Hollywood Fringe Festival 2015 at Theatre of NOTE & Artist Magnet

The Hollywood Fringe Festival 2015

The Hollywood Fringe Festival is an annual, open-access, community-derived event celebrating freedom of expression and collaboration in the performing arts community. Each June during the Hollywood Fringe, the arts infiltrate the Hollywood neighborhood: fully equipped theaters, parks, clubs, churches, restaurants and other unexpected places host hundreds of productions by local, national, and international arts companies and independent performers.

Participation in the Hollywood Fringe is completely open and uncensored. This free-for-all approach underlines the festival’s mission to be a platform for artists without the barrier of a curative body. By opening the gates to anyone with a vision, the festival is able to exhibit the most diverse and cutting-edge points-of-view the world has to offer. Additionally, by creating an environment where artists must self-produce their work, the Fringe motivates its participants to cultivate a spirit of entrepreneurialism in the arts.

June 4th – June 9th: HFF15 Previews
June 10th: Opening Night Party
June 11th – June 28th: Hollywood Fringe Festival 2015
June 28th: HFF15 Awards Ceremony

Theatre of NOTE in the HFF ’15

As usual, I am working in the Hollywood Fringe Festival at Theatre of NOTE as lead stage manager and technical director. While we have fewer productions than we typically have in our space, a total of 10 different productions this year, each of them are still amazing sights to see if you have the chance to do so among the hundreds of other productions participating in the HFF15. The shows that NOTE is hosting are:

Pillar of Fire – Direct Link
Fri, June 5th @ 8pm; Sat, June 6th @ 9pm
In 2349, the world has been cleansed of superstition. It is the age of the clean mind and the clean death. But in a windswept graveyard, a 400 year-old corpse awakens! William Lantry is the last dead man on Earth. And he intends to re-educate the world on the meaning of fear…

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A Balloon for Jamilah – Direct Link
Sat. June 6th & June 13th @ 3pm; Sun. June 14th @ 12:30pm
Jamilah used to work in her mother’s shop, selling balloons that made everyone happy. But when a horrible storm destroys their business, she, her mother, and her sister are forced to live penniless in a tent. Jamilah’s sister doesn’t care, wanting only the most expensive items that money can buy. Jamilah only desires one thing though: A balloon. Once the heart of their business, it’s now the only chance of making her family smile again. There’s a magical balloon castle, but a monstrous prince lives there with his servants. Follow along with Ms. Clown as she uses magic, balloons, puppets, and singing to tell how a rainbow can be born from even the most horrible of storms.

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Eleanor’s Story: An American Girl in Hitler’s Germany – Direct Link
Sat. June 6th @ 7pm; Sun. June 7th, 14th, & 21st @ 4pm, Sat. June 27th @ 7pm
Ingrid Garner wrote and stars in ‘Eleanor’s Story’: a theatrical adaptation of her grandmother Eleanor Ramrath Garner’s award-winning autobiography of her youth, growing up as an American caught in World War II Berlin. During the Great Depression, when she is nine, Eleanor’s family moves from her beloved America to Germany, where her father has been offered a good job. But war breaks out as her family is crossing the Atlantic, and they cannot return to the United States. Eleanor tries to maintain her American identity as she feels herself pulled into the turbulent life roiling around her. She fervently hopes for an Allied victory, yet for years she must try to survive the Allied bombs shattering her neighborhood. Her family faces hunger, fascist oppression, bombings, the final fierce battle for Berlin, the Russian invasion, and the terrors of Soviet occupancy.

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Words From A Cuban Father – Direct Link
Sun. June 7th, 14th, & 21st @ 2pm
Mambo, carnival, revolution, my father and Fidel, Miami, hotdogs, drag queens, the circus, Hollywood, music and dance highlight Cenal’s bilingual experience of being yanked from her native Cuba as a child and yearning to return. Beginning with scenes of a little girl dancing in a pool of sweat to her native drums, to fighting for her name, and confronting stereotypes as a Hollywood actress, the piece recognizes the strong presence of her father as she tries to make her way through the American landscape.  Using music and dance, Alina creates a provocative glimpse into this passionate and sometimes hilarious journey.

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Cookie and the Monster – Direct Link
Tue. June 9th, Thurs. June 11th, Sat. June 13th, Fri. June 19th, Sat. June 20th, Thur, June 25th @ 8:45pm

A f*cked up fact-based fairytale, Cookie & The Monster is a bruise-black comedy about coming of age in 90’s suburbia.

Cookie is a precocious child growing up in 1990s Long Island under the tutelage of her id-incarnate Monster who helps her become the most popular girl in school by filling her head with bad advice and scaring off her competitors. But when puberty strikes and her Monster sticks around, Cookie gets caught up in all kinds of ne’er-do-well teenage adventures. Is the Monster steering Cookie toward salvation or is he leading her down a path of self-destruction? Full of sex, drugs, suburban angst, and one original song about the joys of cutting – Cookie & The Monster will make you laugh, cry, and wince.

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La Llorona – Direct Link
Sat. June 13th @ 4:30pm; Wed. June 17th, Fri. June 26th, Sat. June 27th @ 9pm
Writer Matt DeNoto’s stage version of La Llorona leaves all of the standard elements of the legend intact, yet ingeniously fills in and reimagines the story’s specifics, to thoroughly chilling effect. His portrayal of the lives of two mothers in extreme distress, one in long-ago Mexico and one in present-day U.S.A., yields a tale scary enough to make grown men and woman squirm in their seats. The strange intersections of the humorous and the horrible are DeNoto’s specialty, and his debut work as playwright is sure to delight and disgust theatre-goers of every sort.

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TOTALLY! – Direct Link
Fri. June 12th & Sat. June 13th @ 7pm

In this powerful one hour theater piece, Kimleigh Smith takes the audience through a journey that is totally uplifting, totally heartbreaking, and totally powerful.

T-O-T-A-L-L-Y! is the ultimate cheer. It will have you howling in your seats in hysteria and clutching your heart. Kimleigh inspires audiences through her hilarious and honest story to embrace their inner superheroes and find the strength to move forward no matter what. The cheer “That’s Okay, That’s Allright…get back up and Fight, Fight, Fight!” has an entirely different meaning once you see T-O-T-A-L-L-Y.

The audience witnesses the young cheerleader transforming into a powerful woman who reclaims her sexuality and lives as a whole, healthy, woman who cheers for life!

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Missed Connections <<< – Direct Link
Fri. June 12th @ 9:30pm; Sun. June 14th & Wed. June 17th @ 7pm; Sat. June 20th @ 4pm
In “Missed Connections,” eight actors cleverly portray some of the best (and sometimes worst) entries in the missed connections category of the Los Angeles Craigslist community. In this cross between documentary theatre and stand-up monologuing, a diverse group of actors take into account the real voices (and punctuation) of love’s labor’s lost right here in the heart of La La Land. Based on a plethora of “true” stories, “Missed Connections,” delves into why the love-lorn continue to post on a tragically outdated yet thriving website, even if there’s only a .2% return rate.

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Magnum Opus Theatre Presents – Direct Link
Fri. June 12th, Sat. June 13th, Fri. June 19th, Sat. June 20th, & Fri. June 26th @ 8pm

Every week, hundreds of untrained writers send their unsolicited, unregistered screenplays to Hollywood studios in the hopes that their story will be made into a feature film. Most never even get read… until now!

MAGNUM OPUS THEATRE presents scrupulously faithful renditions of these terrible screenplays performed live on stage… Word for word… We didn’t change a thing… Honest!

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The Women of the Hat – Direct Link
Sun. June 21st, Mon. June 22nd, Thur. June 25th, & Fri. June 26th @ 7pm
While there are autobiographical elements, the story is told unconventionally – through movement, text, original jazz music, and iconic dance choreography from the Broadway show, A Chorus Line. In The Women of “The Hat,” the male characters exist as a disembodied sonic presence – through voice over and music. The women are mother and daughter, Rose and Ruth. Rose, The Musician’s chorus girl turned 1950’s housewife, offers a fresh look at tradition when it comes to sustaining marriage to an artist. She poetically reveals her secrets in a pas de deux with an empty armchair. Ruth, The Musician’s Broadway dancer daughter, inherits both her parents’ artistry, but her free spirit has to learn to become its own muse when her connection with The Musician is broken.

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Artist Magnet Kickstarter Campaign

I’m also currently assisting a new project that will help artists of all talents to connect and coordinate with one other as well as assist them in attaining more of the work that they love to do. What better way to speak of this community building future project that at the same time that the Hollywood Fringe Festival is going on? Check out the video below and donate to the cause if you can. Every dollar helps and there are some amazing rewards available for your support.

Direct Link to Kickstarter Donation & More Info