The New York International Fringe Festival is underway, and as we have reported, two North Texas shows are there. One is Cody Lucas' play Happily Ever After, performed by Denton's Sundown Collaborative Theatre.
We asked the Sundown group to give us reports from the festival. The first entry, from Tashina Richardson, is here. The second one, from Travis Stuebing, is here. The third, from Patrick Emile, is here. And now here's an unexpected entry, about what to do when the city is shut down, and there's nothing to do but wait.
Saturday, Aug. 27, 2011
— by Tashina Richardson
Today was supposed to be our fourth show. Instead, I'm stuck inside for two days because of Hurricane Irene. New York has shut down all of its public transit until early Monday morning, depending on the amount of rain that hits the city. Instead of performing five shows at the New York International Fringe Festival, we performed three, and only found out that news about an hour before our final show.
As I sit here typing this, the weather is cloudy, with a temperature of 77 degrees. The winds tonight are expected to top out at 37 mph, and tomorrow they're supposed to get up to around 45 mph. It'll be a torrential rainstorm tonight and tomorrow, to be sure. However, I'm not so sure it's going to be as bad as everyone thinks. I've been through a handful of hurricanes, and I just don't believe a Category 1 will hit that hard. That being said, I'll certainly eat my metaphorical hat if I'm wrong, especially since I've made my skepticism quite clear to many New Yorkers here. At this point, they'll probably throw a party for me just so that I'll admit I'm wrong.
Honestly, the most worrisome aspect of Irene for me is how everyone else is reacting. I went to the grocery store last night to stock up on essentials (read: alcohol and chips), and the line was at least an hour long. Every store is running out of bottled water. The city shut down the transit system a good seven hours before the storm is even supposed to hit! It's pandemonium here.
I believe that FringeNYC would have kept the Saturday shows, had it not been for public transit shutting down. Just like everyone else in theatre, they believe "the show must go on." Yet they can't control the city's decisions, and New York shuts down without a public transportation system for people to use. We're all heartbroken that we weren't able to perform our show for more people, and that there is no closing night party for us to attend. We did get to have an impromptu cast party last night at Webster Hall, thanks to a friend, and it was nice to have a release from all of the hard work and dedication that's gone into Happily Ever After. But now, our New York trip is essentially over, and we're all hunkering down for two days of storms.
◊ Look for one more entry from the Sundowners. Also, check out the FringeNYC reviews from Curtain Up, which has one of Dalton's show. And here's one from NYTheatre of Sundown's show. 
