Minnesota Fringe Festival is smaller in 2024, but still is wild and wooly with 100-plus shows

August is the season when some arts lovers might as well throw darts at a board to pick their shows.

That’s because the frenetic, lottery-chosen smorgasbord known as the Minnesota Fringe Festival launches its 31st edition Thursday.

The festival offers 100-plus shows over 11 days, including comedies, musicals, dramas and dance but also genre-bending works such as variety and drag events. Once Minnesota’s largest performing arts festival, with a high-water mark of some 50,000 ticket buyers, the fest drew 22,000 patrons last year.

“We’re at 58% of pre-pandemic audiences,” said executive director Dawn Bentley. “We’ve been trying to remind audiences that they are co-creators of this adventure. What happens onstage is magical but we need them to complete the whole picture.”

Bentley, who has led the festival since 2017, said that she would be ecstatic if the Fringe draws 30,000 patrons now.

“In days gone by, 30,000 would’ve been a rough year,” she said. “But people have found other things to do and are slow to rebuild the habit of seeing 10 shows at the Fringe.”

Significantly, the festival will have venues around Cedar-Riverside but not in Rarig Center at the University of Minnesota this year.

“It has three beautiful venues that we love to be in but we would’ve lost $10,000 just walking in the door,” Bentley said. “We have been in jeopardy of going away forever and the artists have saved us. We have to make prudent decisions to make sure we’re sustainable.”

Here is a selection of dance and theater shows based on the reputations of the artists involved.

Lily Conforti of Corpus Dance Works returns to Minnesota Fringe for a piece that weaves together dance, pantomime and breakfast cereal. Three years after graduating from the University of Minnesota with degrees in dance and physiology, Conforti summons childhood whimsy and nostalgia into a work driven by nostalgia and bright colors. Seven dancers remind audiences of simple points of joy all grounded in the pleasure of opening a box of cereal. (Aug. 2, 4, 5, 8 & 9, Southern Theater)

Laura Quattrocchi and Joshua Bisset of Shua Group spent 20 years in New York before moving to Detroit seven years ago. There, they created a community arts space for visual and movement arts and continue to make new work. For the Minnesota Fringe, they’re bringing their 2022 piece created with collaborator Trishawna Woods. The dancers employ contact improvisation and house dance, and they even vogue. It’s a piece about transformation and joy as the three performers find physical connections while they navigate differences and harmony. (Aug. 2, 3, 8, 9 & 11, Southern Theater)

Through storytelling and contemporary dance, Loom Lab dives into mythological stories from around the world in a devised piece created by Re Edahl, a former Twin Cities performer now based in Atlanta. Employing puppetry, circus arts, fight choreography, contemporary dance and physical theater, the piece takes the audience back to a time long ago when trees had laws for the rest of the world to follow. Loom Lab previously has performed lauded shows at the Fringe, and brings back its collaboratively created, meditative aesthetic this year. (Aug. 3, 4, 6, 8 & 10, Southern Theater)

Iowa-based Fellow Travelers Performance Group brings a series of dance theater duets that blend spoken word, dance and video projections and ponders philosophical questions, addresses socio-political issues and includes humor. Choreographed by Cynthia Adams of Iowa State University, the work is performed by Adams and Paula McArthur. The show touches on everything from gun violence to feminism, environmental activism and the experience of lockdown during COVID-19. Besides the live works, the set also features a filmed performance by ISU students performing the legendary Pina Bausch’s choreography. (Aug. 2, 4, 7, 10 & 11, Barbara Barker Center for Dance)

A popular troupe that’s been away from the Fringe for a while, Transatlantic Love Affair returns with this ensemble-created work. The title comes from the concept: five stories are told by performers in a tiny square on a stage that has no sets or props. It’s in the challenging “tréteau” theater style where the small space and lack of clutter increases focus and creative demands. (Aug. 1, 4, 5, 8 & 10, Open Eye Theatre)

The Fringe includes a number of drag shows and this one by Hailey Woolverton reimagines the musical “Gypsy” headlined by the late Divine (1945-88) as Mama Rose. It’s produced by the Blair Kitsch Project and stars Blair Kitsch, Mink Hole and Pistachio Creampie. Described as full of “pure camp and filthy antics,” “Divine/Gypsy” is rated 18-and-above. (Aug. 1, 4, 6, 10 & 11, Barbara Barker Center for Dance)

Linnea Bond’s comedy has proved popular at Fringe festivals in Atlanta and Cincinnati. It’s about a clown delivering a sales pitch on the benefits of simply existing. Described as “part timeshare presentation and part pity party,” it’s been called an “existential howl.” (Aug. 3, 4, 6, 7 & 11, Barbara Barker Center for Dance)

Some of humanity’s deepest fears involve things we create, from the Frankenstein monster to AI, completely taking over. In John Hilsen’s interactive, tech-savvy show, a robot yearns to be human. The audience helps the process and action by texting lines that robot speaks. (Aug. 1, 4, 6, 8 & 11, Mixed Blood Theatre)

Emily Boyajian’s operatic new musical, performed with a live orchestra, takes us into the challenges faced by characters trying to live authentically. The issues include self-doubts and internalized transphobia. The “Story of Two Trans People Becoming Themselves” is “All the exciting, anxiety-inducing and joyful parts of being trans, with musical theater singing!” (Aug. 1, 5, 7, 8 & 10, Mixed Blood Theatre)

Former Minnesotan Nathan Tylutki wrote and produced this one-man whodunit that uses puppetry and comedy to get at the heart. He plays nine characters in an exploration of love, family and revenge. (Aug. 2-4, 9, 11, Phoenix Theater)

When: Aug. 1-11.

Tickets: $20, plus a one-time required $5 festival button. Five-show passes for $70 also are available. minnesotafringe.org or 612-872-1212.