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Fringe Press Room

Press Releases & Materials

Press release, August 24, 2011:

"Chicago Fringe Festival and HumanThread to Commemorate 9/11: Special events are scheduled throughout the Fringe Festival, September 1-11"
Download here

Chicago Fringe Festival 2011 Schedule

Full lineup and marketing information factsheet"
Download here

Press release, Nov 2, 2010:

"Chicago Fringe Festival Presents A Public Talkback, Gears Up For the 2nd Annual Fringe Binge, and Announces New 'First Come, First Serve' Slots for the 2011 Chicago Fringe Festival"
Download here

Press release, July 17, 2010:

"Chicago Fringe Festival Announces 2010 Pilsen Linup & Venues"
Download here

Press release, August 10, 2010:

"Chicago Fringe Festival Announces Final Schedule & Fringe Central Details"
Download here

Press Imagery

Chicago Fringe Logo | Download here
Chicago Fringe Pilsen 2010 Commemorative Map | Download here

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Fringe in the Media

9/11 Remembrance at the Chicago Fringe Festival

by Daniel Gerzina, Time Out Chicago, Sept 18, 2011
"The Chicago Fringe Festival, the Pilsen-based indie performance art extravaganza, concluded on this prescient anniversary. The day was highlighted by a powerful yet hopeful event organized by the Pilsen non-profit HumanThread. Entitled American Armistice: The Epoch of the PeaceMakers, it featured readings, spoken word, live music, guest speakers, and art exhibits all focused on peace, unity, and moving forward with open minds and hearts as Americans.
Read entire article

The Chicago Fringe Festival’s second year

by Asher Klein, Chicago Reader, Sept 1, 2011
"People are always doing awesome, out-there stuff with puppets at fringe festivals—my first fringe experience involved tiny ninjas acting out Hamlet. Among the 47 entries in this year's Chicago Fringe Festival is an Avenue Q-style staging of George Romero's zombie classic, Night of the Living Dead, by Milwaukee's Angry Young Men Ltd."
Read entire article

Mapping out the Fringes

by Scott C. Morgan, Windy City Times, Aug 31, 2011
"'The scope of this year's festival stems from your success in 2010,' said associate producer Vinnie Lacey in a statement. 'This year we've got more performers and show times slated. Our growth demonstrates how electrifying Fringe is for audiences and performers alike, and we're thrilled to turn Pilsen into the city's prime location for freewheeling and diverse theatrical revelry again.'"
Read entire article

Chicago Fringe Festival 2011 preview

by Kris Vire, Time Out Chicago, Aug 31, 2011
"This week the Chicago Fringe Festival returns to Pilsen for its second year. The fest is expanded this time to two weeks and 50 shows, evenly divided between Chicago-based artists and out-of-town entrants from the fringe circuit. The gamble of not knowing what to expect is part of the Fringe's appeal, but here are a few of the shows this go-round that caught our eye."
Read entire article

Living on the Fringe: Chicago Fringe Festival 2011

by Jessie Stegner, Up Chicago, Aug 29, 2011
"Going into their second year, CFF continues to be a fantastic example of the same ideals held by the original Fringe. The 2011 event will consist of 50 different hour-long productions by not only local companies, but also national groups and a few even from out of the country. CFF prides itself on showcasing acts that take bold risks. 'These may be formal risks,' Marketing Director Tim Mullhaney explains, 'like the way in which they present their theatrical material.'"
Read entire article

Chicago Fringe Festival to Offer Uncensored, Unconventional Theatre in Pilsen

by Lucia Anaya, The Gate, Aug 24, 2011
"On the Map, Under the Radar. That’s the theme of the 2nd annual Chicago Fringe Festival, whose underground showcase offers uncensored, unconventional, eclectic theatre performances that amasses itself into the worldwide Fringe theatre movement."
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Theater on the Edge

from Chicago Like A Local, Aug 23, 2011
"If you’re looking for a real taste of Chicago’s storefront scene, check out the Chicago Fringe Festival, which invites emerging and established performing artists from Chicago, the U.S. and beyond to showcase their work around the Pilson neighborhood."
Read entire article

Chicago Storefront Theater Preview

by Jessie Stegner, Up Chicago, Aug 29, 2011
"Going into their second year, CFF continues to be a fantastic example of the same ideals held by the original Fringe. The 2011 event will consist of 50 different hour-long productions by not only local companies, but also national groups and a few even from out of the country. CFF prides itself on showcasing acts that take bold risks. 'These may be formal risks,' Marketing Director Tim Mullhaney explains, 'like the way in which they present their theatrical material.'"
Read entire article

Chicago Fringe Festival Lineup Announced

Theatre in Chicago Theatre News Wire, Aug 12, 2011
"Maximum Verbosity. Phil the Void. Hobo Junction. These are not the names of race horses or yachts. They are three of the 50 performance groups that will entertain, inspire and delight audiences during the second annual Chicago Fringe Festival.."
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Chicago Fringe Festival is On the Map, Under the Radar

by Chicago Art Magazine, July 29 2011
"Great white whales, peg-legged feminists, puppeteers, acrobats, necromancers and other ragamuffin creatures that inhabit the “fringe” of urban theater will congregate in Pilsen on Sept. 1 to 11. Acts listed on the program include avant- garde dancing, haphazard tumbling and some bizarre drama best experienced under the influence of a light buzz."
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Chicago Fringe Festival Includes Dance in Eclectic Roster

by Eight Forty-Eight's Dance Critic Lucia Mauro, WBEZ 91.5, Aug 31 2010
"Three emerging Chicago dance companies take an adventurous approach to the physical and emotional aspects of dance. Rooted in a no-holds-barred post-modernism, these groups meticulously deconstruct matters of the head and the heart."
Read entire article/listen to podcast

Chicago Fringe Steps Into High Gear

by Kerry Reid, PerformInk, Aug 27 2010
"The trickles of talk about the first annual Chicago Fringe Festival exploded this week, and Sarah Mikayla Brown is a little blown away by it."
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Finally, a Chicago Fringe Festival

by Deanna Isaacs, Chicago Reader, Aug 26 2010
"Is this what America's best theater town's been missing? Sarah Mikayla Brown and Vinnie Lacey think so."
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Fringe Binge: Sample solos, satires and step dancers at the new Chicago Fringe Festival

by By Kris Vire, TimeOut Chicago, Aug 26-Sept 1 2010
"When I spoke to Sarah Mikayla Brown a year ago, she laid out a vision for an annual event that would join the burgeoning network of fringe fests across the U.S. and Canada. The Chicago Fringe Festival would bring in performers from around the country to interact with our homegrown artists and audiences; an uncurated selection process would bolster the sense of discovery she’d found at fringe fests in other cities.
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Benefits of Benefits

by Kerry Reid, "Behind the Curtain", PerformInk, July 9 2010
"Though the idea of a fringe festival in Chicago seems a bit of a coals-to-Newcastle proposition, the Chicago Fringe Festival is raring to go, September 1-5 in Pilsen."
Read entire article

Dancers at Work Forum:
New Directions in Performance Presentation

Chicago Artists Resource, February 8 2010
Listen to the Podcast

The Edge of Fringe in Chicago

Midwest Media Now ep:023, January 19 2010
On the edge of creative performance you will find the fringe. Mikayla Brown and Vinnie Lacey of Fringe Chicago talked with me about their upcoming event slated for the beginning of September.
Listen to the Podcast

Arts Professional Story:
Sarah Mikayla Brown, Chicago Fringe Festival

January 1 2010
How and why was the Chicago Fringe Festival conceived?
Read entire article

I Just Got Here Blog

December 7 2009
Mikayla Brown, executive producer of the Chicago Fringe Festival, joined me to talk about the origins and vision of the festival and the nuts-and-bolts for prospective performers.
Listen to the full podcast here

Theater Community Building

by Suzy Evans, Chicagoist, December 1, 2009
"The Chicago Fringe Festival, slated to debut in Pilsen next September, released applications to be a part of the event today. Festival organizers will choose participants by a lottery system, while still ensuring geographic and international diversity."
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Does Chicago want a fringe fest? We'll find out next year

by Kris Vire, TimeOut Chicago, Issue 236 : Sep 3 – 9, 2009
"In major cities across North America, the summer season is fringe season. Fringe festivals of low-budget, high-enterprise performing arts take place from June to September, from Seattle to Orlando. New York’s and Indianapolis’s just concluded; Philadelphia’s and San Francisco’s start this week. And Chicago’s…doesn’t exist. Are we missing out?"

"Sarah Mikayla Brown thinks so. As managing director of the now-defunct Tantalus Theatre Group, Brown traveled with the company’s show Dreadful Penny’s Exquisite Horrors to last year’s Minnesota Fringe and FringeNYC. “It was such an awesome experience,” she says, that she was struck by Chicago’s deficit. When Tantalus dissolved, she decided to found her own fest. On July 24, the Chicago Fringe Festival (CFF) was incorporated as a nonprofit, with a goal of producing its first festival in September 2010.
Read entire article