Feature: HARRISBURG FRINGE FESTIVAL: A Short History of Fringe

Get ready to “do something weird” this summer at the Harrisburg Fringe Festival! After the success of last year’s Fringe-in-a-Day, Harrisburg’s 717Arts presents the 2023 Harrisburg Fringe Festival July 6-9. As the first major Fringe Festival in this area, BroadwayWorld will be featuring a series of articles to let our readers know all they need to know about Harrisburg Fringe and how to get the most out of this exciting experience.

Fringe began in Edinburgh, Scotland. It has its roots in the 1947 Edinburgh International Festival. Eight uninvited theatre groups performed their shows on the fringes of the festival. These spontaneous performances took off and became a staple of the Festival. In time, Edinburgh Festival Fringe was formalized, with one of its core components being that the Festival Fringe Society would never vet performances.

While the Edinburgh Fringe is still the largest, featuring over 50,000 performers, the Fringe movement has expanded throughout the world to include cities in countries such as Canada, Norway, Italy, Iceland, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, and Singapore, to name just a few. In the United States, the oldest Fringe Festival began in Orlando in 1992.

Many well-known plays and musicals have premiered at Fringe Festivals, including Tom Stoppard’s Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead and the recent hit Six the Musical. Additionally, Fringe has helped to launch the careers of notable performers including Emma Thompson, Stephen Fry, and Hugh Laurie who performed as part of the Cambridge Footlights at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. Some artists travel the world from one Fringe Festival to another as part of the Fringe circuit, making Fringe a truly international experience for both the artists and the audience.

Chris Gibson (Gibby), Co-Producer for the 2023 Harrisburg Fringe Festival, first became involved with Fringe in the early 2000s when he performed at the Orlando International Fringe Festival. Gibson comments, “I was hooked—the drama, the energy, the community…I had finally found a place where I fit in—even though I was (and still am) VERY WEIRD.” After that first experience, Gibson became involved in the production side of the Festival, and he brings that experience and knowledge to the coordination of the Harrisburg Fringe Festival.

The Harrisburg Fringe Festival “connects adventurous artists, venues, and audiences by empowering artistic expression in a spirit of community celebration.” In true Fringe fashion, the Harrisburg Fringe Festival seeks to be a reflection of the community, to bring people together, to give emerging artists a stage, and to be radically inclusive.

We hope you’ll stay tuned for more on the Harrisburg Fringe Festival leading up to its opening night on July 6th. We’ll give you some tips on how to do Fringe, explain ways in which you can support Fringe, and introduce you to some of the artists. In our next article about Harrisburg Fringe, we’ll explore what it means for the Festival to be INCLUSIVE, UNJURIED, & UNCENSORED. Mark your calendars now—it’s going to be an experience you won’t want to miss! Visit https://www.hbgfringe.com/ for more information!