2013 Fringe Intern Blogs: Part Four

This week, the interns talk about how they’re feeling as the festival draws to a close.

From Our New* Newbie Intern, Emilie:

“Los Angeles theater summer opportunities internship” is the definite frontrunner in the contest for most fortuitous Google search of my life, besting contenders such as “Arrested Development chicken dance” and “cheap food in Paris.” The magical alchemy of Google took these words and produced the Hollywood Fringe website and ultimately, all of the wonderful people I’ve gotten to know over the past three weeks.

My drama geek friends from my East Coast university expressed their misgivings that theater worth pursuing existed in LA, and their polite, subtle expressions of doubt urged me on as I typed those words into the search engine (“Oh cool, I’ve never really thought of LA as a theater town…”, “I bet there is some sort of arts community over here…”, etc). I knew that my hometown was not the vapid wasteland of frozen yogurt shops and reality television stars that my college friends pictured it to be. Growing up here taught me that an Angeleno is not defined by her tan or the size of her sunglasses but by her talent and hard work. Such a city had to be home to an awesome and lively world of theater that I just hadn’t discovered yet.

The Hollywood Fringe ended up being that world and more. The Fringe is an amalgamation of so many of the things that make LA great: multi-talented artists, zany hairstyles, small dogs, food trucks, and themed party enthusiasts come together to light up a stretch of Santa Monica boulevard for three weeks in June (and with none of the humidity of New York.)

I love that the Fringe not only dispels the myth that LA isn’t a place for theater, but that it also refutes a lot of exasperating myths about theater as an art-form in general—that theater is for old people, that theater is for rich people, that theater is “dying.” The people who go see and put on shows at the Fringe come from all age groups, ethnicities and socio-economic brackets. The people I sell t-shirts to at the Fringe Concierge desk are as diverse as the city itself, and they’re united only by their enthusiasm for the event—they scan the t-shirts for the names of their shows and they ask questions about how the event got its start and came to be what it is today.

The Fringe has made it clear to me that all kinds of people still want to participate in theater, and I think this is in part because the increasingly web-bound nature of cultural experience today makes us need theater more, rather than less, then ever. So much of our daily experience has been reduced to interactions on a screen, which ultimately increases our thirst for a more visceral connection and intimacy. The way that the Fringe embraces virtual platforms—from the Instagram feed in Fringe Central Station to our active twitter community—accentuates the idea that theater is not a relic from an old world but actually an art form that has never been more relevant or needed.

My online search for “Los Angeles theater summer opportunities internship” transformed into a flesh and blood community that proved all of the things I intuitively knew about theater and my hometown to be true. Like another of my favorite LA institutions, the Los Angeles Lakers (the greatest franchise in the history of basketball), I expect the Hollywood Fringe to be proving the haters wrong again and again for a long time to come.

*Our beloved Volunteer Intern, Mary, was unable to write a blog post this week. Fortunately Emilie, another first-year Intern working with our Front of House team, was happy to write about her experience.

From Our Veteran Intern, Sammy:

Sunday is the Closing Night Party. Sunday is the last Fringe Family. Sunday is the last day of the Hollywood Fringe Festival. But it’s not Sunday (yet) and the Rock of Stages party showed that the party is not over. Festival Director Ben Hill oozing stage blood, Jimi Hendrix, platform shoes, rock t-shirts, Development Director Kan’s tattoo sleeve of Disney Princesses, and men with thick, black eyeliner all hip-thrusted to live band Karaoke courtesy of the Moon Units.

The hair and temporary tattoo artist jammed out in the cage, creating inspired artwork and just having fun. Jeremy Aluma was everyone’s neighbor last night as he belted “Hey Ya”, and the Fringe Concierge team showed their naughty schoolgirl side by singing “Oops I Did It Again”. And I took my second photo on the Fringe Red Carpet!

Yep, Rock of Stages was awesome.

And last Sunday’s Fringe Family was awesome as well. My little sister volunteered and it was amazing to share Fringe with her! Even my parents popped by to check out the scene. Magicians, musicians and choreographed dancers sampled their shows for the kids. Big thanks to Meghan for providing the morning donuts.

It’s amazing to see all those emails I sent translate into attending families and the set list turning into a breathing performance of artists. All of the planning that went into Fringe Family is being expressed in googly-eyed, macaroni creations.

Yep, Fringe Family is awesome.

The Hollywood Fringe Festival is awesome and I wish that another year wasn’t coming to a close.

Love,
Sammy