A Festival of Fun (or Tears) or Producing 201

Truth be told, my upcoming article for The Write Teacher(s) is about participating in the many theatre festivals offered in our country. I wrote about the experiences of being in a festival and the benefits of having your show as part of it. Then Ken Davenport wrote an excellent blog on the many festivals around the world but went even further and listed them. I want to personally thank him for doing this because I had started the research.

This morning I sat down with a printout of the shows participating in FringeNYC. There’s no way I am going to be able to see all of them but I did highlight 45 of them including The Pawn Broker (I’m doing their PR). The next step is to then cull from those 45 what will fit in my schedule. When I did the Fringe tour last year, I think I saw about 15 because I didn’t fully plan the tour a month in advance. I was busy working on Naked In Alaska and See Jane Give Up Dick that I totally spread myself thin. I also was working with the EstroGenius Festival on their season. Festivals are great way to get your production in front of an audience. Like Ken says, you are definitely one in a million and you have to work 5 times as hard to get your piece to stand out. At the end of it, though, you come out ahead because you’ve learned how to produce a show.

Here’s the list:

Theater Festivals From Around The World

The Big Ones:

The Edinburgh Festival Fringe, Edinburgh, Scotland

Festival of New Musicals, New York, NY

London International Festival of Theatre, London, England

New York Musical Theatre Festival, New York, NY

New York International Fringe Festival, New York, NY

Williamstown Theatre Festival, Williamstown, MA

Other Awesome Ones:

Bard SummerScape, Annandate-on-Hudson, NY

Barrington Stage’s Musical Theatre Lab, Pittsfield, MA