Rochester Fringe Festival 2015

It is Fringe Festival season in Rochester again. My tried and true events to attend are the Pedestrian Drive-In and Rochester Stories.

I am so proud of my friend Aprille who held her show Rochester Stories at the Fringe Festival for the third year in a row. Each year it gets better. It is always an eye opening experience to hear a story told and then have the real person revealed afterwards. There was a great kuzoo story shared by a fellow in the audience afterwards too.

Aprille invited me to the Pedestrian Drive-In movie which was Princess Bride this year. It's sort of like a drive-in movie but you sit on a lawn chair with headphones on. Princess Bride was the perfect film for this! We got a big bag of popcorn, settled in and enjoyed.

We also posed on a chalk drawing in the Spiegelgarden that made it look like we were walking over the High Falls on a tight rope. Daredevils! I like how Aprille is nonchalantly walking away in the second picture.

Rochester Fringe: Goonies & Art

For my last Fringe event I joined Aprille at the Fringe Pedestrian Drive-In to see Goonies. I had never seen Goonies before and this was a cool way to see it! Everyone relaxes in lawn chairs and wears headphones to hear the movie.

We also stopped to have our picture taken for the My Thing Fringe. Our photo was added to giant interactive art sculpture that was on display.

Rochester Stories 2014

For the second year my friend Aprille has a show in Rochester Fringe Festival.

Rochester Stories is made up of actors who tell stories which Aprille gathered from other people around the city. You don't anything about the owner of the story until the end of the story. The actors and Aprille did a great job. It was even one of 20 shows recommended by the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle.

Rochester Fringe: Circus Orange & Tricycle

Tonight was the kickoff of the Rochester Fringe Festival with Friday on the Fringe.

The show was Circus Orange and TRICYCLE.

It was cool to see the performance outside with the city as a backdrop.

A giant tricycle rolled around the park with pyrotechnics and acrobats.

At the end the tricycle wheel rolled off and lifted into the air sparking and spinning.

Great way to spend an evening downtown.

Rochester Fringe Festival

For the second year in a row, The Fringe Festival has come to Rochester. The first event that we went to was Bandaloop. Bandaloop is a group of aerial artists that dance and perform acrobatics as they rapel down the side of buildings.

The Bandaloop performance was on the side of the 21-story One HSBC Plaza. The event was free and Manhattan Square Park was packed!

We had a pretty good view though and it was amazing to watching them at night with the lights shinning on the building. (There was some idiot shining a green laser pointer on the show however and I thought Aaron was going to hunt them down and make him eat it)

PS - there were food trucks parked there too so we ate at the Cheesed and Confused Truck! I had roast beef and havarti while Aaron had bacon and gorgonzola. I wasn't sure how out of the ordinary a grilled cheese could be but these were fantastic.

Bandaloop was really cool but even cooler was opening the Festival guide to see my friend Aprille's event - Rochester Stories.

As part of her work with Storychick, Aprille collected stories from Rochester-arians and then had actors tell the stories. (I wish I had taken my good camera with me!) The idea is as you hear the story, you may create preconcieved ideas in your mind of who the people are connected to the story. After each story the original person was revealed and you learn more about the people that make up our city.

The stories ran from touching to funny. I totally thought I knew who one of the story owners would be and was surprised to learn that it was not them but somone else with a striking similiar story! Congratulations to Aprille on a great event!

Since we are in the midst of Aaron's birthday week I got us tickets to another Rochester Fringe event, Cirque du Fringe. I heard so many good things about the show and I was excited to see inside the Magic Crystal Spiegeltent.

"Originally constructed in Belgium around the turn of the 20th century, there are only a handful of them left—and one of them is coming to Rochester for the first time ever! Crafted out of oak and canvas and decorated with velvet, faceted mirrors and stained glass, these legendary “Magic Mirror Tents” are in huge demand as big-top, feature attractions."

Oh, and the show was amazing. We sat in the front row and I was oohing and ahhing and AIIIEEEE-how-do-they-do-that?! gasping the entire time.

Before the show we noticed "Oh hey! Food trucks!" We finally tried the Hello Arepa food truck. An arepa is a "it’s a grilled then baked corn flour patty, stuffed with tastiness." I got the traditional black bean and feta while Aaron had the ham and cheese. Yup. Tasty.

The food trucks at all the events were the frosting on the cake of our Rochester Fringe Festival experience!