After a few years of uncertainty, the Richmond Fringe Festival returns to live programming.
The debut year of Richmond Fringe Festival was not meant to start during the early days of the pandemic lockdown. Directrix and founder Carmel Clavin had been planning an April 3, 2020 launch for over six months.
Fortunately, she was able to pivot quickly to the new and then-underutilized platform of online streaming for live shows. Part of her motivation came from having just returned from a meet-up of fringe production colleagues from across the world, inspired and full of ideas.
“But to be honest, it was a lot of spite as well,” she recalls. “Spite against the first year shutting down, against the arts being considered ‘non-essential’ during the pandemic, and the idea that we couldn’t find each other in the dark.”
For the uninitiated, ‘fringe’ is a catchall word for a type of arts festival that brings myriad different genres together and champions the experimental and courageous interaction of artists and audiences in a shared space. “Fringe as in, on the fringes of. They can be big or small and there’s no brand ‘fringe,’” Clavin explains. “There are over 300 fringe festivals all over the world in a loose siblingship with very different formats and priorities and ways of handling money.”
Eventually, the first Richmond Fringe Festival put on four shows that included a live cabaret, conversations with performers about their work, and had viewers in 16 countries. “After that, many of my colleagues from around the world looked to what we’d learned at Richmond Fringe to transform their thwarted live events into digital and streaming,” she says. “We were simply the first to have to do it.”
In 2021 and 2022, the Richmond Fringe lay fallow. After the murder of George Floyd and over a hundred days of protests in Richmond, Clavin lost the motivation to make anything. With the city turbulent and the larger performing arts world grieving with no end in sight, she decided to sit still and listen to what the city wanted. “I had no interest in pushing a vision or agenda without Richmond being on board and ready,” she says. “Farmers leave fields fallow so they can replenish the soil's ability to flourish, and that’s what Richmond Fringe hoped to do.”
And now, Richmond Fringe Festival is returning live April 15 through April 17 with seven productions, three venues, three after-parties, a free panel discussion and five public art installations. This year’s return to live programing features some distinctive offerings even for a fringe festival, including a gaming track, a micro venue, and a collaborative mural project.
The micro venue, designed by Aube Porr, is called the Kettle Yurt and can fit 15 people and one performer inside. “She's a proof of concept for an even larger yurt venue project meant to hold 60 people,” Clavin says. “Richmond is really short on small to mid-size venues, so this is an investment for us to see if we can build the places we want to play.”
Rather than relying on a pre-conceived playbook, Clavin looked at what was already happening here. “We asked what does Richmond value and what are its subcultures? We came up with murals, gaming, food, bike punks, theatre, house shows, and live music,” she says. “So that’s what we put the call out for. Not just what is considered art, but the cultures we create.”
Clavin had worked with Sam Chan, an avid gamer and immersive performer, at Reveler Experiences. The notion of having an alternate reality game run by the fest led to her approaching Chan, who jumped at the idea. “He's developing some really lovely details with live actors and tiered difficulty levels,” she says. “It’s all based around this alternate reality of a Richmond that needs help to be re-enchanted.”
The Community Chaos Mural will be directed by Richmond muralist Emily Herr, known for the GirlsGirlsGirls series around town. Clavin approached Herr about bringing their skills and heart into the Fringe family and Herr suggested a moveable mural worked on by many people in a sort of chaotic way, and then refined by Herr’s brush. There’s no sketch or layout, just a prompt that mimics the festival’s motto: "We Make Our Own Light."
It will be set up at Reveler in Carytown, which is also Fringe headquarters, and open for anyone to come and contribute their spark. “On Monday night at the awards and wind down event, its finished form will be unveiled,” Clavin says. “We’ll likely store it or maybe even chop it into pieces and give them away to our volunteers and participants.”
Clavin sees Richmond as a city of siloed subcultures that would benefit from cross pollinating with one another more often, absorbing the benefits of being in the same room with people as eager, thoughtful, wounded, joyous, and ridiculous as others.
She adds that Richmond is a city that knows nothing is getting handed to it, and “no one is coming to save it.”
“Between everything costing so much and the pandemic taking so much, I feel like we can do worse than trying to gather our lights in the murky air,” she says. “The hearts I've been collaborating with on this project are a sure sign that working in mutual trust, through the many transformations of this place, is valuable and worthy work.”
The Richmond Fringe Festival is held April 15-17 at various venues. For tickets visit https://www.richmondfringe.com/tickets.