PROJECT DESCRIPTION:

The Hollywood Fringe Festival, in concert with the HFF ACCESS Committee, will develop a 2-year plan to increase accessibility, equity, and inclusion at the Hollywood Fringe Festival Awards Ceremony, including physical and mental disability access, interpretation services, equitable nomination processes, and to provide clear ideas of what the festival can and cannot provide as a non-curated, primarily volunteer-run festival.

OUTLINE OF GOALS:

Year 1, 2021

• Develop an infrastructure to make it clear to participants and audiences what services are available & where
• Event needs
  - Event live interpretation (ASL)
  - Slides: In English & Spanish
  - Docx Slides & program with list of nominees
  - Flashing lights (Ask venues/light technicians to monitor)
• Language on how to think about equity while voting on the community awards in sponsored award language and community award language
• An agreement for award sponsors
• Create some kind of checks and balances for sponsored awards that reserve tickets and don’t show up to see the show
• Make the voting process is updated, so people aren’t voting on categories they haven’t seen
• Sponsored awards
• Make a committee size requirement of 3+
• Request that a percentage of committee members  must be from outside the award presenter’s organization
  - Committee size of 3-5 members is at least 1 person from outside the organization
  - Committee size of 6-10 members is at least 2 people from outside the organization
  - Committee size of 10+ members is at least 20% of the committee is from outside the organization (round to the nearest whole number)
• Sponsored award application must have a committee plan for equitable representation on their committee
• Sponsored awards cannot give an award to someone within their own company and organization
• Examine current sponsored awards requirements
• In the Partnership agreement for sponsored awards, lay out some best practices in requesting comps
• A video explaining how voting works
  - Script for the video should include our equity statement
• Sponsored award feedback collected via Google form during the process

Year 2, 2022

• Develop an infrastructure to make it clear to participants and audiences what services are available & where
• Develop an awards equity committee to set recommendations for the next two years (this plan will be continuously reviewed and updated, it’s not just a two-year process)
• Event needs
  - Event live interpretation (ASL and Spanish)
  - Program: provide visual description & Spanish language interpretation
  - Slides: In English & Spanish
  - Docx Slides with list of nominees
  - Flashing lights (ask venues/light technicians to monitor)
• A “for your consideration” page that is available to Fringe producers to use to promote their work
• An access committee sponsored award
• An award for venues doing the work of presenting diverse shows

We couldn’t be more excited to announce, in concert with our board and venue partners, the 2021 Hollywood Fringe Festival is pivoting HYBRID! This means that you can now host an in-person audience if you perform your show in the Hollywood Fringe Zone, or continue producing virtually from anywhere else!

This is the first communication of many of our plans moving forward. In making this announcement, we are following the most recent public health guidelines from the County of Los Angeles. The guidelines are brand new, and there’s no way of knowing if there will be changes prior to the August festival. If we’ve learned anything from this past year, it’s that guidelines are never concrete and we must maintain fluidity to approach each developing situation with caution and the safety of the public in mind. 

To be sure we are following the most up-to-date practices and recommendations, we will be announcing the official Hollywood Fringe Festival audience safety plan in early July, in preparation for our ticketing launch on July 16.

We understand that in-person performances will not be comfortable or accessible for everyone. We want you to know that your Hollywood Fringe experience will not diminish if you are not ready to be back in the theatre. All Hollywood Fringe-run programming will remain digital this year to ensure all of our events are accessible for our community’s many comfort levels and health concerns as we begin our journeys back into the world. 

To reflect our new festival model, we have updated our registration types. Please read the below descriptions carefully to determine what is right for you. Unless you registered under the previously included “Registration Type 3: COVID-safe, socially-distant outdoor theatre”, nothing has changed regarding your registration costs. Those previously registered under Registration Type 3 have been contacted about refunding their registration to accommodate their registration needs within the new model.

Each registration type must follow federal, state, county, and other local guidance regarding the COVID-19 pandemic.

Registration Type 1
Live from the Hollywood Fringe Zone! $175

This registration type is for any show staged in the Hollywood Fringe Zone (the following cross-streets are the borders of the Zone: Franklin Ave. to the north, Normandie Ave. to the east, Rosewood Ave. to the south, and Gardner St. to the west). This registration type can have a live in-person audience, be live-streamed, or BOTH! 

Livestream or host a traditional in-person audience in an HFF Venue! Work with your chosen venue/rental space to create your own show schedule. There are plenty of venues to choose from that can all be found on hollywoodfringe.org/venues. Want to work with a traditional venue not currently listed on the site? Email [email protected] to begin this process.

You can also work from site-specific/non-traditional theatre locations within the Hollywood Fringe Zone. From window display theatre to outdoor immersive work, this option is for those looking to bring their show to a site-specific setting. This option also requires proper permitting. Email [email protected] to begin this process.

This registration type is now a combination of types 1 & 3 of our previously released registration types. If you registered under type 3 (COVID-Safe, Socially Distant Outdoor Theatre), you will receive an email from [email protected] on how to receive a partial refund.

Registration Type 2
Livestream from outside of the Fringe Zone! $225

This option allows you to participate in this year’s Hollywood Fringe Festival from anywhere in the world! At home or any other location outside the Fringe Zone. You choose your schedule and livestream as many shows as you want during the official run of the festival. The world is your stage. 

No tickets for in-person audiences may be sold under this registration type through the Fringe site. This registration type is a purely digital Hollywood Fringe experience.

Thank you for your patience and empathy as we navigated the many roadblocks on our journey to announcing the hybrid festival we have all been hoping for. We are here, we are back, and we now have more opportunities than ever before because of this strange journey. 

The Hollywood Fringe will require our venues, artists, and audiences to follow federal, state, county, and other local guidance. We additionally encourage all participants who are in-person to do what feels right to them. Check in frequently with your cast and crew about their comfort levels, and make sure you are doing right by their preferences. 

This is just the first of many safety updates and announcements regarding our hybrid pivot. Keep an eye out for more details on participating and on the safety protocols that will be in place this festival season. 

Fringe family, today we FRINGE ON! 

Fringe family, 

I want to be open and honest with you, not just as Operations Director of this arts festival but as a fellow human. I am going to ask you to give, and the only way I know how to do that is to give something to you in return. So I will give you a piece of my heart and the reason the Artist Fund is important to me. 

It’s an arduous task to ask for anything these days and I have realized that’s because I am finding it difficult to give more of myself. I, like many of you, am struggling to put my life back together post quarantine.  Too often I find the pieces just don’t fit the way they used to; they have changed shape, been broken, been duct-taped back together, or lost entirely. 

When my life has been broken in the past, I have turned to the arts. Theatre has always picked me back up, or at the very least, kept me above water. It has been my therapy, my mode of transportation, my education, and my community. Theatre became my safe place before I was old enough to know I needed one. I need theatre to move forward. Maybe you do, too?  

Collectively we need to challenge thoughts, seek to understand, heal, and dream what this world will look like in the future. We need to examine the past, learn from it, and grow. We need to laugh. We need to weep. We need art to inspire us to take the scattered puzzle pieces of our lives and create something new, something better, something worthy of our struggle. 

The artists who receive the Artist Fund stipends will tell the story that someone needs to hear, or the story that makes someone feel heard. You might be that person. I might be that person. 

So I am here to advocate for the stories that must be told and must be heard, and the effect every artist coming to #HFF21 will have on our community. I am personally donating to this fund, not because I can afford to, but because I can’t afford not to. 

Thank you for being a part of this community. Thank you for showing up and sharing your talent, your story, and your spirit with this festival. You, as an individual, are a vital contributor to the Hollywood Fringe. Our festival is merely a platform for the many voices that show up each year. 

So please, give so that you might heal so that you might help someone heal so that we can all move forward. 

Humbly Yours, 

Lois 

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

Hi y’all, Fringe Programs Director Ellen here.

I would like to take a moment of your time to talk to you about our community, something that has been extremely important to me over the last 5 years.

I’ve been pondering the words “Why Fringe?” since we began the journey into the unknown of online theatre last March.

And the truth is I was wondering: where was Fringe’s place in it? Where does “office hours” or “community building” fit in an online space? Considering the burnout we were all (and still are) experiencing, how could we rely on each other in the same ways?

And why was it so important for us at FRINGE to figure it out?

I know our staff and board members were puzzled when figuring out next steps for 2021, and honestly so was I. How would we ask our community to come back for something that was so unpredictable?

In preparation for this year’s Fringe, I really wanted to figure out how we could support artists. How could we ensure their financial ability to participate when we were barely scraping by to add back staff members ourselves? 

And while I was considering this, I just kept asking the question “why fringe?” 

And then it came to me. 

Because Fringe is a space unlike any other. Even though I’ve consistently held a full-time workload outside of the organization since I started in 2016, Fringe is the first place I mention when people ask what I do for work. It’s the first thing I talk about when people ask what I’m passionate about. 

I’m passionate about our community, because it’s unlike any other. Fringe is special because it’s built by people, for people. 

It’s built by artists and venue owners, theatre patrons and arts supporters, coffee shop owners and restaurateurs.  It’s all of these components to the whole that make this the most incredible community— and create a world that I want to live in. For one month every summer, life feels like pure joy. It feels like the world is going to be okay, because artists will make it so!

The members of this community support each other in a way I’ve never seen before. I’ve seen someone literally cast a friend at Fringe Central an hour before their preview show due to a family emergency. I’ve seen countless people volunteer for each other’s shows, and give freely of their time and money and energy.

Even in an online space, I knew these feelings wouldn’t go away. And they didn’t, because I was hanging out with my friends.

Friends, colleagues, mentors, artists… family. These are the words I use to describe you, my friends at the Hollywood Fringe. I call you my family.

And when your family is hurting, you step up. 

You give. 

And I’m asking you to give. Just like you do during Fringe.

Not a lot. Just a little. So that our artists can continue in 2021 with the financial security of an artist stipend.

If each person reading this newsletter gave just $5, the Fringe could give out over 200 stipends to artists. The cost of a latte can help the return to our theatres go smoothly, and with minimal financial risk for our artists.

So I’m asking you to become a part of the power of Fringe— the power of community. 

Join us today.

Ellen Boudreau Den Herder
Hollywood Fringe Programs Director