INTERVIEW: FRIGID festival opens in snow-less NYC winter
Photo: The Parentheses, written by Marissa Fleming, is one of the featured works at FRIGID New York. Photo courtesy of artists / Provided by Emily Owens PR with permission.
Despite temperatures continuing to be unseasonably warm, there will be no name change for this year’s much-anticipated FRIGID New York, playing out across two downtown venues in New York City. The theatrical offerings, presented at The Kraine Theater and UNDER St. Mark’s in the Village, continue through March 5 and are led by Erez Ziv, managing artistic director of the fest.
This year’s performances are wonderfully diverse and varied. For example, there’s the cleverly titled A Scar Is Born, written and performed by Lorelei Zarifian. In the solo show, a performer auditions for a casting director and recounts important moments in her life, including her journey from France to the United States, according to press notes. There’s also an unscripted Shakespeare show called As You Will, brought to the fest by Conor Mullen. The actors in the performance piece create a new show, as if it were written by the Bard, using his poetic verse, language choices and thematic material.
Death of a Salesman: A New Play by Austen Halpern-Graser finds two entrepreneurs stopping at nothing to bring their vision to life: eco-friendly tennis balls. Lightweight is a solo show written by and starring Amie Enriquez about a young woman struggling to survive 28 days in an addiction treatment center for anorexia.
There are plenty more offerings to go around, and it’s often possible for audience members to experience more than one show in a single day. One attribute that makes FRIGID unique is that these shows are not competing for a trophy or medal at the end. This fest is 100 percent unjuried.
Recently Hollywood Soapbox exchanged emails with Ziv about this year’s FRIGID New York. Questions and answers have been slightly edited for style.
What are you most excited for at this year’s FRIGID?
I am just excited to have our biggest festival of the year finally happen at a time when we are fairly safe to assume there won’t be a huge uptick in numbers to scare all of our audiences away. Besides that, as usual I am very excited about at least 20% of the 25 shows we have coming to us, and excited to start finding those gems on opening night.
How difficult is coordinating so many artists and productions?
That really depends on the staff we have on hand on any given year. Most of our staff this year is returning staff and star power returning staff at that! So, coordinating all these artists and productions has not been too hard this year. But there is no way to really know how well we did until the end, so I hope we all did as good a job as I think we did!
Is The Kraine Theater a versatile space for such a diverse offering?
Both The Kraine and UNDER St. Marks are extremely versatile spaces, hosting music, theater, dance, comedy, storytelling and variety shows all year round — and with a great variety of work and diversity of artists in each of the aforementioned branches of the performing arts. The only thing we can’t accommodate very well is circus arts because of our ceiling heights.
Why do you believe it’s important to have an unjuried festival?
I don’t believe in intelligent design. I think most great inventions were accidents that happened to be noticed. I think Random Chance is one of the most powerful forces in the shaping of our entire universe. I know from 17 years of personal experience that shows I would never have picked myself end up knocking my socks off each and every year. Even if we just get one of those a year, or even every other year, I think it is well worth it.
How would you define the word Fringe? It seems to encompass and embrace so much of the theater world.
I think at its best, a creative Fringe show is something designed for a smaller audience. A real Fringe show understands that it cannot happen in a 1,500 seat house because if there are so many people that want a ticket, then by definition it is no longer a Fringe show. It might still be Fringy, but if it is commercial, it is not Fringe. That being said, chances are, if it’s an innovative commercial show today, then it would have been considered Fringe five, 10 or 20 years ago. Fringe can also just mean low budget, easily tour-able and fun.
By John Soltes / Publisher / John@HollywoodSoapbox.com
FRIGID New York continues through March 5 at The Kraine Theater and UNDER St. Mark’s in New York City. Click here for more information and tickets.
