Dearest Fringe Family, 

After deep reflection the Hollywood Fringe organization is announcing the cancellation of the 2020 Festival. 

We recognize that COVID-19 is still a rapidly developing health crisis with little certainty of what the future holds. Knowing this, we cannot guarantee a safe festival season. This decision is based on guidance from state and local health authorities and our desire to minimize further financial strain to our HFF20 participants and partners.

Hollywood Fringe will offer all 2020 participants a full registration refund. If you are able to do so, please consider donating your registration fee to the Hollywood Fringe. If you are a participating artist and would like more information on what this cancellation means for you, please see our Registered Participant FAQ.

This decision does not come lightly to our organization. Although we are fortunate to have a strong foundation, we will run a high deficit due to this unforeseen cancellation.  We also recognize the effect cancellation has on our venues who are already financially compromised due to their inability to open their doors while state orders are in place.

While this year’s festival may be cancelled, our commitment to our community is not. We will continue to use our platform and passion to support our community through our expanded ‘Fringe From Home’ programming. We’ll also continue to offer our website to all artists to aid in ticketing and event promotion free of charge. We’ll continue to produce workshops and panels to help support you and your work until we come together again at our next festival. 

Upcoming events include:

• We will host a Virtual Office Hours that will include a discussion on event cancelation on Wednesday, June 24 from 7:00 pm to 9:00 pm.

• A Virtual Town Hall with HFF staff is scheduled for Thursday, June 25 from 6:00 pm to 7:30pm to answer any questions you may have. If you would like to submit your questions before the event, you can send them to us via this form.

More information on all of the above programming can be found on our website.

We remain committed to providing excellent resources to our stakeholders, and encourage our community to reach out with thoughts, questions, and concerns to [email protected]

We are actively researching opportunities and will continue to update and add to this post as we receive more opportunities. If you know of opportunities that you would like to share with the community, please add your resource to this google form: https://forms.gle/KWTpa74up6kKMJFz7

Relief Funds: 

Department of Cultural Affairs Artist Grants ($400-$1200, Deadline: Jul 31, 2020):

Arts and Culture Leaders of Color Emergency Fund ($200, rolling applications)

Artist Relief ($5,000, Deadline July 22)

Tax Info:

Cancelled gigs & your taxes

Loss calculator for taxes and applications

Arts Funding Advocacy:

Arts for LA- open letter covid19

The Performing Arts Alliance

Action Network

Other lists of resources: 

Freelance Artist Resource

Actors Fund

This Stage LA

LA County Arts

CA for the Arts

Culture LA

CALHUM

LAist

Women Arts

Sundance

Dear Fringers,

We would like to start out this letter by recognizing the atrocities being committed against the Black community. This must stop. Hollywood Fringe rejects the inequities and injustices that are upheld by systemic racism. We mourn the lives of Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, Dominique “Rem’mie” Fells, George Floyd, Riah Milton, Robert Fuller, the 608 LA County Residents whose lives have been lost at the hands of police since 2012, as well as the countless others affected by police brutality in the United States and across the globe. Hollywood Fringe stands with Black Lives Matter.

In order to uplift Black voices and give space to community action, Fringe has paused our planned online June celebration and programming until further notice.

As a staff, we have committed to the following long-term goals to address racial  inequity in our own community:

• Work with our ACCESS committee to assess our organizational practices and processes and identify areas of inequity that need addressing. More on our ACCESS committee’s goals here.
• After each ACCESS committee meeting, our staff will meet to reflect and address the issues.
• We will increase the number of scholarships available to underrepresented artists in our community (this year we have increased to 13, in 2021 we will increase to 15).
• Along with adding workshops that represent BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and People of Color) voices and expertise within our own community, we will increase our partnerships with BIPOC theatre companies and artists on our current list of creative and producers workshop series.

We are dedicated to working towards the above goals in alignment with our mission statement: to produce an annual, open-access, community-derived event celebrating freedom of expression and collaboration in the performing arts community.

To maintain space to hold these conversations, the Hollywood Fringe will be presenting the following upcoming programs:

Wednesday, June 17 from 7:00 pm – 9:00 pm & Wednesday, July 1st from 7:00 pm – 9:00 pm
Virtual Office Hours | Discord/Zoom

During these Virtual Office Hours, we encourage artists to come in ready to discuss the structural inequities in our community. There will be separate breakout sessions to address any issues you have witnessed directly with Fringe staff. If you are unable to attend this meeting, please feel free to email [email protected] with any questions, comments, or concerns you would like to see the Hollywood Fringe staff address.

Saturday, June 27 from 12:00 pm – 2:00 pm
Listening Session & Roundtable with the Hollywood Fringe ACCESS Committee

An open, brave and receptive discussion organized, moderated and led by the Hollywood Fringe ACCESS committee to identify ways to institute change in the Hollywood Fringe and the LA Theatre community at large. This discussion will be on Zoom, pre-register for a spot here. The chat will also be live-streamed on YouTube.

If you are not able to attend, but have a question, comment or discussion topic suggestion, please fill out this form: https://forms.gle/eoqXfG7ZVQ5KU63V6

We look forward to listening to you, our community, and addressing these issues. We are committed to doing better and being stronger together.

Thank you,

The Hollywood Fringe Staff

Bring Bryan’s Bar into your home with this five Fringe Freak Cocktails creating by Pierce & Luna! The fabulous concoctions feature some of our favorite boozy brands: Q Mixers, Tequila Herradura, The Real McCoy, Pomp & Whimsey Gin Liqueur, Mulholland Gin, Deep Eddy Vodka, and Jack Daniels Tennessee Honey.

While our community is not able to meet in person right now, we have seen our community begin to explore online spaces to keep the performing arts alive.

From play readings to digital performances, we wanted to provide you with a marketing and ticketing platform that will help bring your event to the next level.

From now until the social distancing orders are lifted and performances can begin in person, you may use hollywoodfringe.org to register any online project free of charge that follows safety and social distancing protocols as laid out by the California state and Los Angeles city governments.

Benefits of registering a project include:

• 100% of proceeds go back to you and no hidden fees. Hollywood Fringe will only charge your audience a modest $1.75 service fee for tickets priced $15 or less. There will be zero fees for free performances.
• Increase your web presence. A dedicated, customizable home on our website and access to its promotional tools.
• Free advertisement through our website. Be featured in the “coming up next” on our home page.
• A dedicated support system. Access to our participant support team to help you through your Fringe experience.

To register, you will need to create a project on hollywoodfringe.org. To learn more about how to create a project, check out our registration blogpost here.  When registering, apply to the “On The Virtual Fringe” venue. On the registration screen, select the free virtual registration. Contact [email protected] to take advantage of free online ads to help you promote your work.

We’re excited to help promote the virtual events our community is still producing. Visit our website for a complete schedule.