Experience the Weird & Wonderful at New Orleans Fringe Fest

I’m late to work. I’m running out of my door and bounding to my car, when suddenly a man comes zooming down the street on his bike, painted from head to toe in silver. His silver cape swooshes behind him, his silver top hat is about to fly off his head, and as our frantic eyes meet I think, he’s late to work too.

Welcome, my friend, to the reason why visitors flock to New Orleans and locals can’t ever leave: when you open your door and step into the sunny historic wonders of the city, you don’t know what wonderful thing is going to happen next.

Take that feeling and multiply it by 70 fantastic, weird, and mind-blowing performances and you have the New Orleans Fringe Festival: a five-day celebration of the avant-garde in New Orleans. This year, the fest runs from November 16 – 20 and includes performances from over 70 artists from all around the world.

So what does the Fringe Festival entail? Imagine theater meets music meets dance meets whatever you want it to be. Last year I saw a sword wielding belly dancer undulate on stage while a psychic read everyone’s aura. For the record, she said that I had fairy energy (which is half-true: it’s actually mermaid energy).

Besides those cool, off the cuff performances at BYOV venues (or venues organized by the artists themselves), the Fringe Festival has an amazing lineup of local and national performance troupes in official Fringe venues throughout the Marigny and Bywater. For you architecture aficionados, these often include some of the most beautiful performance halls, churches, bars, and warehouses (yes, warehouses are pretty too) in New Orleans, such as the Marigny Opera House.

This handy map delineates all of the different venues, totaling over 30. Here is the complete guide to the fringe fest lineup.

Curious about what some of these performances look like? There’s iForget: the Vexations, a continuous, 24 hour dance performed by the Chard Gonzalez Dance Theater exploring our addiction to machines. Sounds like it might do my Twitter obsession some good.

Then there’s The Wall, a theater production described as “Homer’s Odyssey at Wal-Mart.” I imagine an arduous journey. For you lovers of musicals and zombies, make sure to catch Zombies Actually… An Undead Musical.

A $3 fringe “button” that clips onto your shirt gets you the $8 drop-in ticket price to all shows. You can also purchase a five pack of tickets for $30 and an unlimited fringe pass for $100.

Don’t forget! The official Fringe Festival parade starts rolling Saturday, November 19 at 2 p.m. on the Poland Ave neutral ground.

Tagged as: Marigny, New Orleans art, New Orleans Festival, New Orleans Fringe Fest, New Orleans theater, New Orleans underground