The Founding of the Fringe

From time to time, our Festival Director Ben Hill will share some stories about how the Fringe began as well as some insight into the direction and mission of our little festival. This is his first post. Enjoy!

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Every organization has its founding story.

Ours started in one of those crappy Hollywood apartments at the corner of Wilcox and Homewood. Anyone who lives in LA knows the scene I am setting: old carpets, ambitious roaches, curious smells, crumbling ceilings, bathrooms the size of linen closets.

Our little palace amongst the stars was our welcome mat when I moved to LA in 2007 with Fringe co-founder Stacy Jones (Hill) - my then-girlfriend, now-wife, forever soulmate.

I had come to LA as many do, eyes wide with ambitions of becoming a working actor in the city where actors worked. That ambition lasted about a week.

One ambition wouldn’t die so easily: starting a theatre festival in LA. But what kind of festival?

Our producing director and co-founder Dave McKeever and I had produced a festival in the past. It was a wonderful little event called “The Hatchery Festival” – three plays, three directors, three dramaturges, three weeks. There is nothing so pure as a festival of new works. As one actor put it, “I just love the way  the new words feel in my mouth”.

Still, it wasn’t enough. Even then I longed for artistic chaos framed in a well organized event. This couldn’t be achieved in the scope of a small festival of new plays, as noble and wonderful as it was.

Having witnessed first-hand the success of the Capital Fringe in my hometown of Washington DC not to mention that wonder-of-the-world that is Edinburgh Festival Fringe, I remember the first time I heard myself say it (it was in New Hampshire for the lore-curious): “Maybe we could do a Fringe in LA. They don’t have one right?”

And so there we were, drinking as we do in a shitty Hollywood apartment, no cares, no kids, no money; weeks into our LA experience and our lives gloriously changing all around us. We were happy as hell. 

I remember reaching for my laptop (half drunk). 

Browsing to GoDaddy.com. 

Seeing the words hollywoodfringe.org scrawl across the page as I typed

Clicking search. 

That infinite moment of quiet anticipation. The great wait.

“Hollywoodfringe.org is available, purchase now?”

Money was tight, but yes – I think we will purchase now. I like the way those new words feel in my mouth.

The date was October 10, 2007. For all intents and purposes, the Fringe was conceived in that moment. 

Things became a little more complicated after that. The shows, the artists, the tickets. Dreams born and crashed. Friends made, friends lost. That spirit conceived on a day in October – it was like a life placed in our hands that needed nurture. A calling, a responsibility, a joyful struggle. 

It all rose from that one pure moment where a magical name was shot into the universe: Hollywood Fringe.