Westmont College’s quirky, intriguing Fringe Festival returns like a comet to light up Santa Barbara with a four-day, student-led celebration of the arts April 21-24.
Kicking off at 7 p.m., in and around Porter Theater, the Fringe’s participants, about 80 students, will be acting, designing, directing or writing plays and poetry for this year’s performance extravaganza, which they call Unfamiliar Waters.
The Fringe, which has been delighting audiences since 2005, is curated by Mitchell Thomas, professor of theater, and produced by Jonathan Hicks (’04), assistant professor of theater.
“The beauty of Fringe is that it’s art that exists on the fringe of mainstream pieces,” says junior Rachel Herriges, Fringe artistic director, who has been unable to experience an in-person Fringe due to the pandemic.
“A lot of the pieces produced through Fringe are experimental or cathartic pieces for a lot of students, and gives us the opportunity to create what we’ve had lingering in our minds. I’ve always wanted to be a part of it in a large capacity.”
Herriges wrote, directs and acts in her own piece, “mind(full),” on which she collaborates with two other theater students, Ford Sachsenmaier (’24) and Kay Sanchez (’22).
“We’re collaborating to make a piece that asks big questions about what a future society could look like, and how those who are the ‘in group’ in society function with ‘out-group’ people,” says Herriges. “It’s my first time acting in my own writing, so I’m excited to see how things change and bloom out of character discovery.
“It’ll be exciting to see the final products and the fruits of everyone’s labor. We also have a few dance numbers, films and poems that I’m looking forward to seeing. There are a lot of moving parts to this festival, but that’s what makes it exciting and unique.”
A four-day, all-access general admission pass costs $20; $15 for seniors/students. A one-day pass is $10 with no student/senior discount. Tickets may be purchased at www.westmont.edu/boxoffice.
— Gerald Carpenter covers the arts as a Noozhawk contributing writer. He can be reached at gerald.carpenter@gmail.com. The opinions expressed are his own.