Maine’s fringe theater festival rolls on, opens June 1

The trees have leafed out, people have started jumping in the ocean, and PortFringe, Portland’s irrepressible and joyous summer performing arts festival, is about to launch. 

That means opportunities to see (for example) a drag-cabaret-cum-puppet show about a duchess’s failed love affairs; participatory rituals about, respectively, water, bread, and bedtime whispers; an “existential banana burlesque,” and much more. 

Now in its eleventh year, the city’s genre-defying, inclusive, and dreamily DIY fest will be popping up in a variety of venues throughout East Bayside from June 1st through 9th, in the city’s annual celebration of experimentation, self-expression, hybridity and community. 

Like most festivals in the international community of fringe fests, PortFringe isn’t a traditional “theater” festival, so don’t expect straight-ahead performances from the canon. Instead, PortFringe offers artists a space for risk-taking, cross-discipline collaborations, interactive works, and consciousness-raising by local, national and international artists (this year’s fest marks the happy return of beyond-Maine acts after COVID-19 disruptions). 

As a non-juried fest (slots are awarded by lottery drawn from an open call for work), PortFringe prioritizes accessibility, inclusion and equity, with 100 percent of proceeds from ticket sales going back to artists. In an entrenched capitalist society and a gentrifying city, PortFringe is a week of artist heaven. 

This year’s shows engage myriad interconnections of music, puppets, comedy, and movement, with themes spanning ritual, healing, disability and corporate banality (see the sidebar for a breakdown). Most shows are grouped into pairs, with each pair running several times and at several venues over the course of the week. PortFringe also continues its “Late Night” series of four longer acts (60 to 75-minute) that run one night only at 9:30, to bring Fringe-goers together at the end of their evening’s performance-grazing. Shows are $15 a pop, with multi-show passes available as well. 

In light of the continued assaults against the lives of trans and queer people, and the ongoing economic changes in Portland, here are a few special highlights of this year’s PortFringe lineup.

Celebrating Trans Lives

Given bans or limitations on care for trans folks in Florida and at least 17 other states, PortFringe’s several shows about trans experiences are especially vital.   

New York-based Lou Sydel developed his solo movement-theater piece “On the Other Hand” as a theater and dance major at Bowdoin, at a time when he was exploring his trans identity and doing research in the field of gesture studies. 

“Gesture is all around us: how we acknowledge someone, how we emphasize an idea, how we pray,” he explains. “My piece is a collage of musings about how gender is embodied and the ways that nonverbal communication can highlight identity.”

Sydel hopes Fringe-goers will leave his show “with a sense of curiosity about their own daily gestures” and “that they will continue to celebrate the trans people in their lives.”

Vin Grant began writing “Life Goes On” when they were in high school, before workshopping it at the Maine Young Playwrights Festival at Portland Stage. Based on their own life experiences as a trans person in Portland, they say, the show involves themes of “homelessness, mental health and belonging, a story that truly feels pertinent for the Portland we are living in.” 

Grant calls “Life Goes On” “an unapologetically queer work during a time where LGBTQ+ folks are being threatened every day.”  

“My sincerest hope is that ‘Life Goes On’ will make people think differently about the people around them, and inspire them to make changes that allow everyone to belong,” says Grant. “I also hope that those who are disabled, those who are queer, those who are struggling with their mental health will see themselves in the show and know that their stories are worth telling and their lives are worth living.” 

Finally, through poetry, song and movement, Sampson Spadafore’s “Theatre 4 Trans” investigates the relationship between trans identities and theatre itself, and “the ways trans bodies and narratives could exist in theatre.”

“As a trans performer, I’ve found making my way through theatrical spaces tricky, especially amidst my medical transition,” says Spadafore. “You’ll hear it in my piece, but I often feel that my body is in a liminal space, especially as legislators across the country rage on trans bodies.” 

Spadafore’s work aims to envision and propose. “Performance art and theatre has a way of showing people what they couldn’t imagine themselves, and inspire them to seek out new possibilities in their lives,” they say. “I hope my short piece does just that.”

Reviving Portland’s Scrappy, Inclusive Magic

Finally, in light of the many changes happening to Portland and Portlanders, including its arts community, let’s welcome Orthogonal Arts’ “This is a Song to the City,” which author John Bowker describes as “most definitely and specifically a love letter to Portland, warts and all”. 

Bowker describes falling in love with Portland for the magic of its “small, offbeat experiences” and “weird little reminders that the world is vastly more interesting than the daily grind.” Now that the world knows about Portland, “the mood has tarnished a bit,” he says. “Money is everywhere, but it doesn’t seem to be making things better for the people who live here, and the magic feels diminished as a result.” 

Their show aims to revive it, by imagining a yearly ritual that local weirdos perform on top of the Time and Temperature Building to “celebrate and raise the magic of the city.”

“PortFringe is such a great festival for this kind of play,” says Bowker. “There’s a wonderful benign chaos in the moments before the lights come up every night, and that’s exactly the kind of energy we’re celebrating.”  

Megan Grumbling is a writer, editor, and teacher who lives in Portland. Find her at megangrumbling.com.