Five Immersive Art Hubs Are Popping Up Around the City for Sydney Fringe Festival 2019
Here's what's happening at each of them.
Sydney Fringe Festival has unveiled its tenth anniversary program, which promises over 342 shows (including 120 world premieres) across 21 postcodes. Running from September 1–30, the festival includes a few major firsts, too, such as a precinct in The Rocks, a touring hub sponsored by Innocent Bystander, a comedy on a vintage bus and an Archie Rose Cabaret Club.
There are also a whole heap of immersive and interactive events going down this year, including an eerie theatre show inspired by Wolf Creek, intimate long-table dinners and talks, a Kevin Bacon-themed flashmob and a night of eats, drinks and music that'll transport you to Babylon.
All of this is going down at five hubs located across the city. To help you sift through it all, we've broken down the program by what's happening at each — so, open your calendar and start planning.
CITY TATTS HUB
As announced in June, Sydney Fringe Festival will be taking over the CBD's 124-year-old City Tattersalls Club this year. As well as playing host to the aforementioned Archie Rose Cabaret Club (complete with lots of gin cocktails, of course), City Tatts will be home to 30 events, a Young Henrys bar, a diner, a Heaps Gay 'RSL extravaganza', a tongue-in-cheek interactive seminar on How to Survive a Zombie Apocalypse and a 1920s-inspired speakeasy, which will be open every Friday night with a lineup of female musicians playing jazz and soul. To round out the festivities, City Tatts will host the official Fringe closing party: a giant, four-level Dance All Night party that'll feature everything from an 80s prom to a 'Kevin Bacon in Footloose'-inspired flashmob.
THE ROCKS HUB
Also in the city will be the festival's first-ever precinct in The Rocks. The harbourside area's many laneways will fill with market stalls, shows, interactive installations and a free program of events every Friday–Sunday. The latter will include a communal trash-to-treasure sculpture, pub sing-alongs and story telling. In terms of interactive experiences (there are a lot of them happening this year) there's the aforementioned comedy on a vintage bus that will let you relive the movie Speed — fittingly dubbed Speed: The Movie, The Play — and a choose-your-own adventure theatre show that places you in the first day of a job at a start up, called By The Water Cooler.
PADDINGTON HUB
Wander up Oxford Street and you'll find everything from yoga to dinner parties going down at the Paddington Hub. The latter will take the form of three long-table suppers and conversations held underneath Verona Cinemas. Each intimate dinner will have a different topic of conversation — the art of social change making, the art of listening and the art of a campaigning contemporary artist — a different guest speaker and the food will be curated by a different artist. They're one part of Yoke Magazine's pop-up — called Fringe Unyoked — dedicated to talks, exhibitions, yoga classes and workshops about creation and change.
Hillbilly Thriller
LEGS HUB
Physical theatre company Legs on the Wall will once again transform Lilyfield's The Red Box into a buzzing hub of performance, complete with an outdoor bar and lots of live music. The highlight of this hub is Legs' latest intimate, interactive, immersive and (slightly) terrifying new performance piece: Hillbilly Thriller. Shown to just ten people at a time, the show is pitched as "Picnic At Hanging Rock meets Wolf Creek meets Jedda" and combines film, performance, sounds and installation. We don't think this is for the faint hearted. Also happening here are Adelaide Fringe Award-winning show Yuck Circus and a dark and poetic show called La Vide.
The Ballad of the Apathetic Son and His Narcissistic Mother by Niall Walker
INNOCENT BYSTANDER TOURING HUB & NEWTOWN PRECINCT
On the western side of the city, the Newtown Precinct will return with a whopping 192 events taking over 22 different venues. One of those will be the festival's opening party, Fringe Ignite. The Fringe Festival organisers have teamed up with the crew behind King Street Crawl to fill the street with performances from over 150 different artists. Over at the Emerging Artist Sharehouse, you'll find World's Best/Worst House Party — an immersive theatre experience that's part show, part party.
Newtown's Old 505 Theatre will be the home of the Innocent Bystander Touring Hub: a program of award-winning shows from around the globe. Among them are modern (and award-winning) retellings of Orpheus and Eurydice, a high-energy show about a real mother and son who are obsessed with Sia (expect swinging from chandeliers), a part-comedy, part-game show called Love/Hate Actually and Matriarch, a one-woman show that highlights the strength of four generations of Gumbaynggirr women. Innocent Bystander has set up a wine bar here, too, so you can sip on vino before, after or between shows.
BUT WAIT, THERE'S MORE...
While not officially hubs, you'll also find the three-night Fringeville in Hurstville — with pop-up food trucks, light installations and shows — and an immersive Babylon-inspired world at Chippendale's Kensington Street. The inner-city food destination will transform with live music, snacks, drinks and soundscapes for one decadent evening.
Of course, the program keeps going (and going). To check out all the events, head to the Sydney Fringe Festival website.
Sydney Fringe Festival 2019 will run from September 1–30 at venues across Sydney. For more information and to buy tickets, head to sydneyfringe.com.
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