The Minnesota Fringe Festival 2009

The Minnesota Fringe Festival is an annual paradox. Its two-weekend run arrives every year with the regularity of the seasons, yet its nature is unpredictable and sprawling and impossible to summarize. Its approach to staging theater is ridiculously broad in scope, and yet the Fringe staff and a horde of volunteers somehow manage to make things run (by and large) with crackerjack precision.

That's what it looks like from the outside, anyway. Lucky for us, we don't have to worry about the intricacies of staging 847 performances of 162 shows at 22 venues (the announced slate for this year).

"The only thing that makes the Fringe able to be so chaotic onstage is that it's so rigidly managed on the organization side," notes executive Robin Gillette.

Indeed, if you have a taste for it, the Fringe is the theatrical equivalent of dining at an outlandishly varied buffet—some bits are great, some regrettable, and some utterly disastrous. For the seasoned Fringe-goer, memorable onstage atrocities, elbow for memory room with the hits.

This year's roster of participating artists (those who survived the festival's open lottery system for filling slots) includes such familiar local brand names as Joseph Scrimshaw and Ari Hoptman, along with local companies such as Theatre Unbound and Nautilus Music-Theater. An early contender for the best title has to be Twin Cities artist Noah Bremer's Untitled Duet with Houseplant.

Local talent isn't the only draw. There are Fringe shows from England, Ireland, and Canada this year as well as from New York, Las Vegas, and New Orleans. Says Gillette: "There's a case to be made that the Fringe brings theater from New York to your doorstep."

Which can be only a good thing, especially if your travel budget for the summer is less than robust." We are super cheap," Gillette adds. The Fringe's single-ticket price ($12) hasn't gone up in five years, and for the theatrical glutton there's the $150 Ultra Pass. If you buy the pass and attend shows in all 56 time slots, the per-show cost amounts to measly $2.67.

Of course, after consuming that much theater you might lose the distinction between the stage and real life, but during the month of August that might not be an undesirable outcome. 
July 30—Aug.9 Various locations, fringefestival.com