HOME	2006 San Francisco Fringe Festival
OTHER MEDIA	Fringe Festival Rocks and Rolls article in the San Francisco Chronicle Sunday Datebook by Sam Hurwitt   At first it would have been easy to miss the Fringe Festival contingent amid the hubbub around the cable-car turnaround at Powell and Market. A white-bearded man in a bowler rolling a large stone, a bunch of guys in suits with thick pasted-on black eyebrows and a man in a space-alien muumuu with his brain afloat in a lightbulb dome simply blended in with the homeless people, the man carrying a Jesus placard, a kid break-dancing and the usual gaggle of tourists.   Still, a small parade followed Jack Halton (in "Sisyphus on Vacation"), heeding the performers' insistent offer of free theater, as he rolled his rock two blocks up Eddy to the Exit Theatre to kick off a sneak peek at the 2006 San Francisco Fringe Festival, which starts Wednesday.   It was hard to tell how many of them were curious passers-by rather than Fringers, as there were enough performers showing short excerpts of their festival offerings to halfway fill the 80-seat theater.   That uncertain line between performers and public is appropriate for the Fringe. Because each year's performers are selected by lottery, even the organizers never know quite what they're going to get.   Produced each fall by Exit founders and directors Christina Augello and Richard Livingston, the Fringe follows the basic model established by the Canadian Association of Fringe Festivals and the 59-year-old Edinburgh Fringe Festival, the world's largest arts festival. All box-office receipts go back to the performers, and Fringe selections are uncensored and non-juried, having gone to a lottery system once the old first-come-first-served method grew out of hand a few years ago. "It got to be so popular that people were standing out for two days out in the street," Augello says. "It became restrictive that way, where people wouldn't apply because they didn't want to camp outside."   The Exit provides a venue and performance slots for more than 30 local, national and international shows, plus a tech person, inclusion in festival programs and publicity, front-of-house staff and, of course, any ticket revenue. Artists are limited to 60 minutes of performance time and a ticket price of no more than $9, and have 15 minutes to set up and to clear out before the next act. The Exit Theatreplex itself offers three stages, two on Ellis Street and one around the corner on Taylor Street, and other venues include the Phoenix Theatre, CounterPulse, Original Joe's, Off-Market Theatre and even the Uptown Club in downtown Oakland. Halton will be rolling his rock on Powell Street, and Boxcar Theatre is commandeering the Mission's Mexican Bus to perform its piece "21/One."   "Each year it's a new group of artists, although because it's a lottery system, fate has a way sometimes of delivering the same groups back to us," Augello says. "The nEO-sURREALISTS for the past couple of years have not been pulled during the lottery, but each year they've gotten into the Fringe through the wait list. It must be they're meant to be part of the Fringe."   One of the returnees is Jeremy Jorgenson, with a sequel to his 2004 Fringe offering, "The Thrilling Adventures of Elvis in Space," a radio-drama-style serial loosely based on the Oedipus myth about the intergalactic travels of Elvis and his sidekicks Stevie and Robot Charlie Hodge.   "I got into the Fringe in 2004 with another play about this guy driving home to Santa Cruz and having sexual relations with his soccer coach, and I switched plays at the last moment," Jorgenson says. "I convinced my director to do 'Elvis in Space' instead." There's a seat-of-the-pants energy to the Fringe that extends from the artists trying things out to the people in line comparing notes on must-sees and what-the-heck-was-thats.   "This isn't like a music festival, where the headliner's determined before the festival ever starts because people, ourselves included, don't know exactly what we have here," Livingston says. "But there's a momentum that starts on that first Wednesday and then builds up, and it focuses on certain groups."   San Francisco's is the second oldest surviving Fringe Festival in the United States. Seattle was the oldest but is now out of business, and Orlando is six months older. Edmonton, Alberta, in Canada, is the oldest in North America, established in 1982. It remains a relatively small festival, however, hosting 30 groups.   "We've kept ours small, because the idea is that the artists have the opportunity to develop their work in front of sold-out houses, earning some revenue," Augello says. "From what the market will bear, you decide what you can do. We've been delivering 8,000 audience members pretty steadily the past few years. We're hoping to kick that up. We could fill probably a hundred groups who'd come to the Fringe if I let that much happen, but if you don't have the audience, what's the point?"   The problem is one of recognition. Participants in Fringes past have ranged from Killing My Lobster and Thrillpeddlers to the Shotgun Players. Crowded Fire, Cutting Ball and Torange Yeghiazarian of Golden Thread Productions all got their start at the Fringe. But there are still a lot of people who've never heard of it.   "In the Fringe world, San Francisco's kind of a backwater," Livingston says. "It's not appreciated as much here as in Canada, and it's considered 'fringey.' One of our goals for the festival is to raise its profile within the artistic community as not just a place where people start."
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