Fringe Festivals wouldn’t exist without generous sponsors aligning their brands with the awesome arts extravaganza that is Fringe.

Interested? Make sure to check out our sponsorship packet here.

We are seeking sponsors for our inaugural 2010 Festival in Los Angeles. Here’s a sampling of the many ways your business or organization can get involved in the Fringe:

• Are you a media outlet? Become a sponsor by providing discounted advertising space to the Fringe and our participating artists and venues
• Are you a local business? Become a sponsor by providing Fringe-goers and participants discounts at your place of business
• Are you a services organization? Become a sponsor by providing Fringe with much-needed services (see the packet for details).
• Are you a granting/giving organization? Become a sponsor by providing Fringe with the needed funds to launch the festival
• Do you have a space to house performances or exhibitions? Become a sponsor by temporarily donating that space to the Fringe.
• Interested in the golden goose of sponsorship? Become a sponsor by funding our printed Fringe Guide and promote your brand to the entire Fringe universe.

The many benefits of sponsorship along with more details can be found in our sponsorship packet.

Questions? Make sure to contact us at [email protected].

Ben

Fringe project registration is right around the corner and we are announcing a firm date shortly. Also on its way is a formal announcement of our model, defining how the Fringe works.

Without giving too much away, we operate in a manner similar to Edinburgh Festival Fringe. To participate in Hollywood Fringe, artists and others need only find a venue to host their performances, exhibition, event, or workshop. To assist Fringe participants, we will launch our inaugural festival registration with several venues interested in hosting works. This list will expand (significantly) in the months and years to come.

For our first year, we seek venues centered in the Hollywood area including those in North and East Hollywood. If you own, operate, or partner with a venue in one of these areas, please contact us directly at [email protected]. Any space that can host art is welcome – including traditional theatres, art galleries, music clubs, and found spaces. Restaurants and bars interested in hosting talent are also welcome.

We have compiled a packet answering many of the frequently asked questions venues may have. Check it out here:

www.scribd.com/doc/20012345/Hollywood-Fringe-Venue-Packet

…as always, let us know your questions and feedback.

Ben

From time to time, we will post articles from our “idea file”. These are for initiatives that have not been given the green light, as they say; its purpose is to to throw out big ideas and start kicking them around.

Have your own idea? Email us at [email protected]

Here’s our first idea from the file:

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Los Angeles is a big, big place which poses a problem for a festival such as ours. We have decided to make the Fringe as compact as possible our first year – centering the action in Hollywood and branching out from there (NoHo, East Hollywood, etc). This isn’t at all based on Hollywood-centricity, it’s based on general practicality.

Here’s our reasoning:

• We’d like to place the bulk of the festival venues within walking/easy-public-transport from one another. The beauty of the Metro Red Line, the general walkability of Hollywood, and a few trams added for good measure may make this a reality.
• There are natural concentrations of theatres, galleries, and potential found spaces in Central Hollywood, NoHo, and East Hollywood – very good for Fringes.
• Hollywood is a major tourist center – we will do whatever possible to pull those on vacation into the Fringe.
• Hollywood is a world-known brand name and a powerful attraction to artists beyond the city’s borders
• The general area is about as “Central” as you can get in the sprawl that is LA, making traveling here generally more convenient to most.

…all pretty good reasons to center the Festival around a small subset of LA neighborhoods. At the same time, we don’t want to leave anyone out of the fun; quite the opposite: We want to include as much of the community as possible.

Time for some abstract thinking and it was our newest board member John Mitchell who had this brainstorm: Center the Fringe in Hollywood, as planned with two weeks of fun, madness, and art. As a gift to venues outside of Hollywood (and all the people that live there), take the Fringe on the road for a third week – presenting “Best of Fringe” performances in venues located our LA – potentially including Santa Monica, Beverley Hills, Downtown, and beyond.

A potential negative, I suppose: People in those places won’t attend the Fringe proper, thus diminishing ticket sales – this will be something that will require some sensitivity, for sure.

Not sure if this is a “first year” thing, it’s certainly an idea worth considering.

Keep the ideas coming…

Ben

A hearty welcome to the Paul G. Gleason Theatre on Hollywood blvd., our newest addition as an official Hollywood Fringe venue. We are quite proud to have this wonderful space right in the heart of central Hollywood open its doors to the Fringe.

Here’s some information on the theatre’s namesake, Mr. Paul Gleason:

Paul G. Gleason is one of the most brilliant acting coaches in Los Angeles.
First generation in Alexander technique, Mr. Gleason directed and coached half of the Hollywood talent. He has had a long history on different sides of the entertainment business. Mr. Gleason runs the Paul G. Gleason Theatre in Hollywood and was artistic director of the American Center for Music and Theatre for over twenty years; he has privately coached actors such as Richard Chamberlain, Mary Tyler Moore, and Ed Asner. To add to his illustrious career, Mr. Gleason has also taught master classes in theatre, opera, musical theatre, and dance at many schools around the world.

Learn more about the theatre at www.acmt.org.

Ben

Venue discussions have been afoot all year – we just recently asked a select group of venues to officially commit to Festival 2010. Our friends at Second City Los Angeles Studio Theatre are the first to sign up, making them the first official Hollywood Fringe Venue. We are proud indeed to have this legendary company and wonderful Hollywood blvd. venue with us for our first year.

And in case you didn’t know, they do indeed offer classes there. Learn more on their website.

Here’s some more information on the company, the training center, and the theatre:
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The modern purveyors of sketch and improvisational comedy, including SNL, SCTV and MADTV all owe a debt to The Second City. After 45 years of being one of Chicago’s most enduring comedy institutions their members have grown up to be some of the top names in American Comedy: John Belushi, Bill Murray, Betty Thomas, Alan Arkin, Tina Fey, Chris Farley, Bonnie Hunt, Steve Carell and Stephen Colbert just to name a few.

And if the training ground of Second City is in the “Ivy League of Comedy,” it’s graduates invariably leave Chicago, Toronto or Detroit and come to Hollywood, where they don’t just sit around, they get together and ply their art form. Alumni members of the Second City such as Dan Castellaneta (voice of Homer Simpson), Larry Joe Campbell (Andy on “According to Jim”), and Keegan Michael Key (actor, Mad TV) often show up on our little stage to keep expanding the state of the art of improvisation with new forms and new ideas.

The Second City Los Angeles Studio Theatre provides an environment where both students and professionals can learn, explore, expand and showcase their talents applying the distinctive Second City style. Performances at the Studio Theater range from Second City alumni productions to Training Center Graduates Greenhouse shows to our training center performances. We also offer space for outside renters.