The 2019 Fort Collins Fringe Festival has wrapped! (For an introduction to this Fringe Festival, read my previous post here.)

This was my first year being able to attend my local Fringe in earnest. A few of my favorite moments from this year’s festival, in no particular order:

• Stalking a bridesmaid around Old Town as she searched for a date to a wedding;

• Watching clowns feed grapes to audience members by rolling them down a sheet the length of a conference room;

• Helping a man trying to conjure the spirit of Harry Houdini, only to reveal a dark truth about Houdini’s death;

• Watching my good friend Stef perform a “walker dance” while dressed as an old woman, then perform on lyra as a skeleton (she was phenomenal in both);

• Drinking in a dance show which was artfully performed, funny, evocative, and impossible to surreptitiously photograph;

• Being told that my post about Fringe inspired other people to attend (I would be lying if I told you this wasn’t the very best part for me);

…and many beautiful moments that took place outside of performances. For instance, one of my favorite opportunities in any Fringe is the “what have you seen” moment, when you find yourself killing a few minutes before your next show and you end up in a conversation with a complete stranger about which performances they have already seen, what they would recommend, what their impressions have been thus far. With my only being able to catch two days of this four-day festival, I was concerned I wouldn’t have time for this to happen to me — but then I found myself sitting in the Otterbox Digital Dome, waiting for a presentation on architecture in virtual reality (like ya do), and lo and behold… “What have you seen?”

Fringe is about sampling new things, broadening your horizons, meeting other experience junkies, and taking chances on art. Thank you to Fort Collins Fringe Festival for inviting me to participate, and to all of the hardworking artists that brought their ideas, craft and love to the Fringe stages this weekend!

Mark your calendars now: the Fort Collins Fringe Festival takes place annually on the last weekend of July.