KC Fringe Festival executive director Audrey Crabtree revels in the upcoming event

Fringe is at the forefront. So says the executive director of KC Fringe Festival, Audrey Crabtree. We sat in a Crossroads coffee shop on a perfect early summer day. Dressed in black and radiating love for her work, Crabtree told me some of the common misconceptions folks have about fringe fests. 

First, she says, is the idea that it’s all amateur performers. Far from it.

“People have this misunderstanding,” Crabtree says. “They think because we have a lot of new work that it’s just a bunch of crap thrown at the wall. But we have people, professionals, who this is their full-time job. They travel around to fringe festivals all year round.”

Fringe sits at the cutting edge of theatrical creativity. You’re sure to see something interesting, something that will be shown in a traditional theater a few years down the line. And this year’s festival, running from July 17–27, is no exception.

Many productions that premiered at a fringe fest have gone on to mainstream success. Shows like Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, Stomp, SIX: The Musical and, maybe most famously, Fleabag all started as fringe productions. 

As a concept, Fringe Fest began in Edinburgh, Scotland in 1947. Eight theater groups turned up uninvited at the newly formed Edinburgh International Festival. They wanted to perform and weren’t going to let a little thing like not being on the official program get in their way. They just went ahead and staged their shows. 

As Crabtree explains, her admiration obvious: “They decided, you know what, we’re all here. We’re in town. We’re going to book ourselves in other smaller spaces, maybe not even theaters, outside of the festival. We’ll flyer the heck out of those shows and get some of those bookers to come and book us.” 

It worked, and year after year, more performers followed their example. In 1958, the Edinburgh Festival Fringe Society was born. A festival in Brighton, England, had a similar origin, as did Adelaide’s fest in Australia. Today dozens of cities around the world stage fests of their own, including, of course, Kansas City. 

KC Fringe is part of the United States Association of Fringe, one of more than two dozen major festivals in North America.

This year, venues include The Arts Asylum, The Black Box, The Bird Comedy Theater, Center for Spiritual Living, City Stage at Union Station, Kansas City Oasis, Musical Theater Heritage, MCC Penn Valley Campus’ Little Theater, The Unicorn, Whim Space and Stray Cat Film Center.

Crabtree, named executive director in 2022, has extensive experience in the alternative arts space. She’s been a performer and a director, and she’s run a fringe-hosting venue in New York City. She’s also just a huge fan of the format. 

“One of the most exciting shows I ever saw was a dance piece in the Dublin Fringe Festival around 2008,” Crabtree says. “It was a bulldozer and a woman dancing together. The windows of the bulldozer were blacked out, and there was this classical music, and it was a beautiful dancer, and you saw the story. You saw them meet, fall in love, have an argument, break up and go their separate ways. It was beautiful. ”

KC may not get to see a tracteur de deux, but the city’s festival will feature modern dance, along with traditional theater, musicals, circus arts, improv, puppetry, stand-up and burlesque. 

All told, KC Fringe Festival will feature some 342 performances—63 productions with five performances each—with more than 600 local, national and international artists participating.

There’s more. The film portion of the fest includes 21 screenings. A fine arts portion includes 35 visual artists at two galleries—Fringe Benefits Gallery at Gael’s Public House and the Union Station Gallery. 

One last thing people might not know about the fringe movement, Crabtree says: It’s not curated. Not at all. Most conventional arts festivals use jury selection to fill out their line-ups. Most Fringe festivals do not. It’s a random selection of daring and innovative performers. 

She laughs a little at the madness of it all. “Yep. You fill out a form and say that you have something. You don’t even have to know exactly what you’re doing at that moment. And then we have a lottery draw.”

So even the organizers, let alone the fans, don’t quite know what they’re going to get?

“That’s right,” she says. “It’s wonderful and terrifying.”

Wonderful and terrifying. You can’t ask any more from art than that. 

GO: KC Fringe Festival. Times and locations vary. July 17–27. Visit kcfringe.org for more information.

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