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Kansas City's Online Journal of the Performing Arts

The 7^th Annual KC Fringe Festival is an unfiltered, uncensored sampling of Kansas City’s cultural arts and runs July 21–31st, 2011.  The 11-day festival is jam-packed with live theater, dance, performance art, visual art, spoken word, puppetry, storytelling, film and fashion.  At 17 venues throughout Kansas City, the KC Fringe Festival presents 358 live performances, 327 in the performing arts category alone, and exhibitions by 82 participating companies.  Local and regional artists from Missouri and Kansas are featured along with national artists from an additional 14 states including New York, Washington, Florida, California, Texas, Illinois, Minnesota, Iowa, Tennessee, Indiana, Arkansas, New Jersey and Georgia.

 Top returning local artists & 2011 shows:

• Burlesque & BOYlesque Downtown Underground bring you a performance that embodies the game of life humans have been playing throughout the centuries:  the battle of the sexes, burlesque style!
• Steven Eubank, Artistic Director, Egads! Theatre Company presents "Rocky and Bullwinkle Horror Picture Show Parody" --  This musical parody is a looney mash-up of the midnight cult classic The Rocky Horror Picture Show and Jay Ward’s beloved cult classic cartoon characters. Let’s do the toon warp!
• Bryan Colley and Tara Varney, producers of the KC Fringe’s 2010's "Khaaaaan! the Musical" present "Hexing Hitler."  In 1941, five people gathered in a remote Maryland cabin to kill Adolph Hitler using witchcraft. This is the true story of what happened that night.
• Susanna Lee/Lucky Deluxe presents “Getting Lucky,” a bawdy blend of standup, striptease, and audience participation; seamlessly presented in 1-woman show format by Lee.
• Heidi Van will perform a TBA window show at The Fish Tank
• Stephanie Roberts, Slow Burn Productions & UMKC Theatre Faculty, presents "The Mask of the Broken Heart."  From the Creator & Director of Boom! and Tallahassee, this thriller combines humor, pathos and beauty while paying tribute to film-noir and Commedia dell'Arte.  Roberts plays 13 characters in this masked mystery.
• Brother John presents “IRKS!” -- a near death experience and a heavenly comedy club, provide a rare opportunity for a struggling comedian to express embittered issues and personal irks only to discover the real person that’s been sabotaging his success.
• Voler - Thieves of Flight  - One of the top shows of the KC Fringe 2010, Voler - Thieves of Flight present "Tordu Vol:  A Twisted Tale of Flight" -- a sizzling and exciting cabaret in the sky.

What’s New in 2011 at the KC Fringe Festival:

• 1-day ECOFringe to educate people about sustainable options including co-op farms, recycling, food not lawns, and organic culinary vendors
• Two LGBT world premiere plays performed by high school and college students
• New fiber arts project launches spearheaded by local artist Becky Blades

 About KC Fringe Festival
The KC Fringe Festival develops audiences, stimulates economic growth and supports the creative community at large.  By making the arts readily visible, available and affordable, the festival supports and inspires local organizations year-round. The KC Fringe Festival is a service to the community, building bridges between audiences, artists, businesses and civic organizations.

For more information visit http://www.kcfringe.org/2011/index.php

Click here to check out individual listings on the KC Events calendar.

By Victor Wishna

Senior Editor, Theatre; Theatre and Features Contributor
Victor Wishna is a writer, editor, and author, among other things. A graduate of Stanford University and the New School's creative writing MFA program, he has written for the Wall Street Journal, the Baltimore Sun, the Miami Herald, the Kansas City Star, Humanities, and other major magazines and newspapers. He contributes a weekly real estate feature to the New York Post and his column “Letter from New York” is syndicated nationally.

With photographer Ken Collins, he published In Their Company: Portraits of American Playwrights (Umbrage Editions, 2006), for which he conducted and edited interviews with 61 prominent stage writers including Edward Albee, August Wilson, Tony Kushner, Wendy Wasserstein, and many others. The book won a 2007 Independent Publisher Book Awards Silver Medal (www.intheircompany.com).

He has always maintained a love for theatre, as a writer, an audience member, and even an actor, appearing in several community and semi-professional productions. As an undergraduate, he studied acting and playwriting with Anna Deavere Smith, in addition to journalism and psychology (and not engineering or medicine).

After nearly 12 years in New York City, Victor recently returned to his hometown with his wife, Annie, also a K.C. native. When not writing for publication or pleasure, Victor is honing his stand-up routine, which he has performed at numerous clubs and special events around New York, the Midwest, and elsewhere. In June 2010, he was named New York’s second-funniest amateur Jewish comedian by The Jewish Week. Seriously.

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