In the Interns’ final blog posts, they contemplate what they’ve learned and how they feel now that the festival is over. A big thanks to all our 2013 interns!

From Our Veteran Intern, Sammy:

I’m wearing my yellow 2013 Fringe shirt and my Christmas boxers in bed thinking of Hollywood Fringe and a time when I wore this shirt with pants and sandals. I’m thinking of the days when we strutted Santa Monica Blvd, read Moby Dick on Santa Monica Blvd., tapped danced on Santa Monica Blvd.

Hollywood Fringe 2013 was truly marvelous, invigorated with life and community. The Awards Ceremony last Sunday was thrumming, radiating heat and theatre- melting the Styrofoam bowls of Yoshinoya. Twas a party to be proud of. And not only that, all of the performances recognized, and all of the ones that should have been recognized, were so inspiring, original, awakening. I swear I left every play with a new epiphany.

The fact that it was in the same location- that Fringe Central Station this year was the same Fringe Central Station as last year- created a parallel of the event for me. As someone who literally dropped out of LA, and returned just in time for Fringe, it felt like no time had gone by. Last year was a dream. I remember the first show I attended, ‘Texas Loves Lyla’, where the person next to me said, ‘Welcome to Hollywood’, and just like that I was immersed in the dream. This year was the dream realized. No longer did I feel like an observer, learning and mystified by the goings on in Fringe Central. I felt I belonged in it. Hollywood Fringe is a beautiful fish bowl of the dream; a perfect theatre community where everyone is so motivating, where everything is exciting, where anything is possible. On June 30th, they dumped the Hollywood Fringe fish bowl out into the great Ocean of Los Angeles.

Now that we’re out in the ocean, let’s keep Fringing. With extensions starting this week, there are so many plays to keep seeing and so many people to talk to. Let’s keep the party going!

Love,
Sammy

From Our Newbie Intern, Emilie:

When people asked me about my internship at the Hollywood Fringe Festival this June, I was at a loss to paint an accurate picture of what exactly my job entailed. However, now that time has given me some perspective, I have been able to articulate some of the important things my internship taught me. You might have heard somewhere that people from my generation have short attention—did you know that according to recent statistics there are 115,000 domesticated llamas in the US? Because Hollywood Fringe is so “with it” and we are “the cool kids on the block,” this blog post is coming at you in list format, to accommodate the ADD tendencies of generation selfie (See Ezra Koenig’s tweet: “Generation selfie needs to take a good look at itself in the mirror”).

10 Things I Learned From My Internship At The Hollywood Fringe Festival (No Cat Photos Included—Deal With It):

1. There is never enough popcorn.
2. When telling someone that you don’t have a t-shirt in his or her size, try and use the most tactful, euphemistic language possible. (IE. “They run very small” or “We’ve sold out of a lot of sizes”)
3. Be nice to people!!!!! This means remembering their names, what shows they are working on, and any other personal information they might have told you in the past. In an organization like Fringe that prides itself on building community, it’s important to show that you’re invested, and that you value what everyone has to say.
4. If you don’t know the answer to a question, find someone who does. Providing misinformation when you’re a part of a large organization hurts everyone involved.
5. Take pride in your space! Fringe Central Station served for many participants and show viewers as their first glimpse of what Hollywood Fringe is and what we’re about. The little things (throwing away cups, keeping the bathroom stocked) make a big impression and help the Fringe forge its own image and reputation.
6. Wait up for the Munchie Machine.
7. Have fun. If you have the opportunity to make your late-twenties, male coworkers sing Britney Spears’s “…Baby One More Time” for karaoke, you should probably take it.
8. Pretend your whole experience is an improv game, or that you are the heroine of a romantic comedy hell-bent on remaking her life in a positive fashion, and say “yes!” to everything. Put in extra hours, take the comped tickets, and make the Chipotle run. Not only does saying “yes” prove that you’re a team player but it also opens you up to all the experiences Fringe has to offer.
9. Talk to the people you’re working with! And not just superficial “how was your day” chatter. When you intern with an organization like Fringe, you are surrounded by people who, like you, are passionate about the arts, but who, unlike you, have spent time pursuing them in the real world. One of the most interesting parts of my job was seeing how people incorporate theater and their various passions into their lives, whether it be as their main careers or not.
10. One of the most fundamental lessons of acting classes holds true for those offstage at Hollywood Fringe: be in the moment. So many disparate personalities converge for this event, and it’s really wonderful to take it all in and enjoy everyone’s company. Savor the fact that despite the scary, dystopian darkness of our world people still come together to make and appreciate art!

Take that, Buzzfeed!

Here’s a list of this year’s Award Winners— announced just moments ago at the 2013 Award Ceremony! Thank you all for coming and congratulations to the winners!

Fringe Freaks (Community-Voted Awards):

• Top of the Fringe: Absolutely Filthy
• Fringe First (World Premiere): Me Rich You Learn
• The International Award: Take Me To The Poorhouse
• Best in Cabaret & Variety: The Devil and Billy Markham
• Best in Comedy: Absolutely Filthy
• Best in Dance & Physical Theatre: Me Rich You Learn
• Best in Ensemble Theatre: White Hot
• Best in Musicals & Operas: Exorcistic: The Rock Musical Parody Experiment
• Best in Solo Performance: (no static at all)

Sponsored Awards:

• The Vagrancy Duende Award: Michael Kass from Ceremony
• DOMA Theatre Company Award for Best Musical: The Pokemusical
• Orgasmico Theatre Company Awards: Best Production: Butt Kapinski, Best Performer: Michal Sinnott from White Hot, Best Writer/Composer: Blake Abramovitz from Double Bind
• LAFPI Venue Award (for venues who hosted 50% or more productions by female playwrights): Actor’s Company, Art of Acting Studio, Celebration Theatre
• A Working Theatre Design Awards: Best Lighting: Ric Zimmerman from White Hot, Best Costumes: Lea McGowan from Now Leasing, Best Props/Set: Meghan McCarthy from Me Rich You Learn, Sound: Fugitive Kind Theatre of The Fire Room
• Four Clowns, Lost Moon Radio & Big Guns Tobacco Virgin Award: Fancy! A Southern Gothic Camp Parable
• Theatre Unleashed Award: It’s Important to Leave as Well (Feed Your Fringe)
• Bitter Lemons Outrageous Award for Theatre (BLOAT): The Devil and Billy Markham
• Trailer Park Award (for Best Video Trailer): White Hot
• Ezra Buzzington’s Spirit of Fringe Awards: Best Performance (Male): Brendan Hunt from Absolutely Filthy, Best Performance (Female): Leslie Murphy from Ryan is Lost, Best Writing: Nathan Wellman from Ryan is Lost, Best Show: The Devil & Billy Markham
• Combined Artform’s Best of Fringe Extensions: [Title of Show], 25 Plays Per Hour, Baby, Bobbywood, Butt Kapinski, Ceremony, Daddy Didn’t Die Did he?, David and Leeman: How to Convincingly Fake Honesty, Define Dif-fer-ent, Delilah Dix: American Showgirl, Dick & Jayne Get a Life, Double Bind, Fancy! A Southern Gothic Camp Parable, Fathers at a Game, Frank & Ava, Gracie & Rose, Hersheme, Kill A Better Mousetrap, King Phycus, Listen Can you hear me now?, Marshall’s Law, Meant to Be, More Bigger Masses, No Static At All, Philosophy in the Boudoir, Pokemusical, Rodeo Town, Ryan is Lost, Sewer Rats at Sea, Sunny Afternoon, Take Me to the Poorhouse, The Baby, The Devil and Billy Markham, The Interview, The Real Housekeepers of Studio City, The Spolin Players, The Third Date, True Hustle, Unmoderated, Wet the Hippo, White Hot

The Sillies:

• The Intern Award: Emilie Pass, Rebekah York, Ariana Howell, Amber Avant, Sammy Evans & Victoria Steger
• The Wrench (most valuable tech player): Matt Richter and Rebecca Schoenberg
• The Sweet Sweet Neil Award (the sweetest fringer in the fringiverse): Benny Lumpkins
• The Ivo (most talented youngster at the Fringe): Meghan McCauley
• The Evil Kenevil (for the best stunt): Wet the Hippo (Runner Up: Theatre Unleashed)
• The Bar Rat (most omnipresent at the bar): Jacquetta Szathmari
• The Sasafrass (sassiest staff member): Liz Steele & Abbie Wagoner
• The FOMO (fringer who never misses out on the action): Kan Mattoo
• The Tweet Master/Mistress (most active on the twitters): Theatre Unleashed & Real Housekeepers of Studio City

Congrats to everyone for a fantastic Fringe! As far as we are concerned, everyone is a winner.

Based ballots cast by the community – including those who saw shows, produced shows, reviewed shows and hosted shows – we have tabulated the results of your top five favorite picks in each category. In total, close to 2000 ballots were distributed.

Join us at 7pm tonight for the Awards Ceremony hosted by Jon Armstrong at Fringe Central Station (6314 Santa Monica Blvd) to see the lucky finalists vie for the top slots.

And without further delay, the top nominees are….

TOP OF THE FRINGE
Absolutely Filthy (an unauthorized PEANUTS parody)
A Man of No Importance
Shakespeare’s “King Phycus”
White Hot
The Devil and Billy Markham

FRINGE FIRST (World Premiere)
Hot Cat
The Real Housekeepers of Studio City
4 Clowns presents Me Rich You Learn
EXORCISTIC: the Rock Musical Parody Experiment
(no static at all)

THE INTERNATIONAL AWARD
Meant To Be
Baldy
Philosophy in the Boudoir
Take Me To The Poorhouse
Two Rooms

BEST IN ENSEMBLE THEATRE
#Hashtag
Hot Cat
25 Plays Per Hour
White Hot
Sunny Afternoon

BEST IN COMEDY
Absolutely Filthy
Wet the Hippo
Shakespeare’s “King Phycus”
Lost Moon Radio presents Roger Wodehouse’s Androgymnasium
One Man Show: A Duet

BEST IN MUSICALS & OPERAS
EXORCISTIC: the Rock Musical Parody Experiment
The Pokemusical
[title of show]
A Man of No Importance
The Real Housekeepers of Studio City

BEST IN DANCE & PHYSICAL THEATRE
Lemon Boots
We Are The 0%
Wings
4 Clowns presents Me Rich You Learn
HerSheMe

BEST IN CABARET & VARIETY
The Ruby Besler Cabaret
The Devil and Billy Markham
David and Leeman: How to Convincingly Fake Honesty
Unkempt Gardens
Wonderlust: A Performance of Magic

SOLO PERFORMANCE
Ceremony
Butt Kapinski
(no static at all)
Fancy! A Southern Gothic Camp Parable
Gracie and Rose

This week, the interns talk about how they’re feeling as the festival draws to a close.

From Our New* Newbie Intern, Emilie:

“Los Angeles theater summer opportunities internship” is the definite frontrunner in the contest for most fortuitous Google search of my life, besting contenders such as “Arrested Development chicken dance” and “cheap food in Paris.” The magical alchemy of Google took these words and produced the Hollywood Fringe website and ultimately, all of the wonderful people I’ve gotten to know over the past three weeks.

My drama geek friends from my East Coast university expressed their misgivings that theater worth pursuing existed in LA, and their polite, subtle expressions of doubt urged me on as I typed those words into the search engine (“Oh cool, I’ve never really thought of LA as a theater town…”, “I bet there is some sort of arts community over here…”, etc). I knew that my hometown was not the vapid wasteland of frozen yogurt shops and reality television stars that my college friends pictured it to be. Growing up here taught me that an Angeleno is not defined by her tan or the size of her sunglasses but by her talent and hard work. Such a city had to be home to an awesome and lively world of theater that I just hadn’t discovered yet.

The Hollywood Fringe ended up being that world and more. The Fringe is an amalgamation of so many of the things that make LA great: multi-talented artists, zany hairstyles, small dogs, food trucks, and themed party enthusiasts come together to light up a stretch of Santa Monica boulevard for three weeks in June (and with none of the humidity of New York.)

I love that the Fringe not only dispels the myth that LA isn’t a place for theater, but that it also refutes a lot of exasperating myths about theater as an art-form in general—that theater is for old people, that theater is for rich people, that theater is “dying.” The people who go see and put on shows at the Fringe come from all age groups, ethnicities and socio-economic brackets. The people I sell t-shirts to at the Fringe Concierge desk are as diverse as the city itself, and they’re united only by their enthusiasm for the event—they scan the t-shirts for the names of their shows and they ask questions about how the event got its start and came to be what it is today.

The Fringe has made it clear to me that all kinds of people still want to participate in theater, and I think this is in part because the increasingly web-bound nature of cultural experience today makes us need theater more, rather than less, then ever. So much of our daily experience has been reduced to interactions on a screen, which ultimately increases our thirst for a more visceral connection and intimacy. The way that the Fringe embraces virtual platforms—from the Instagram feed in Fringe Central Station to our active twitter community—accentuates the idea that theater is not a relic from an old world but actually an art form that has never been more relevant or needed.

My online search for “Los Angeles theater summer opportunities internship” transformed into a flesh and blood community that proved all of the things I intuitively knew about theater and my hometown to be true. Like another of my favorite LA institutions, the Los Angeles Lakers (the greatest franchise in the history of basketball), I expect the Hollywood Fringe to be proving the haters wrong again and again for a long time to come.

*Our beloved Volunteer Intern, Mary, was unable to write a blog post this week. Fortunately Emilie, another first-year Intern working with our Front of House team, was happy to write about her experience.

From Our Veteran Intern, Sammy:

Sunday is the Closing Night Party. Sunday is the last Fringe Family. Sunday is the last day of the Hollywood Fringe Festival. But it’s not Sunday (yet) and the Rock of Stages party showed that the party is not over. Festival Director Ben Hill oozing stage blood, Jimi Hendrix, platform shoes, rock t-shirts, Development Director Kan’s tattoo sleeve of Disney Princesses, and men with thick, black eyeliner all hip-thrusted to live band Karaoke courtesy of the Moon Units.

The hair and temporary tattoo artist jammed out in the cage, creating inspired artwork and just having fun. Jeremy Aluma was everyone’s neighbor last night as he belted “Hey Ya”, and the Fringe Concierge team showed their naughty schoolgirl side by singing “Oops I Did It Again”. And I took my second photo on the Fringe Red Carpet!

Yep, Rock of Stages was awesome.

And last Sunday’s Fringe Family was awesome as well. My little sister volunteered and it was amazing to share Fringe with her! Even my parents popped by to check out the scene. Magicians, musicians and choreographed dancers sampled their shows for the kids. Big thanks to Meghan for providing the morning donuts.

It’s amazing to see all those emails I sent translate into attending families and the set list turning into a breathing performance of artists. All of the planning that went into Fringe Family is being expressed in googly-eyed, macaroni creations.

Yep, Fringe Family is awesome.

The Hollywood Fringe Festival is awesome and I wish that another year wasn’t coming to a close.

Love,
Sammy

This week our interns talk Prom, the Intern Workshop and what it’s like to see shows on the Fringe!

From Our Newbie Intern, Mary:

Hey Fringers!

Is it me or is June whizzing by much too fast?! I am in the thick of Fringe and have made it to a handful of shows but there is still so much to see and do.

As far as my internship, I do want to share a bit with you about last weekend’s brilliant Intern Workshop with about half of the amazing staff behind Fringe. We learned from each of them just what their job titles (like “Support Director” and “Outreach Director”) actually mean. I left feeling so inspired and wanting to get up and create.

I really appreciated what Meghan (Outreach Director) and Dave (Producing Director) had to share: You cannot make your dreams happen alone. You need to find your team to help you. As someone with a bunch of big ideas, those were words I needed to hear! I’m trying to move forward with my lifestyle blog by making more post ideas into reality and covering more events. I also have a music festival concoction in the back of my mind! I am super stoked for the second round of the workshop, coming up next week.

The Fringe Prom was this past Wednesday and Fringe Central Station was turned into a sock hop… oh, yeah! Whether you missed it or were there and had a ball, you should check out our Rock of Stages night (on Wednesday the 26th). Get out the hairspray and spandex!

I also finally met the adorable Sammy, the other Intern you’ve been hearing from in these posts. She is the sweetest person ever! Make sure if you see either of us to let us know that you’re out there!

Fringe Out, Mary

From Our Veteran Intern, Sammy:

Funny how just last week, I was writing about the Opening Night Party and now it’s already Prom. Before you know it, Santa Monica Boulevard will be as sketchy and empty as always.

On a prom note: Oh my gosh, did Greg Crafts and Roger Woodhouse really win Prom King and Queen? Did the DJ really play Happy Birthday? Did the Spicy Brandon really contain alcohol?

Fringe Family this past Sunday was full of laughter, theatre and inspiration. One little kid even cried when he had to leave, dragged out by his father. Another met his first crush, Cinderella. Everyone felt the magic with Jimmy H. And they were all thoroughly entertained and dancing with The Fusion Co., Red, White, and Balloons, Lemon Boots, and Bango and the Jelly Beans. It was a lovely family Sunday, guest-starring the entire McCauley Family!

As for the festival as a whole, I’ve seen four shows! They’ve all been so wonderful and inspiring. Every show is thought-provoking and I feel like I’m having revelations left and right. Not really defined ones, just ‘oh, I’ve never thought of that before’ mental exclamations. It’s so amazing to arrive at Fringe Central Station, say ‘I have some extra time’, pick up a guide, find a show in the next thirty minutes, go see it, and have my world expanded just a little bit more. It’s been so thrilling and exciting.

Happy Fringe!

Sammy