Theatre
on the Edge: Woodstock Fringe 2007 Festival of Theatre and Song
By Jay Blotcher
Each
successive season brings vindication for Norman and the €ve committee
members who join him to select work from hundreds of script submissions,
he said. (Norman refers to the process as “playreading orgies”
which require intense retreats for the group.) Since year one, “our
interest in new work has been strengthened—validated—in
that there is an audience for new plays.” Woodstock Fringe
is supported by a playwrights unit in Manhattan, a network of 40
people dedicated to developing new scripts. If the €nal selections
occasionally suggest that Norman is cheerleading for a struggling
New York City friend, well, chalk that up to executive privilege.
Norman admits that he has been known to select works without the
feedback of his colleagues.
However, the sheer variety of pieces slated for Fringe 2007—
Norman and his committee are eclectic if nothing else—should
guarantee a rush for the box of€ce again this year, as well as the
burbling admiration of local theatre critics.
The extent of Fringe audience allegiance was driven home last year
for Norman, during the “First Looks” program, which
offers free staged readings of new plays. It was a bone-chilling
day of rain, more common for the autumn than for a day in August.
But people turned out to sit in the unheated Byrdcliffe Theatre
“and huddled under blankets,” Norman said. “We
thought that anyone sane would have stayed home.”
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