Innovation Takes the Stage at 28th Annual CFA Fringe Festival
Chloe Kolbenheyer (CFA’25) (left) and Lucas Connor (CFA’25) rehearsing a scene from the play Entry, one of this year’s Fringe Festival offerings.
Innovation Takes the Stage at 28th Annual CFA Fringe Festival
Horror, heartbreak, and daring escape plans featured in this year’s repertoire
This article was originally published in BU Today on October 2, 2024. By Sujena Soumyanath (COM’25) Photos by Jake Belcher
From spooky goings-on at a lakeside cottage to a woman’s dangerous effort to escape a fundamentalist sect to a sailor’s mysterious romance with a model, this year’s College of Fine Arts Fringe Festival is serving up a series of new or rarely produced opera and theater pieces sure to linger with audiences long after they’re over.
Now in its 28th season, the festival is a collaboration between BU’s Opera Institute and School of Theatre. On this year’s program: two operas—Dark Sisters, by Nico Muhly, and Siren Song by Jonathan Dove—and a drama, Entry (or, you think you know me) by S. Thomasin Barsotti.
Directing the play is Taylor Stark (CFA’25), who describes the festival as “a time to deliberately stage things that are a little bit new and fresh and unknown.”
The Fringe Festival takes its name from the world-renowned Edinburgh Fringe Festival, which since 1947 has been a leading showcase for theater, comedy, dance, circus, cabaret, opera, and more. BU’s festival focuses on opera and theater.
First up is Entry (or, you think you know me), running October 4 to 6 (all performances are sold out, but there is a walk-in waitlist the day of each show). It’s a horror piece following a couple on a seemingly benign vacation that soon turns sinister. And though it’s Stark’s first time directing a Fringe Festival production, horror is right up her alley.
In fact, she first read Entry about six years ago while completing her undergraduate degree at Northwestern University. She’s been searching since for the right moment to direct it, and this year’s Fringe Festival finally offered the opportunity, she says.
The rehearsal process for Entry “is a fun challenge, to sort of create fear in a live theatrical space,” she says, and although rehearsals only started last month, the play’s cast of six School of Theatre undergrads and a recent alum is “hitting the ground running.”
Mairéad O’Neill (CFA’26) (left) and Emma Weller (CFA’24) rehearse a scene from the play Entry in CFA studio space.
With a run time of around 80 minutes, Entry is on the shorter side for most full-length plays. And despite its brevity, Stark says, it manages to pack in complex themes, such as grief, love, and memories, while covering a number of different horror genres.
“We have a little bit of the supernatural and the paranormal, we have a little bit of psychological thriller going on, we have some creatures that come out of nowhere—there’s a lot of exciting parts to it,” she says.
Equally innovative is Dark Sisters, the festival’s second production (October 11 to 13). Featuring music by Nico Muhly and a libretto by Tony Award–winning playwright Stephen Karam, the opera follows a woman attempting to escape the Fundamentalist Latter Day Saints (FLDS) Church, a sect that broke off from mainstream Mormonism in the early 20th century.
Sung in English, the opera takes viewers into the heart of contemporary religious fundamentalism and polygamy.
Shockingly, many of the opera’s most theatrical moments—state officials removing children from the fundamentalist compound, a mantra-like command to “keep sweet,” and the sister wives’ bizarre television appearance—were inspired by real-life events.
As opposed to when you go to a big opera house and you’re hundreds and hundreds of feet away, you could be as close as two or three feet from performers.
In 2008, state officials raided an FLDS compound in Texas following reports of underage marriage and sexual abuse at the community. Muhly and Karam, moved by the event, wanted to use opera to plunge audiences into the inner lives of the women affected.
“They’re real human beings with real human problems,” Muhly says of the women. “They’re other Americans.”
Closing out this year’s festival is another opera inspired by real-life events, Siren Song, with music by Jonathan Dove and libretto by Gordon Honeycombe and Nick Dear. The one-act opera had its world premiere in 1994 and will be presented at Studio One October 19 and 20.
Siren Song, like Dark Sisters, is also based on a bizarre true story. A lonely sailor stationed aboard the HMS Ark Royal starts writing letters to a beautiful model called Diana. But things are not as they seem, and the sailor never seems able to make physical contact with her.
An operatic spin on a classic catfishing yarn, Siren Song takes the audience far beyond a typical romance story into a world of voyage and mirage.
William Lumpkin, a CFA associate professor of music and BU Opera Institute artistic director, is conducting Siren Song. He says the University’s Fringe Festival offers a chance to see opera in a uniquely intimate setting. (Studio One seats approximately 100 people.)
“As opposed to when you go to a big opera house and you’re hundreds and hundreds of feet away, you could be as close as two or three feet from performers,” says Lumpkin, who has been part of the festival since he first came to BU 25 years ago.
Every city should have a festival like this. And it’s great that this is happening in an educational institution.
For Muhly, who took some of his first steps in the world of music composition while a student at BU’s Tanglewood Institute—an acclaimed summer program for young musicians—the Fringe Festival is a fantastic way to bring rare and new works to the performance space. “Every city should have a festival like this,” Muhly says. “And it’s great that this is happening in an educational institution.”
As rehearsals wrap up and the Entry team prepares to kick off the Fringe Festival in a spooky spirit, Stark says she’s grateful for her cast’s dedication, as well as the stage management and production team’s hard work.
“My gut tells me that this is going to be a very successful production,” she says, “primarily because of how committed everyone is to this process.”
Show Tickets
The annual Boston University Fringe Festival, now in its 28th season, is a collaboration between the College of Fine Arts School of Music: Opera Institute and School of Theatre. Fringe’s mission is to produce new or rarely performed significant works in the opera and theatre repertoire, bringing performances and audiences together in unique theatrical settings.
For over two decades, Fringe Festival at BU has celebrated and amplified new work, shown in spare and minimal productions.
Discounted tickets are available for students, faculty, and staff. Email theatre@bu.edu for more information.