Greetings, Fringers-

For over ten years it has been my honor to witness the genesis and evolution of the Hollywood Fringe Festival; a community like none other that has sparked inspiration, inspired creation and created joy for thousands and thousands and thousands.

And so with a heart full of the fringeships and memories that have nurtured me these many years, I pass the torch to the next generation of leaders to continue this tradition into the many years that follow.

It’s a bittersweet thing to say goodbye to something you’ve loved (and feared) so very hard that your identity is hardly recognizable in its absence. All the same, this movement was created to outlast, outlive (and sometimes outfox) its founders.  It was a gift to generations yet to breathe, yet to act, yet to be inspired by the brilliant light cascading down from its participants.

Sitting in a parking lot outside a theater in June 2010, I recall tearfully thanking that first class of Fringers, knowing that past this premiere year, things would never, ever be the same.

To my own joyful discovery, I felt the same every year after the curtains fell, for the Fringe will never be finished; its journey will never be complete. Every year brings forth the new and I am forever surprised by the happy surprises we encountered as each year passed.

There are simply too many to thank in this simple note, so I will simply thank you – the Fringer reading this right now. Thank you for your support, your confidence, your willingness to explore, to challenge, to believe in something greater than yourself. Thank you for being with us on this journey, it’s been all for you all along.

Let’s always celebrate the spirit of 2010 and endeavor to keep this warm community in our hearts; especially when we are miles apart.

I love you all. And I love the Fringe.

Fringe On.

Ben Hill

We are proud to announce the return of the Fringe Scholarships program for HFF22!

Scholarship applications are open NOW through February 14th, 2022.
Click to apply now!

Created in 2016, the Fringe Scholarships Program exists to expand and diversify the pool of artists producing work at the Hollywood Fringe Festival. The inaugural program offered free registrations to five Hollywood Fringe productions, and has since expanded to include free registration and a $550 stipend towards production costs.

Fringe Scholarships are available to first-time Hollywood Fringe producers who contribute to the ethnic, cultural, racial, disability, D/deaf, and the LGBTQ+ diversity of the Fringe community. 

This year we will, once again, award FIFTEEN shows! Our 2020 winners will also roll over their award to this year, making space for a very full and supportive HFF scholarship cohort.

To accommodate the changes our Festival is facing due to COVID-19, the following requirements have been added to our program this year. 

• Applicants (and their production crew/actors) must reside in Southern California.
• All scholarship recipients must produce at least three (3) live performances from a venue in the Hollywood Fringe zone during the Festival
• Applications are open now, apply here or check hollywoodfringe.org/scholarships for more information

Mark your calendars with the official dates of the 2022 Hollywood Fringe Festival! For our twelfth festival, previews will be held June 2nd-7th with the festival proper taking place June 9th-26th. We will hold our annual Opening Night Party on June 8th.  Want to get started on your HFF22 journey? You can create a project today.

We learned a lot as we adapted to make HFF21 possible, and these adaptations will serve us as we move into the next season. The 2022 Hollywood Fringe Festival format brings us back to our classic Fringe experience with some additional opportunities that create more accessibility and reach for our Hollywood Fringe community.  

For the 2022 Festival and the foreseeable future, we are fully back in the Zone! All shows must present their work in the Hollywood Fringe Zone with tickets available to live audiences. All shows have the option to present their work as a livestream in addition to in person audience ticketing. 

Planning on presenting from far away? Shows can choose to livestream into a venue in the Zone from another location but must work with that venue to screen it to a live audience.

We anticipate that COVID-19 health and safety regulations will still be in place to some degree, and will keep our participants and audiences alike updated with health and safety planning throughout the 2022 journey. The good news is that we know our previous health and safety plan worked as we experienced no on-site COVID cases during HFF21. Moving forward with this information, we feel confident we will be able to return to Fringe in June!

Registration opens February 1st and closes April 1st, 2022.  

We worked hard to offer reduced registration fees last year. We are returning to our regular registration fees for HFF22 to ensure that we can bring back things like in-person events, a printed guide, and city-wide marketing.

The fees for the 2022 Hollywood Fringe Festival are as follows:

$300 for paid, multiple performances  
$175 for a single performance
$175 for free shows
$50 for a workshop 
$0 for a workshop for current participants 

We are overjoyed to share with you the preliminary numbers from the first ever hybrid Hollywood Fringe Festival.

• The festival sold over 13,900 individual tickets
• The festival sold an estimated $120,000 in tickets this year
• In its eleven year history, Hollywood Fringe has returned over $3.6 million to artists.
• 129 productions participated in this year’s event, mounting 724 performances at 18 spaces throughout central Hollywood, and some West Hollywood locations, not including the many spaces used around the world to livestream in from beyond the zone.
• Of the 724 performances, 381 were digital and 341 were performed for an in-person audience. 
• 531 artists and producers participated in this year’s Hollywood Fringe.