Once upon a time in a land far, far away a performing arts festival started in Edinburgh, Scotland called the Fringe Festival. Established in 1947, it has grown over 71 years and expanded world-wide with over 200 festivals! You might be asking yourself why you need this history?
This week we had the Nina Vought, founder of Utah’s very own Fringe Festival, join us! It might not be 71 years old, but in it’s short 4 years it has grown from a few shows over a weekend, to 250 over 10 days!
Nina Vought is so much more than just the founder of The Great Salt Lake Fringe Festival. Nina is also a theatre professor at Westminster College in Salt Lake City. With a dream of being an academic gypsy, her roots have now been planted pretty deep in Utah with her husband, who team teaches with her at the college! Nina got real with us and let us know how much heart and soul and countless hours are put into even just a simple 15 minute performance at the Fringe Festival. This is a place for performances to be work-shopped and quite possibly improved at a future festival. Nina said, “the fringe festival does for theater what Sundance does for independent film.” She explained to us that it takes a village to put on this festival, and one of the coolest bits of information about the GSLFF is that all ticket sales go BACK to the performers and that is clearly stated in the 2 rules of the Fringe Festival, which all must abide!
1. It is non-curated. Based on a first come first serve for applications.
2. All ticket sales go to the performers.
The festival goes from August 2-12th with dance and theatre performances at the Gateway in downtown Salt Lake City. Ticket prices starting at $10 or you can buy a performance pack! *which we definitely suggest.* It is said that the Fringe Festival is like Disneyland for theater lovers! We can’t argue with that.
You can learn more about the Great Salt Lake Fringe HERE. You can follow them on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter for updates. We will do a follow up show with Nina and her husband about yoga, the vegan classes they teach, and living a green life in Salt Lake City!
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