by Brendan Kiley
Seattle Fringe Theatre Productions is withering into dust, leaving its creditors up crap creek without so much as a square of toilet paper. Luckily, a group of local do-gooders is trying to pay off the artists and venues who never saw their box-office revenues from the financially doomed 2003 Fringe Festival.
The Seattle Fringe Artists Task Force is corralling local performance luminaries into a weekly benefit cabaret called STIFFED: Fringe Artists Getting It Up Again. Celebrity hosts--including the beloved Carlotta of Carlotta's Late Night Wing-Ding and The Stranger's own David Schmader--will emcee the event every Tuesday night for the next five weeks at the Capitol Hill Arts Center.
It's heartening to note that the list of benefit performers includes lots of folks who didn't perform at last year's fringe. "They're just people who believe in the cause," said task force member Wesley Middleton. The task force is trying to raise $63,000 to pay the artists and venues left hanging by SFTP's dissolution. "It's a lot of money to raise--we know that," Middleton said. "But we've got to make raising the whole amount our goal."
If you can't make the cabaret, there are some other options for the philanthropically inclined. The Capitol Hill Arts Center has challenged Consolidated Works to a benefit bowling rumble in May. Stop by CHAC to sign up as a team sponsor and place bets with the bowling bookie.
In addition to these events, the task force has made tax-deductible online donations possible at www.seattleperforms.com. The reputable folks at Theatre Puget Sound are managing the site and tracking the money to ensure it winds up paying the stiffed artists and venues of the 2003 Fringe Festival.
When artists can't collect their rightfully earned returns, it takes away the incentive to invest again. And as any economist will tell you, no incentive = no investment = no arts scene. Thanks to the task force, participating artists, and CHAC for keeping the incentives alive by helping all of you collect the money you rightfully made last summer by doing tap dances about your cat while wearing nothing but marshmallows.
