The Outdustrial Theatre Company is producing an unusual show this year at the 17th Annual Rogue Festival. Titled ASS or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bong, it’s already making waves in the scene.
What an occasion! The night of Sunday the 10th, the Tower Theatre was packed with people from all over the Central Valley excited to see the premiere of a truly Fresno Film. Shot and set in Fresno, created entirely by Fresno (or, at least, at-the-time Fresno) artists, Brick MADNESS charmed the audience, who was primed by a red carpet entrance.
Every two years, over one hundred dancers join forces to present an original, full-length, professional-caliber ballet just for the Central Valley. Since 1975, the Garden Ballet has carved out its own space in the Valley’s arts scene, creating a brand-new, unique experience with each outing. Previous Garden Ballets have included The Little Mermaid, Wizard of Oz, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and The Lion, the Witch, & the Wardrobe. This year, California Arts Academy presents Beauty & the Beast.
The Selma Arts Center is one of the Valley’s brightest new voices in the live theatre scene, taking major artistic risks that pay off in wonderful an unexpected ways. For the third show of their 2017 season, they present Honk!, a musical adaptation of Hans Cristian Andersen’s The Ugly Duckling by Anthony Drewe and George Stiles.
Last weekend Fresno Filmworks hosted a mini festival showing all of the Academy Award nominated short films. The festival was broken into three segments—live action, animation, and documentary—and shown at the Tower Theatre.
How often does the Central Valley get to see a full-length, professional quality ballet? You can probably count on one hand the ones in recent memory. Unlike theatre and music, both of which have robust and vibrant communities with ubiquitous live performances, dance is somewhat rarer in the Valley. This is why California Arts Academy is so important.
The Rogue Festival, one of the Central Valley’s most important and fascinating cultural events, happens early each year. But for those craving another fix of the fringe festival circuit without wanting to wait until February, here is your chance.
For eleven years, this group has managed to bring free theatre to the public. They’ve battled weather, the park, and the ultimate artistic challenge - Shakespeare. Through three separate performance spaces, they have put on 24 main-stage productions, and are about to open three more.
They are Fresno’s newest theatre company, but they’re not just another theatre company. As founder Thornton Davidson says, “Fresno doesn’t’t need more theatres or theatre companies. It needs a more vibrant culture of theatre-attendance.” The goal of LTC then is not just to produce quality theatre, but to create a theatre in which audiences who would not normally participate in the medium of live performance may well be entertained, moved, and challenged by the form.
They have been called “Fresno’s leading contemporary dance company” [Donald Munro, Fresno Bee] and “a beautiful, insightful group with an incredible talent for pushing beyond the norm.” [Broderic Beard, Associate Producer of Woodward Shakespeare Festival] Since 2010 they have been entrancing audiences with their unique blend of aerial and modern dance, and hot off the heels of their hugely successful Rogue show Acts of Affordable Care, the FresNO Dance COllective (often abbreviated to NOCO) has huge plans to continue rocketing through the central valley and beyond, helping expand the culture of dance through performance, education, and outreach.
