Our city has long nurtured a vibrant creative community, and if original work is the fire that lights your lantern, you don't have far to look to find it in nearly every artistic form and expression. The Wichita Fringe Festival is in its second year as a showcase of original works for the stage by area high school students.
Playwrights from schools around the city take their scripts through the process from stage to page, culminating in a performance of their works by area high school actors. This year, the festival is hosted by Wichita Center for Performing Arts on March 2nd, with two shows on the mainstage, one beginning at 10 a.m., with the second show at 1 p.m. This is a cash-only, not-for-profit event, with all proceeds going to the production of the following year's festival.
If original scripts plus audience participation sounds like the perfect cup for you, Mosley Street Melodrama, the city's only audience-participation theatre, is a venue that consistently stages original scripts from local writers. For example, Mosley Street's current show, The Gold Miner's Daughter (or Who Got the Shaft?), was written by Wichita's own Tom Frye. As an audience member of participation theatre, you can expect the fourth wall to be enthusiastically broken, as your responses to the plot and characters are part of the fun of the show. Dinner is optional, reservations are recommended. You can catch The Gold Miner's Daughter onstage now until March 30th.
