In launching the 2017 Dublin Fringe Festival programme last night in Wigwam on Abbey Street, Artistic Director Kris Nelson and General Manager Amy O'Hanlon announced their swansong Fringe programme, as their time at the helm of this vibrant smorgasbord of art, performance and entertainment comes to an end this September.
Having run the festival together since 2013, Canadian Kris Nelson is taking up a similar role at the renowned biennial Lift Festival in London, while Amy O'Connor won’t be moving far as she takes the reigns as General Manager of The Ark children's theatre in Temple Bar.
Next year will begin a new era for the Fringe, as they look for new blood to lead the charge. Nelson and O'Connor have grown the festival and its reach with big spectacles like THISISPOPBABY’s RIOT at the Spiegeltent - which is currently back at Vicar Street for a run - and Harp, A River Cantana on the Samuel Beckett Bridge, show-stoppers typical of their ambition. There were also breakout, extended runs for acclaimed shows such as Sonya Kelly’s How to Keep an Alien and Emmet Kirwan’s Dublin Oldschool.
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Not quite finished yet, this year’s spectacle spot will be the the Dublin Docklands, as Irish acrobatic troupe Loosysmokes take over a warehouse for nine nights of high-flying aerial circus, with a show entitled Raven Eyed.
As a farewell, Kris Nelson is mining his Canadian roots for a number of shows; Trophy by STO Union, hailing from Ottawa, will bring a glowing pop-up tent to Barnardo Square for the opening weekend. Inside, Dublin’s Change of Address will present a piece focusing on the junctures in people’s lives, those moments that changed everything. Town Choir sees Vancouver company Theatre Replacement team up with Dublin’s Tonnta to create a choral song out of a series of writers’ famous quips.
A new partnership between Fringe and Project Arts Centre called Neighbours sees a renewed commitment to enticing international shows to Ireland. Londoner Lucy McCormack’s Triple Threat is a retelling of the New Testament with her playing all the characters along with the help of her Girl Squad. World-renowned Italian company, Motus, perform the lauded MDLSX as actor Silvia Calderoni explores gender borders in an 80-minute, memoir-monologue. Elsewhere, artist Amanda Coogan and Dublin Theatre of the Deaf will present a version of Teresa Deevy’s play The King of Spain’s Daughter, while The Abbey Theatre hosts a series of Fringe productions at The Peacock, including The Shitstorm, a hallucinogenic riff on Shakespeare’s last play, The Tempest, set in West-Kerry, and a children's Fringe programme, YOUNG RADICALS, is headlined by street theatre veterans-turned-Britain's Got Talent sensations Lords Of Strut.
Irish offerings are topical and politically-charged; in an installation piece called Not At Home, Emma Fraser (Nine Crows) & Grace Days (THEATREclub) present a waiting room where an archive of testimonies can be heard from women who travelled to access abortions. Luke Casserly investigates the Kerry babies’ case from the 1980s, while Junk Ensemble uses dance to raise issues of PTSD in the Irish army in Soldier Still. Journalist and author of the Legless In Dublin blog, Louise Bruton, is ready to correct people’s misconceptions around sex and the disabled in Why Won’t You Have Sex with Me?
Living up to its billing as Ireland’s largest multidisciplinary festival, there will be a remarkable 81 productions and 460 or so performances at this year's Dublin Fringe, with 49 premieres across some 34 venues, an arts extravaganza indeed!
The 2017 programme starts on the 9th of September and runs for 16 days, chock full of all those surprises that make the Fringe the whirlwind fortnight it has been for twenty plus years now.
Tickets are on sale via their website - you can find the full programme of events listed there.
