PortFringe – Maine’s Fringe Festival – Opening Night Party
Six days, 70 experimental performances across Portland’s East Bayside
PORTLAND, Maine — The tenth annual PortFringe theater festival will take place June 13-18, 2022, featuring roughly 70 genre-defying performances at venues around Portland’s East Bayside.
Join us for our Opening Night party on June 13th at Belleflower Brewing Company, 6:00pm.
For full festival information, head over to www.portfringe.com
The festival, a high-energy celebration of performing arts run entirely by volunteers, was founded in 2012 and has grown steadily since its inception. “Our 2020 festival was a casualty of the pandemic and although the 2021 filmed festival brought forth innovation and creativity, we are thrilled to be funkin’ up the streets yet again” said Mackenzie O’Connor, marketing
volunteer. For their 10th year, Fringe is refreshing its festival with a few nifty changes, one of which is this big location move. “The welcoming neighborhood of East Bayside is filled to the brim with innovation and creativity and we wanted to bring our festival into the heart of that
excitement. The quirky pop-up stages will remain highly walkable, making it even easier for our community to access great art.”
The PortFringe 2022 lineup was designed with variety in mind. This year, PortFringe is going back to their roots with short-format performance work. With just one ticket, you will be able to see three different 15-20 minute performances of music, dance, comedy, burlesque, sketch, theater, puppetry, film or something indescribable. Additionally, each night of the week
PortFringe will be featuring a must-see late show. PortFringe showtimes are staggered, encouraging attendees to take in as much of the fun as they can, and maybe grab a beverage between acts.
“PortFringe is Portland’s best kept secret — but those are the famous last words of any city’s secrets,” said Stacey Koloski, a founding PortFringe committee member. “This year’s festival showcases an enormous number of local performances, hidden in yarn shops, breweries, warehouses, and historic buildings. Plus, all the proceeds go back to the artists, which is
relatively unheard of. At a time when it’s harder and harder for artists to afford to create experimental work, PortFringe provides an accessible platform specifically for challenging or non-mainstream performance. We encourage grit, risk, and sweat — because we believe there is art in risk taking; it’s Fringe.”
PortFringe 2022 venues are PortFiber (50 Cove Street); Goodfire Brewing Co. (219 Anderson Street); Maine Studio Works (170 Anderson Street); and Three of Strong (35B Diamond Street). PortFringe’s Central location is located at Belleflower Brewing Company (66 Cove Street).