within an hour of showtime. “Pick your own price” tickets available for opening-night performances, at the door beginning one hour before curtain time. Musical events, theater workshops, and open rehearsals are free.
