What Is The Fringe?

The Orlando International Fringe Festival is a ten-day celebration of the theatrical
and performing arts held in the streets, theatres and converted office spaces
of downtown Orlando. The Third Annual Orlando International Fringe Festival
is the premier springtime event in Central Florida. It was voted "Best
Outdoor Event" and "Best Cultural Festival" by the readers of
the Orlando Weekly and encompasses more than 500 shows, the Visual Fringe, an
outdoor stage with nightly concerts, the Fringe Frolic Parade and Kids Fringe.

History Of The Fringe

The Fringe began in 1947 in Edinburgh, Scotland when a small number of performance
companies were excluded from the Edinburgh International Festival. This festival
was perhaps the most prominent theatrical arts festival in the world, producing
mainly classic plays, ballets, and opera. Undaunted by the reluctance of the
festival producers to accept new and innovative works, these regional companies
began to perform in smaller, makeshift theatres on the outskirts – or on the
"fringe" – of the established festival.

Within a few years, these fringe groups eclipsed the popularity of the more
traditional Edinburgh offerings. Thus the Fringe Festival was born…a colorful,
multinational, multicultural celebration of the theatre performing arts. Fringe
was imported into Canada in the early 1980s, where it has evolved into a national
treasure with festivals spanning from the Atlantic to the Pacific. Each year
more than 500,000 people attend Edmonton, Alberta’s 10 day Fringe Festival,
the largest in North America. The North American Fringe Circuit has developed
into an encouraging springboard for new, creative work in the theatrical arts.
It now encompasses 20 festivals. Performers from Europe, Africa and South America
can make a trip to North America more economical by performing at several Fringe
Festivals.

The Orlando International Fringe Festival, initiated in 1992 continues this
tradition, and was the first festival of its kind in the United States. Fringe
Festivals have fantastic, cutting edge performers from the four corners of the
globe. These performers are accepted on a non-juried, first-come-first-served
basis. This separates the Fringe from any other kind of theatre, in that the
audience decides what it likes instead of producers making content, form, style
and artistic judgments for the entire community. The Fringe is for, and by,
the community. Fringe Festivals are fun, exciting, thought provoking and festive.
Even non-theatre aficionados can enjoy themselves as much as those who are avid
theatre participants.

The Orlando International Fringe Festival Organization

The Orlando International Fringe Festival is a registered 501(c) 3 non-profit
corporation that is dedicated to producing a 10 day theatre festival that allows
Artists, and audiences an easily accessible forum for producing and seeing Lively
Arts from around the world.

The Fringe Festival producers DO NOT decide for the community what is, or is
not, "good art". We believe the audience/community are capable, and
willing to decide for themselves what they would like to see. We provide festival
and show information (via the Official Fringe Program and website) – and then
it’s up to you. We believe in giving artistic control back to the people. For
too long, a small group of people has set the cultural climate for the masses.
The Fringe Festival says, "No More." This is your Fringe – shape it
as you will.

###

Press and Media Contact:
Carollynn Hammersmith
Media and Sponsorship Relations
Telephone: (407) 648-0007

The Orlando Sentinel,
September 1991
Susan M. Barbieri

Carollynn Hammersmith knew things were getting out of control when, confronted with the choice of watching a TV movie and going out with friends, she chose the movie. So two years ago the 26-year-old special events promoter and fund-raiser quit watching television altogether.

You read it right. No TV. Millions of Americans will be tuning in this week
for the start of the fall television season, but Hammersmith won’t be one of
them.

“There’s more to life than sitting around watching TV,” Hammersmith said. “Why waste your time living vicariously watching someone else’s life when you can go out and see new things for yourself and experience life”

Hammersmith says she cannot think of any TV programs worth watching – not even the news. “There are some things that just don’t need to be shown, such as violence and gratuitous sex. We all know it goes on, but do we really need to see it?”

These are complaints TV network officials have heard ad nauseum. But they’re
probably not too concerned. After all, more than 98 percent of American homes
have at least one television set, according to the A.C. Nielson Co. IN the
average American hole, the TV set is on for almost seven hours a day.

Still, Neilsen reports that overall TV viewership is shrinking. While the
vast majority of parents aren’t banishing the tube from their homes altogether,
most actively limit their children’s TV viewing or at least are seeking ways
to do so.

It is not known how many people – like those interviewed for this story – own
television but don’t use them. Neilsen reports that 1.7 million American homes
are without TV sets.

People who don’t watch television say they have better things to do than sit
in front of the tube – like work, read, listen to music or socialize. “I don’t
have time. Not only that, my at home time is so precious that I don’t want
television in. I want quiet and I want music,” said Barbara Komlyn, a writer
for the Tupperware Company who leads a literary discussion group at the Winter
park library.

Komlyn’s children are grown, but she recalls a time her family game up TV for
Lent – 40 tube-less days in all. Her daughter, in turn, now restricts the viewing
time of her 5-year-old and 3-year-old.

“I had some real clear ideas about what television was good for when my kids
were growing up,” Komlyn, a former English teacher. “IT was not good for babysitting.
IT was good for expanding experience, and those things are accomplished by watching
TV selectively.”

“I see what happens to my own mind. My own mind goes to mush,” she said.
“I love movies, but the experience is different. There’s continuity. There’s
time to builds scenes. There’s time to get an aesthetic going.” Komlyn does
own a TV set, and occasionally rents movies. “I really like something that
has a beginning, a middle and an end, and that doesn’t have commercials. I
never watch network television and I never watch the news.” She used to subscribe
to cable so she would have something to entertain houseguests, but she cancelled
the service earlier this year.

While Hammersmith and Komlyn have quietly left their TV sets dark, there is
a small group of activists who adamantly oppose the medium. An obscure group
based in Oakland, Calif., called the Society for the Eradication of Television
has members nationwide. Its newsletter features a drawing of a man angrily
kicking in the screen of his TV. “It’s a drug, an opiate like anything else,”
said SET member Alena Smith, 41 of Santa Cruz, Calif. She admits to having
occasionally watched major news events at friend’s homes, such as the dismantling
of the Berlin Wall or political debates. But she said it has been more than
20 years since she watched TV regularly.

TV makes zombies out of people, Smith said. “They subconsciously become the
commercials they see. They consume. They feel rotten or disappointed if they
can’t afford things that are projected at them over television.”

Television has also been blamed for health problems, such s obesity. One recent
study noted that commercials encourage people to consume high calorie foods.
In addition, TV makes viewers moody and leaves them unable to concentrate, according
to a study released earlier this year by psychologists from Rutgers University
and the University of Chicago.

Jim Faherty has enough trouble concentrating without TV to complicate matters.
Faherty, 29, is an Orlando entrepreneur who organizes concerts and charity events.
“The whole thing is geared for a mentality I feel I’m above,” said Faherty,
apologizing for sounding pretentious and admitting he does not take advantage
of any of the high quality programming he acknowledges is available. “Commercial
TV is geared to one level – the mass audience – and to nobody else,” says Faherty,
who does occasionally rent offbeat movies. He is also a big David Lynch fan,
he says, and a friend tapes Twin Peaks for him.

But watching TV makes him feel guilty because he’s not doing something productive
with his time. “My friends are the same way. They feel they have better things
to do,” than watch TV. “It’s like I’m wasting time. Even when I was little
I couldn’t get into it. To me it wasn’t like real life,” he said. “It was
like a fairy tale. I couldn’t relate to it.”

Orlando Sentinel; Orlando, Fla.; Dec 21, 1990; Scott Joseph,
Sentinel Restaurant Critic;

(Copyright
1990 by The Orlando Sentinel)

Last-minute good deeds. The Beacham Theatre in downtown Orlando is looking
for volunteers to help serve Christmas dinner to homeless people in our community.
If you can help cook, serve, clean up or if you have materials to donate, you’re
needed. Contact Carollynn Hammersmith at (407) 649-4240 between 10 a.m. and
4 p.m. today or Monday.

Anyone volunteering to serve dinner on Christmas Day gets a vote
from the Hound as best waiter in Central Florida.

Scott Joseph is the restaurant critic for The Orlando Sentinel.

Orlando Sentinel; Orlando, Fla.; Jan 14, 1991

VOLUNTEERS’ GENEROSITY

WE AT the Beacham Theatre in downtown Orlando would like to thank the hundreds
of volunteers who made our Christmas Dinner for the Homeless so special.

When we first began the project in early November, I was afraid
that we would never have enough volunteers to put on the dinner. Through the
local radio stations and the local network affiliates, the message got out that
we needed donations and volunteers to make the second annual Christmas Dinner
for the Homeless happen.

The outpouring of time and donations was staggering to even the
most conservative of people. I do not have the names and addresses of everyone
who participated, so I would like to thank all the people who gave of their
time, talents and donations that enabled us to feed well over 1,000 people Christmas
Day.

It is a wonderful commentary on the people of Orlando, that they
gave up precious holiday time with their loved ones to give those less fortunate
a beautiful Christmas! Their generosity renews my faith in mankind and gives
me great pride in the city in which we live.

I hope that everyone involved with the dinner got as much joy
and satisfaction out of helping as we did planning and executing the dinner.

Again, to my volunteers – thank you! We couldn’t have done it
without you.

Carollynn Hammersmith, ORLANDO

I’m Thinking of Florida Rain

Yesterday was a nice day, but somehow I felt disembodied and disconnected. Susan and I were in Publix after Nic’s swim lesson to pick up some stuff for dinner, and I realized how out of place I felt. Even though everything was so familiar, I felt like I didn’t belong anymore. I realized I’d been gone from Florida for over 4 years, and I was a stranger again, in what was once home to me. It’s an uncomfortable feeling. It hit me that while I had been gone for 4+ years, I’d logged more time in Maryland than even Tennessee. What does that mean, I don’t know. It was just a realization. But I am starting to wonder just where do I belong? Right now, there aren’t any answers, and I think that is something that has been in the back of my mind for a while. Where and what is home? Right now I just don’t belong anywhere and that hurts and brings up all sorts of old insecurities.

When we were walking out to the car at Publix, the sky was so darkly ominous and yet hypnotically lovely to view. How effortlessly I understood its portent.  One huge, overarching, black, diaphanous rain cloud. It’s so strange how very different this same atmospheric melee looks here and how it looks at home. Susan had to pull me away from my cloud gazing so we could scramble to get home before the rain started to fall.

Brian and I sat out on the patio last night talking while Susan was getting Nic to bed. I began to notice a familiar sound and then a familiar feeling came over me. It was raining pretty steadily, and I recalled it as a sound I had heard most of my conscious life, and that is the sound of rain falling on an aluminum patio roof. It was comforting, and yet disconcerting at the same time.  Comforting because it was something from my past that I could recall as elemental, soothing and something that I missed. Rain just doesn’t sound that way to me at home. Rain at home is so different than here. But then again, I don’t have an aluminum patio roof either. It disconcerted me because I’m not as connected to here as much as I would like to be. More of my old insecurity rising to the surface.

It’s kind of interesting that the rain entranced us both last night. I wonder what that means in the great cosmic way of the world. And not so much that we were both fascinated and lured by it- but more that we each were seduced by it’s sound. But then again, it is a coincidence that we shared, so perhaps it means there are messages for us. I don’t know. So I’ll just keep listening for the message.

So I guess my topic to you today is about rain and what feelings, thoughts and memories it provokes in me. Florida rain is different than Maryland rain. It may seem strange that I write that, but it’s more than just a topological difference between hills and flat lands. Rain in Florida is so encompassing — seductive and elemental. It is almost like a mating ritual.

The Florida sky before a thunderstorm is dramatic, not just a mixture of similar shades of gray, but swirly gossamer objects of black, white, blue, and orange –almost like women’s lingerie, an unmistakable sign that a seduction is about to begin. The rain cloud begins her rhythmic dance, teasingly advertising the coming attraction. In the heat of the moment, she flashes her curvaceous, tumescent clouds, knowing that shortly she will reveal her wondrous and thundering power in the simple act of nourishing the earth with her moisture. And each time you experience it; it is as if it were the first time, the anticipation, and the longing and the fear. Intrigued, you’re never quite sure what will be revealed; always aware that it will be a raw, exposed experience.

The air is wet and charged just before it begins — you shiver with anticipation that something slightly dangerous, monumental and ancient is about to happen.  And rain sweeps you up in her embrace and drives the funnel of atmospheric chaos down into your inner core so that you can really feel the barometric changes.  The temperature suddenly drops just as the rain slowly begins to build to its torrential downpour and your skin gets goose bumps, signaling that the magical experience has commenced. Hot, swollen drops of rain splash onto the earth and make the most entrancing sound on sidewalks and windshields and aluminum patio rooftops. The perfect communion between the heavens and earth, their sound is rhythmical and soothing. And as the physical onslaught continues to build towards climax- drumming and driving its moisture repeatedly into the loins of the earth until the canals and lakes and ponds overflow their banks– flooding the land and houses with silt. One never knows how long the rain will continue her mating with the earth, some times it is a quick, teasing interlude, and other times an exquisitely drawn out affair. Finally spent and satisfied- she has achieved her release.

And the rain is the rain, and it goes as quickly as it comes, and when it is over, the heat and humidity of the day comes rushing back to envelop you in a warm, enduring embrace, letting you know that no matter what just happened, the sun will always come back to shine again upon your face. And so you come out of the storm, a little spent for the emotions and physicality you experienced.  But in Florida, the tumultuous rain is always lurking, and looking for another chance to return to stir up the heavens and co-mingle again with the earth.

1/4 cup brown sugar, plus 1 Tbs.
6 Tbs. olive oil, divided
3 Tbs. balsamic vinegar, divided
1 cup pecans
6 oz. baby spinach
pomegranate seeds

Combine the quarter-cup sugar with one tablespoon of oil and one tablespoon of vinegar in a frying pan and place over medium heat until the syrup bubbles, around one minute. Toss in the pecans and mix to coat. Stir the nuts for about four minutes or until toasted and evenly coated. Be careful not to burn them.

Place the sugared nuts on a foil sheet that has been coated with nonstick spray and carefully separate them. Cool completely. In a small bowl, whisk together the remaining brown sugar, oil and vinegar. Place the spinach in a large salad bowl and coat with the dressing. Top with pomegranate and nuts and serve.