The Paris Fringe Festival is Back! & GIVEAWAY!

After a very successful and well received first festival past year, the Paris Fringe Festival. is back! From May 18-28th Paris theater-goers can sample a fabulous array of theater in English! Read on for a preview of this year’s festival and find out how you can win tickets!

For last year’s inaugural edition, co-founders Reka Polonyi and Dom Douglas shared the inspiration which drove them to create a Paris branch of this international phenomenon in this article. We’re so thrilled that the event drew in sell-out crowds allowing them to recreate it this year… and from the sounds of it, it’ll be even stronger.

“We’re still growing and learning and trying out new things and blooming into the Paris Fringe festival we want to be,” explains Reka. “This year we’re excited to launch the Free Fringe, a series of short shows that are free and scattered throughout spaces in the two neighbourhoods. You’ll find clowns in a courtyard, dance in a gallery, comedy in a little cottage… hopefully something for everyone!

“I’m very pleased that we’ve had such a rich and colourful variety of applications this year; we actually have a Canadian ethics professor and actor perform a piece on cryopreservation, a participatory comedy with 6 performers from Singapore, a dance company from South Africa, a piece on postcolonial politics from France and United Emirates… and much more.

Cocooned in Kazan

“The little gem in our program that I’m especially keen on, is our Fabrique du Fringe, another new series of (completely free) events that we’re launching this year. We want the festival to be a space for new works and creative risk taking, where emerging artists can try and have a go in front of a new audience. Within the Fabrique events, we are hosting high school students who will be on stage for the first time, we are opening up a rehearsed reading of a new production so the audience can give their honest feedback to its writers, and finally, a 24 Hour Play project, in which anyone can sign up and have one day to create a short piece to perform in our theatre.”
This year the Fringe team is really striving for the audiences to feel involved, and encouraged to ‘give theatre a go’. As such they are encouraging everyone to have a taste at different kinds of shows, take a peak at various theatre approaches, and have their own shot at performing in front of an audience. In this vein, for their closing ceremony at FIEALD they will be grabbing anyone with a short act (performance, theatre, dance, music, stand up, anything!). What a great opportunity! All you need to do is sign up at 7.30 at the door, and you could have your chance at two minutes on stage in front of 300 people!

If that wasn’t enough to tempt you to attend some of this year’s festival, the Fringe team is kindly offering my readers a total of four free tickets! See details below!

GIVEAWAY CONTEST

We’ll be giving away two individual tickets to these two shows (four tickets total):

CROSSROADS – Wednesday 24th 9.30pm, Feux de la Rampe

A bilingual musical about a young, French bride-to-be named Amélie, who encounters three women that help her make the biggest decision of her life – for better or for worse. (uh oh! come see it to find out what happens!)

COCOONED IN KAZAN (UK) – Sunday 28th 2.30pm, Feux de la Rampe

A multi-award winning physical theatre comedy about a playboy bachelor who can only receive his mother’s large inheritance once he is married.

Here’s how to win:

  • Like the Je T’Aime, Me Neither Facebook Page (if you don’t already)
  • Like the Paris Fringe Facebook Page
  • Like the post on my Facebook page here
  • Share the post, tag a friend (or several) who likes going to the theater to get entered in the draw a second or third time!
  • OR if you’re not on Facebook, you can add a comment to this post below.

The contest will close at midnight EST on Wednesday May 10th. Good luck and enjoy the festival!

This year’s event will be mainly held in the 9th and 10th arrondissements at Les Feux de la Rampe theatre, Theatre Du Gymnase and the Kibele. See the fill program and purchase advance tickets here.

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