fringe finance or...
why we don't have working class playwrights...
Fringe Festival Still Welcomes Novice Dreamers
By CAMPBELL ROBERTSON
Published: August 11, 2006
LAST Saturday afternoon at a bar in Midtown, Sean McManus and Andrew Unterberg were reminiscing about the moment in May when they found out that their play, “The Infliction of Cruelty,” had been accepted into the New York International Fringe Festival.....
Of course, with more than 1,300 performances of 216 productions, it’s difficult to make generalizations about the Fringe. .... the Fringe has been actively looking for little-known and first-time artists in the selection process, said Elena K. Holy, the festival’s producing artistic director.... Mr. McManus, 29, editor of a luxury lifestyle magazine in Jacksonville, Fla., and Mr. Unterberg, 30, a junior associate at a Manhattan law firm. Mr. Unterberg took a playwriting class while in law school, and Mr. McManus studied some theater in college. Both had seen a Fringe show or two. But as for the theatrical arts, that was pretty much it.... The cost of the production was, so far, a $40 application fee and the price of mailing the script to the Fringe office. Next would come the $500 acceptance fee. Then the expenses would be left up to them.....
For almost two weeks in early June they sat through dozens of auditions in a rented studio (between $14 and $18 an hour, with the Fringe discount) four stories above Lafayette Street.... The audition process started as early as it did because Mr. McManus and Mr. Unterberg thought there should be nine weeks of rehearsals. Then they learned of the union rules limiting the rehearsal period, and besides, as Mr. Froomkin said, “The actors will end up hating you.”
By July, when rehearsals started, the production’s headquarters had left Lafayette Street after a noisy Brazilian martial arts class moved in next door. Now rehearsals were at a dance studio (about $25 an hour)...
The bad news: the whole process was starting to cost serious money.
The production had passed the $10,000 mark and was on track to pass $16,000 before it was over. After a rehearsal Mr. Unterberg fondly recalled the moment when $575, for an advertisement in the Fringe program, seemed outrageous.
The five members of the cast and five members of the crew are being paid $200 each for the production, a one-time e-mail blast cost $850, props were hurtling toward $1,000, and the press agent cost thousands, though that was being shared by Mr. Froomkin, who was not being paid anything....."
Fringe Festival Still Welcomes Novice Dreamers
By CAMPBELL ROBERTSON
Published: August 11, 2006
LAST Saturday afternoon at a bar in Midtown, Sean McManus and Andrew Unterberg were reminiscing about the moment in May when they found out that their play, “The Infliction of Cruelty,” had been accepted into the New York International Fringe Festival.....
Of course, with more than 1,300 performances of 216 productions, it’s difficult to make generalizations about the Fringe. .... the Fringe has been actively looking for little-known and first-time artists in the selection process, said Elena K. Holy, the festival’s producing artistic director.... Mr. McManus, 29, editor of a luxury lifestyle magazine in Jacksonville, Fla., and Mr. Unterberg, 30, a junior associate at a Manhattan law firm. Mr. Unterberg took a playwriting class while in law school, and Mr. McManus studied some theater in college. Both had seen a Fringe show or two. But as for the theatrical arts, that was pretty much it.... The cost of the production was, so far, a $40 application fee and the price of mailing the script to the Fringe office. Next would come the $500 acceptance fee. Then the expenses would be left up to them.....
For almost two weeks in early June they sat through dozens of auditions in a rented studio (between $14 and $18 an hour, with the Fringe discount) four stories above Lafayette Street.... The audition process started as early as it did because Mr. McManus and Mr. Unterberg thought there should be nine weeks of rehearsals. Then they learned of the union rules limiting the rehearsal period, and besides, as Mr. Froomkin said, “The actors will end up hating you.”
By July, when rehearsals started, the production’s headquarters had left Lafayette Street after a noisy Brazilian martial arts class moved in next door. Now rehearsals were at a dance studio (about $25 an hour)...
The bad news: the whole process was starting to cost serious money.
The production had passed the $10,000 mark and was on track to pass $16,000 before it was over. After a rehearsal Mr. Unterberg fondly recalled the moment when $575, for an advertisement in the Fringe program, seemed outrageous.
The five members of the cast and five members of the crew are being paid $200 each for the production, a one-time e-mail blast cost $850, props were hurtling toward $1,000, and the press agent cost thousands, though that was being shared by Mr. Froomkin, who was not being paid anything....."
posted by G.L.Horton at 11:17 AM
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