In a FringeNYC-less summer, other theater festivals promoting the work of up-and-coming artists are taking the lead, including the Ice Factory Festival at New Ohio, Broadway Bound Theatre Festival at the Theater at the 14th St. Y, and the Corkscrew Theater Festival at the Paradise Factory. Among them is the NY Fridge Fest, a brand-new festival of multidisciplinary work at IRT. All genres are welcome, there's just one catch: every work must feature a fridge.
Presented by The Arctic Group, the festival runs August 31 through September 10; half of the performances are "Fill Our Fridge" nights, on which tickets can be purchased with non-perishable goods instead of money. We spoke with playwrights Glenn Marla and Korde Arrington Tuttle, whose plays will be performed on the same program, about participating in the festival's inaugural season.
Glenn Marla, Scarcity Freezer
Tell us about your show!
Scarcity Freezer is a play about Mothers and Trauma with Puppets and Make-believe.
What have been the most exciting things about seeing your show come together?
It’s my first time building and working with puppets, its really been a joy filled process.
Who are your favorite playwrights, past and present?
Keeping my picks present and in the family. Taylor Mac, Dan Fishback, Young Jean Lee and Genne Murphy.
What famous (or not so famous) line do you wish you’d written?
"You think that because I'm a movie star I don't have feelings. Well you're wrong. I'm an actress. I've got all of them!"
What would you change about the current state of theater?
The lack accessibility, the overwhelming heteronormativity, it often being so gender boring and body boring..... and ugh that impacts of that pesky Capitalism.
How important is it to you that your work relate to our current political/social climate?
The first scene of Scarcity Freezer is inspired by a conversation I had with my mother on election night. It begins "On the night of the election right around dread and no hope for the future o'clock." It's important to me that it relates but I'm glad it also provides a playful visual fantasy escape and personal story telling.
Korde Arrington Tuttle, no seconds
Tell us about your show!
At the end of their lives, Chandra and Marcel both find themselves on death row. In a world in which they are given the opportunity to prepare their own, respective, last meal, each comes to terms with how and why they end up where they are. At its core, no seconds asks, "What is a terrorist?" and, in doing so, explores one's relationship between death, love, and food.
What have been the most exciting things about seeing your show come together?
The thrill of not knowing exactly how something might be realized, but knowing that it will. In essence, the power of collaboration.
Who are your favorite playwrights, past and present?
I always struggle with how reductive this question is. My favorite playwrights, past and present, tend to be artists who raise sociopolitical questions, through formal and structural innovation. I'm also a sucker for poetry and departures of non-realism.
What famous (or not so famous) line do you wish you’d written?
There are many lines I admire, but none I wish I'd written.
What would you change about the current state of theater?
How, more often than not, we operate in a culture of scarcity, instead of abundance.
How important is it to you that your work relate to our current political/social climate?
If my work is not in conversation with the world around me, I'm asking all of the wrong questions, and certainly not doing my job.
