WOODSTOCK FRINGE
FOUNDED IN 2002 BY WALLACE NORMAN
The idea to start a theatre in Woodstock came to me quite unexpectedly. The year was 1999. It was one of those gloriously beautiful and warm sunny autumn days when the air is fragrant with the smell of leaves. I had recently read something in the paper about the Byrdcliffe Arts Colony and thought it would be a perfect day to take a walk through the colony and become acquainted with this historic place. Byrdcliffe is a five minute ride from my Lake Hill home, then a weekend home. Scattered among its many acres are barn-like structures, houses, artists studios, pottery studios and something called the Valetta Inn. It seemed that I was the only one about that day. Then I came upon the Byrdcliffe Theater, an old, weathered, run down building. My heart started racing. No sign of life in the theatre. The marquee had an old torn poster for an event that had taken place six years earlier. Intrigued, I was desperately eager to see what was inside. I tried the doors. They were locked. Not tight fitting, the doors rattled and could be opened an inch or so. I saw that the doors were held closed by a hook and eye. A stiff piece of paper got me in.
I had entered the lobby. The theatre clearly had not been used for years. Debris was everywhere. From the right side of the lobby an open door revealed the theatre itself. As I entered chipmunks and mice scattered. The floor of the stage was covered with leaves, acorns, all manner of debris. The stage was a platform, maybe four inches off the floor, facing four rows of wooden bleachers. I counted 60 seats. I stood on the stage clapped my hands and recited, "Speak the speech I pray you as I pronounced it to you, trippingly on the tongue". The walls of the theatre were pine shiplap, with gaps that let in the sun in rays that crisscrossed the theatre. PERFECT acoustics. You could whisper nearly silently and be heard. And this tattered old box made for the warmest sound I have experienced in any theater. I put my arms out and shouted to the empty theatre, "I want you. I want this." It was to me the most beautiful theatre.
In 2003, Woodstock Fringe was invited by the Byrdcliffe Guild to participate in the Guild’s Centennial Celebration with a cabaret concert honoring the Tourneau Opera at the Byrdcliffe Theatre. A rich partnership between the Guild and the Fringe began and for the next decade the Fringe produced the Woodstock Fringe Festival of Theatre & Song at the Byrdcliffe Theatre.
The next two seasons were two-week long festivals of fully-produced plays, storytelling, readings and musical offerings produced at the Byrdcliffe Barn. There is a lot of stuff that goes into putting a theatre together. It took a few years to find our identity and purpose. In 2002 Woodstock Fringe emerged from the primordial soup to produce an annual Festival of Theatre and Song. We would focus on new and experimental plays and music. We would offer work such as the Tiny Ninja Theatre productions of Shakespeare, one person shows dealing with social and political themes. We chose works that made our hearts faster.
“The act of creation is an act or courage”
“A Theatre is created when people with common interests and tastes unite to devise ways and means whereby they may give their group feeling an adequate theatrical expression. Community.
If the theatre is an art, it must say something, it must create from the chaos which is the common experience of its members, an expression that will have, like that of the individual artist, an identity and significance with which people, sharing common experience, may sense their kinship. ”
Our critically-acclaimed Festival grew to be 6 weeks long and offered as many as 40 performances each season during its summer residencies at Byrdcliffe. Fringe Staff and company members lived, wrote, rehearsed and performed at Byrdcliffe. The Fringe was a mad explosion of creative energy, harkening back to the heyday of Off-Off Broadway. Some participants were theatre veterans with Tony Awards to their credit. Others made their theatrical debuts at the Fringe. During the Fringe’s decade at Byrdcliffe, more than 90 events were produced, the work of more than 400 playwrights and musicians were presented, and more than 1,000 professional actors, singers, playwrights, composers, musicians, stage directors, lighting, scenic and costume designers and stage technicians found a creative home at the Festival at Byrdcliffe. The Fringe received awards and support from The New York State Council on the Arts, The Dutchess County Arts Council, The Dramatists Guild, Meet the Composer, and The Virgil Thomson Foundation. Several Fringe world premiere productions were subsequently produced commercially Off-Broadway in New York City, directed by Wallace Norman, the Producing Artistic Director of Woodstock Fringe.