Emily Fritz | a&e editor

On the outskirts of the Edinburgh International Festival in 1947, eight theater groups crashed the carefully curated gathering. Subsequently denied entry, the alternative performers camped out to put on their own works, starting the independent, open-access arts festival known today as a “fringe festival.”

As Pittsburgh enters its 12th year of “fringing,” the festival has remained inclusive and untempered by executive director Xela Batchelder.

“[Fringe] is a different way of earning a living as a performer,” Batchelder said.

Compared to Broadway or Hollywood, performers who want to make it big are often restricted to part-time jobs outside of the industry, like waitressing, until they get their big break, Batchelder said.

“In the fringe world, you say, ‘I want to do this show. I want to take it on the road. I want to go to these cities,’” she said. “You can pretty much decide your tour, decide your life. It may not be the most easy life, but some people do very well,” she said.

This year’s roster included acts from multiple disciplines, including cabaret, circus, comedy, dance, workshops, spoken word and literature, music, theatre, performance and visual art. Of the 11 venues, nine were located on Penn Avenue in Bloomfield.

Maddie Shaw, venue manager at the Mr. Roboto Project, estimated that half of this year’s performers were from out-of-town.

“The first two nights we were here, we had performers from Los Angeles. Just last night, we had a performer from Atlanta, Georgia,” Shaw said. “We have one performer, I don’t know where she came from, but she’s traveling with the entire fringe circuit.”

By remaining open to artists of all talents, fringe festivals like Pittsburgh’s provide accessibility in the ways of adaptability. Often performers will modify their productions between festival locations, seasons or even throughout the show’s multi-day run.

Local special effects makeup artist and filmmaker Jessica Jade Jacob decided that this would be the season that she put on her production of “Jawsica,” a one-woman puppet performance of “Jaws” that she’d been piecing together for nearly a decade.

“When you work in film, … if you mess up, you just do another take. It doesn’t matter,” Jacob said. “But you can’t do that in theatre, so it’s definitely a cool world to visit and play in.”

This year, the 1975 film was celebrating its 50th anniversary, so the timing was perfect.

Visiting fringers Aylin Bayaz and Anthony “Tiriti” Tran have traveled internationally through Europe, Australasia and the U.S. with their contemporary dance-guitar duo, which was awarded “Best Show of Dance and Physical Theatre” at the 2022 Hollywood fringe.

Not every artist had as much lead time on their artwork though. Other performers, like Joanna Lowe, used the performance opportunity to process and present personal grief in her performance of “Widow.”

Another boost that fringe offers to independent artists is its low production costs. In Pittsburgh, the 10-day festival is entirely volunteer-run, hosted in diverse performance spaces and profits are reinvested into artists and the following year’s running, Batchelder said.

During her 30 years of fringing, she has noticed that depressions and recessions enable fringe festivals to grow faster.

“We know from Pittsburgh [that] it’s possible to do it without grants and … we can use any sort of venue,” she said. “We’re much more nimble [and] it’s more affordable for everybody by us all kind of collaborating and working together.”

Pittsburgh director and playwright Amy Falk decided that she wanted to perform before she had fully fleshed out her piece, “How to Prepare for a Long Distance Run.”

“I started with this three minute monologue,” she said. “I wanted to put my own perspective on divinity and finding divinity in ordinary people and ordinary women, and see how that is received by people.”

Because no artist gets turned away, Falk stressed that the art itself may not be as accessible, and encourages audiences to remain open-minded as they approach potentially unfinished works.

“Keep your mind and your heart open to what you see and let it resonate with you and let it respond to you, and listen to the emotions it brings out of you,” she said.

The Pittsburgh Fringe Festival will continue through March 29 at various venues on Penn Avenue as well as the Bloomfield Garfield Activity Center, Point Park University and the New Hazlett Theater.

Shows vary in genre, price and content. Festival passes are $150 and include admission to all shows, while patrons with special $5 Pittsburgh Fringe buttons will receive discounted tickets. More information can be found at https://pittsburghfringe.org/.