Also this issue: Bad for the Business A trio of showbiz books walks on the mean side. -A.D. Amorosi artquicks More stuff going on this week... Wozzeck -David Shengold ComedySportz Cares -Juliet Fletcher "Martians and Motorcycles" -Andrew Parks "Privacy Writes: Public Lives, Personal Letters" -Juliet Fletcher Fourth Of U LIE Rebel Party -Ainé Ardron-Doley PII Gallery | Stedman Gallery | And Then Thereâs · -Lori Hill

July 3- 9, 2003

artsbeat

compiled by Debra Auspitz

The lineup for the seventh annual Fringe Festival (Aug. 29-Sept. 13) was announced last week, and some changes are brewing.

Since 1997’s five-day festival, seen by 12,000 audience members at 120 performances, the Fringe has been growing rapidly. By 2001, the fest was at its current length, 16 days, and featured 646 performances viewed by 35,025 attendees. Those performances were broken down into 193 shows, 118 of which were adjudicated by the Fringe. The rest were self-produced or "unfiltered" shows.

This year, Producing Director Nick Stuccio says he wants the festival to focus on "quality and depth" of programming rather than quantity for the adjudicated portion of the Fringe, and the '03 adjudicated lineup has only 96 shows (including the Spotlight Shows).

The Unfiltered Fringe, on the other hand, is exploding, with 162 shows being produced in the upcoming festival. Stuccio and his Fringe cohorts saw this trend and decided that it was time for the festival to rethink its mission. Though the changes will be minimal this year, by the 2004 festival the Fringe hopes to have essentially split into two concurrent festivals -- the adjudicated portion becoming a Philly arts festival and the Unfiltered Fringe assuming the Fringe Festival title. While in essence this two-festival structure already exists here, the plan is to gradually work toward a redefinition and renaming of the ever-evolving festival.

Artistic growth and philosophy aside, there's also an exciting lineup of work for the '03 fest. It's too much to possibly list but here are some highlights. There are eight Spotlight Shows, including Roger Guenveur Smith's Two Fires, commissioned by the Fringe, a history of Philadelphia bookended by the yellow fever epidemic of the late 1700s and 1985's MOVE bombing. Other Spotlights include visits from big names like Richard Maxwell and Akram Khan, and locally based groups like New Paradise Laboratories (premiering Rrose Selavy Takes a Lover in Philadelphia), Pig Iron Theatre Co. (remounting the Fringe hit Cafeteria) and Brian Sanders' Junk.

The adjudicated Fringe includes 1812 Productions tackling David Foster Wallace; the return of U.K.-based Blue, Inc. (which presented the delightful history-of-cinema spoof Splice at last year's festival); the premiere of John Lumia's Cryptome; and a guest-curated hip-hop symposium featuring olive Dance Theatre, Montäzh, Tania Isaac and Sabela Grimes. Not to mention a wedding, between dancer Megan Bridge and Peter Price. The Unfiltered Fringe features work by groups like Crescendo Theatre, Hotel Obligado, SCRAP and Melanie Stewart Dance Theatre. Of course, there's also the best part of the festival, the dozens of groups that aren't big names, waiting for lucky audience members to discover them.