The Phoenix Fringe Festival mission statement says PHX:fringe “presents innovative, experimental and provocative theatre by local, national and international artists. PHX:fringe seeks to develop a cutting edge, urban audience by offering an edgy assortment of performance choices in non-traditional downtown spaces. PHX:fringe promotes artistic exploration by supporting the risky, adventurous work of established and emerging artists while also providing accessible, affordable performances to the community.”

PHX:fringe is a nonprofit founded in early 2008 by Phoenix theatre artists and producers. April 2 – 11, 2010 will be their third year of bringing alternative performances to the Valley of the Sun.

All shows are in various venues seating 40 – 125, within walking distance from each other, in downtown Phoenix.  Each show lasts from 30 to 60 minutes. Last year attendence was about 2000 and they hope to build on that this year.

PHX:fringe is now accepting applications for all performance types;  dance, mime, youth theatre, spoken word, etc., are all welcome to apply.  They hope to include international performers in addition to hometown talent.  The application fee is $35 and some scholarships and grants are available.  You can contact info@phxfringe.com with questions.  They are also on MySpace, Facebook, and Twitter. All you fringe types plan ahead – let’s get some southern Arizona representation!

A little Fringe history:  The oldest and largest fringe theatre festival is in Edinburgh, Scotland, begun in 1947 and today sells over a million tickets. If you Google Fringe festivals you will come up with many stateside and international entries.

At Suite 101.com I read about the Winnipeg festival:

The idea behind fringe festivals has always been to provide a venue for alternative and amateur performances, without artistic constraints from committees or societies. Anyone can apply to perform, and participants include professional actors, amateurs, and everything in between. Classics such as Shakespeare or Ibsen can be part of the festival, as well as children’s plays, juggling acts, comedy, and more. The quality of performances can vary considerably, but each one has its own special character.

The format of fringe festivals is unique. In the Canadian city of Winnipeg, Manitoba, participants are chosen by a non-juried lottery to stimulate innovation among performers. Ticket prices are substantially lower than at traditional performances, allowing audiences to take in a variety of shows, with some free entertainment available at a central location.

San Francisco invades Tucson!  Mark you calendar for some Bay Area entertainment here in the Old Pueblo.

Sister Spit: The Next Generation

Friday October 2, 8:00 PM at Gallagher Theater, University of Arizona, Free and open to the public

Sister Spit: The Next Generation is hitting the road again, with a whole new all-girl lineup of zinesters, fashion plates, novelists, performance artists, slam poets and fancy scribblers. Inspired by the legendary Sister Spit Ramblin’ Roadshow of the 90s, Sister Spit: The Next Generation is hauling a vanload of killer underground female talent across the USA carrying on the tradition of rowdy, raucous literary adventure. Come and meet your new favorite performers!

Beth Lisick, author of the books Monkey Girl, Everybody Into the Pool, and Helping Me Help Myself. Nude performance artiste. Comedienne.

Ariel Schrag, comics artist who documented her queer youth in a series of graphic novels — one of which, Potential, is being made into a movie by Killer Films.

Sara Seinberg, poetic powerhouse. Creator of the multi-city K’Vetch Queer Open Mic. Artistic Director of the past three Homo-A-Go-Go festivals. Photographer extraordinaire.

Kirya Traber, slam poet superhero. Teacher of poetry to the youth. Organizer of performances exploring queerness, race and more.

Ben McCoy, performance artist, novelist-in-progress, force of nature. Whose writings have been made into the short films My Hustler Boyfriend and The Face of God.

Rhiannon Argo, skater, future librarian, present novelist. Author of the queer tour-de-force The Creamsicle, which takes you into the lives of pill-popping, pole-dancing, heart-breaking, gender-fucking young queers

Hosted by Michelle Tea, co-founder of Sister Spit and the muscle behind Sister Spit: The Next Generation. Author of a bunch of books, including the Lambda Award-winning Valencia, and the coming-of-age-on-drugs novel Rose of No Man’s Land.

And special guest Tania Katan.

More info: http://www.myspace.com/sisterspitnextgen,

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Mighty Real with Lynnee Breedlove and Silas Howard

Saturday, October 10, 8 p.m., Dinnerware Artspace 264 E. Congress St. Sliding scale $7 +, all ages show

An evening of dueling solo shows

Lynnee Breedlove is an improv comic. Silas Howard makes 50-Cent videos. Lynnee is funny and ugly. Silas is poignant and handsome. Always disarming, alarming, and keeping you on your rocker boot toes, both use multimedia performance to trace the queer history that made them the men they are today.

Lynnee Breedlove’s all new solo show, Confessions of a Poser is a comic look at the mystery of the purple dick, how to use legacies of cultures not your own, and how to kill things, eat them and still be a Buddhist. He’s been told, “Too many props for standup,” and “Too many punchlines for theater.” Buckets, knives, and body parts are still integral to the show. Although dickless himself, weirdly, his biggest fans are straight bio boys, DWD, Dudes With Dicks, probably due to his constant appropriation of straight non-trans male culture.

Opening for Lynnee is Silas Howard’s one-man-show, Thank you for Being Urgent, tale of a transman in the queer punk world of San Francisco, spilling into the crappy and exalted glitter of Hollywood, searching for true tales of fierce outsiders, re-imagining the mainstream, traversing serendipitous heights and punishing ironies, Thank you for Being Urgent chronicles burlesque dancers with dementia, tranny jazzmen and film executives, using archival photos, film clips, and monologue.

More info: http://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Mighty-Real-Tour