Pay What You Can

Hi there! I’m Stina, longtime Fringe volunteer, participant, and staff person.

 

It will come as no surprise to some of you to hear my husband and I are very frugal. This is by choice and by necessity. Since moving to Los Angeles nearly 11 years ago, we’ve had many underemployed years, yet we haven’t wanted to sacrifice our creative desires to full-time employment that would leave us less available to pursue our art, or, in more recent years, to be with our three and a half year old kiddo. Art is why we moved to Los Angeles—my husband is an actor and I’m a writer. 

 

So we’ve gotten by on part-time and freelance work, a few well-paying acting gigs for my husband, and some luck with investments. But we rarely go out to eat, we don’t own a car, we don’t go to movies, we don’t go out for drinks, etc. Not being able to do those things due to COVID wasn’t a huge shift for us. 

 

I say all this because I want you to know that it wasn’t a light decision for us to donate $175, the cost of one show registration, to Fringe. We’re doing it because we know what it is to struggle in Los Angeles and yet be fueled by the desire to share your art—to create, to collaborate. We’re doing it because we want to make it that much easier for another artist to share themselves with the world. We’re doing it because we believe that theatre and storytelling can change the world for the better.

 

The festival goal is $7,250, enough money to give out 10 stipends, but the more we raise, the more stories we get to hear and the more the world can change. I know that sounds lofty, and it is. It’s what I want to do with my life—change the world for the better. I don’t always know how, but I’m confident that theatre and storytelling is part of it, so I’m happy to put my money towards that. I hope you will be too. 

 

 

Yours in the work,

Stina Pederson

Hollywood Fringe Audience Services/Volunteer Director