August 28-September 3, 2003

cover story

The Seventh Year Itch

Change is in the wind for the Philadelphia Fringe. Producing Director Nick Stuccio talks about where the festival has been and, more importantly, where it’s going.

by Debra Auspitz

Nick Stuccio is exhausted.

Itís early in the morning and Stuccio, 40, didnít really sleep last night, or several nights before that, since he and his wife recently had twins. And as he has done for the past seven summers, Stuccio and his small staff are in the midst of somewhat frantically putting the finishing touches on the upcoming Philadelphia Fringe Festival (Aug. 29-Sept. 13).

So Stuccio's looking a little bleary-eyed as he sits down for an interview -- that is, until he starts talking about the festival. Then, you can almost see the wheels start to turn. Stuccio is thinking so fast that he tends to start a new sentence before he's finished the previous one. And when he gets going about his plans for Fringe's future, it makes sense to listen -- he has a habit of making his dreams a reality.

This year, Stuccio's got some big ones: As of 2004, the Fringe as we know it will be divided into two separate festivals.

Seven years ago, it seemed far-fetched to think the city could support even one large performing arts festival. A group of Philadelphians that Stuccio dubs "the crunchy Fringe gang" -- Stuccio, Eric Schoefer, Conrad Bender, Deborah Block and Carrie Stavrakos -- saw a need for more cutting-edge work in the city. "This was the city of lots of theater," Stuccio says, "script-based "straight theater,í and there was a big mainstream dance [scene]." Stuccio himself had retired from the Pennsylvania Ballet in 1995, after 10 years as a dancer. "There was, we thought, this important place for work that was different, that was really more challenging or risk-taking."

The city had been talking for some time about producing its own arts festival, with no one taking any action. Stuccio and co. came up with a plan to model a Philly festival after the famed Edinburgh Fringe.

An issue immediately arose, however, in that Philadelphia's Fringe planners were interested in programming some of the festival. Stuccio says there was "some work that we wanted to identify, select, put together as a group," but that they also wanted "the exact antithesis of that, the opposite, which is, stay away from any judgment and let the work come to the public without anybody in the way." This type of work is the basis of the Edinburgh Fringe, created more than 50 years ago as a reaction to the town's highly curated arts festival.

"We saw the complications, we saw how this was going to be really difficult to communicate to folks," Stuccio recalls. "Really, from month one we've been trying to hammer these sort of round pegs into square holes."

So why not present two festivals from the start, one with a curated program, one unadulterated Fringe? It goes back to the city's proposed arts festival. "We were sort of activists," Stuccio says with a wry smile. "We were anti-establishment folks and the establishment was trying to put on their åbig city arts festival.' So we wanted to completely run from that thinking, because it was A) a failure, and B) it wasn't conceived right, it was conceived as a marketing idea, not as an art idea."

So Stuccio hammered those round pegs in as best he could and the Philadelphia Fringe was born. The festival presented two kinds of work -- productions that were chosen by a panel of judges and supported directly by the Fringe, and work that was self-produced by artists (called variously over the years Non-adjudicated Fringe, Bring Your Own Venue Fringe, Unfiltered Fringe and this year, Fringe of the Fringe).

The first five-day festival was a huge success, and in the past seven years the Fringe has grown enormously. Now at 16 days, the Fringe this year will feature 258 shows and has a budget of about $1 million, up nearly $850,000 from the original festival. The shape of the Fringe has also changed, with the amount of self-produced work growing each year and the adjudicated program getting slightly smaller. In 1999, there were 115 adjudicated and 46 self-produced shows. This year, the numbers have nearly switched, with 96 adjudicated and 162 self-produced shows.

But over the years, the Philadelphia Fringe has gotten some flak for including any curated work in a "Fringe" festival. Now, Stuccio says he wants to make the distinction completely clear by creating concurrent festivals, one an as-yet-unnamed, curated contemporary arts festival, the other, taking the name Fringe, consisting only of self-produced work.

This change also reflects the maturity of the Fringe organization. Stuccio says that, in the beginning, he was very enamored of what he calls "that kind of åthrowin' on a show' Fringe DNA." For the past few years, even finding a home for the festival's box office has been a last-minute challenge. "It was great when we would say, åGee, it's two months before the festival and we really don't know where our box office is going to be, but isn't that fun?'" But that's not the kind of fun Stuccio is looking for anymore. Without losing its lighthearted spirit, it's time for Fringe to grow up.

What does this all mean for the average Fringe-goer on the street? At first, not much. This year, the festival will appear nearly identical to previous years. But there will be hints of whatís to come. Special programs like the hip-hop symposium and a weekend-long music festival reflect the shift toward highly specified programming. There will also be several opportunities for artists to talk with audiences about their work.

As for Fringe 2004, the visible differences will still be subtle, Stuccio predicts. The two festivals will be run out of one office, though the staff will have to expand. "Our strategic plan," Stuccio explains, "calls for a person [to be the] director of the Fringe Festival." And no, that person will not be him. Though Stuccio will still be heavily involved in both festivals, he says a separate Fringe festival "needs its own advocate, a great communicator, someone who's enthusiastic and passionate about the philosophy behind self-produced work. We'll identify that person over the next couple of years." Along with a passionate advocate, Stuccio hopes to offer Fringe artists greater administrative help, including a guidebook to self-producing Fringe work and a catalog of past and possible venues. Like the current self-produced Fringe, artists would work on a fee-for-service basis, paying to use the Fringe's box office, buying into a group insurance policy and paying for a listing in the Fringe guide (most of these fees range between $25 and $100).

For the contemporary arts festival, Stuccio pledges to continue programming a mix of local and internationally known artists. "It's too easy for us to say, well, we see what the hot artists around the world are, we can just call them up on the phone, write a check and have them come in," Stuccio says. He wants to "take advantage of what we have here -- let's look at the community, what's really going on in this local field." Nor does Stuccio want to limit the festival to established artists. "We want to treat ourselves and treat audiences here to the world's best artists, you know, one day Pina Bausch will come [here] and make a piece, but also the next Pina Bausch -- [we want to] be open to brand-new artists."

Stuccio hopes these changes will solve the long-standing problem of how to present a dual-sided Fringe to the public. Terms like "unfiltered" often gave the impression that the self-produced work in the Fringe came second to the curated program. In separating the two festivals, the goal is to provide both equal attention and room for development.

The other major step in the Fringeís "strategic plan" is to find these newly separated festivals a home. "Our vision, over time, is to go into the bricks-and-mortar business," Stuccio says. This "research and development" center would serve throughout the year as a rehearsal space for artists and an office for the Fringe. At festival time, it would house the box office and the cabaret. It will also be used for the "critical social spaces that make the festival great. Thatís the other bit of DNA that weíll take from the Fringe, that will live on forever … this sort of marriage of art and hanging out." Stuccio says there are a couple of places under consideration, but that itís still the beginning of the "long, complicated dance" involved in finding and buying a space.

To accomplish this goal, the Fringe would most likely have to double its operating budget. But will creating two separate festivals cause a strain on the limited resources for arts funding in the city? Stuccio admits this could be difficult, and says the Fringe still plans to fundraise as one entity. "We think we can have a synergetic effect with two festivals to get more resources than we could with them individually. Now we can talk about two festivals that a sponsor can sponsor." As for stretching out audiences, Stuccio's not concerned. "I never even considered worrying about competing for audience, because there are so many people here -- we've captured a tiny sliver of audience so far."

Looking a bit further ahead, Stuccio allows himself to imagine where the festivals might be in five years. He starts with what will be the official Fringe. "In five years we've got the same people working at the festival, 'cause they're awesome. But we've got this really great system in place to serve the Fringe artists, we've got a how-to book, we help them find venue managers."

For the contemporary arts festival, Stuccio first jokes that in five years it will actually have a name, then adds, "It's gonna be one of the world's finest moments of contemporary art, the art is going to be some of the world's most interesting, important and fascinating [by] talented contemporary artists who are pushing boundaries, pushing buttons, challenging all of us.

"In five years," Stuccio continues, looking up somewhat dreamily, "we'll be able to afford Pina Bausch, maybe in a partnership with the Kimmel Center or something. But also, to identify that next wave of talent. Hopefully in five years we're all really smart people, too, smarter curators, good programmers and our attendance goes from 44,000 people well, it should double in five years. Eighty, 100,000." Stuccio is speeding up, getting ahead of himself once again. "Oh, and we have an incredible home base somewhere in Old City, too," he blurts out. "We have great funding," he adds.

Stuccio is quiet for a moment, then adds somewhat sheepishly what perhaps should have been his first wish for five years in the future: "We're still here."

If we have only the Fringe's past record to go on, that wish seems pretty likely to come true.