Vegas Fringe cooks up eclectic buffet of local theater

A homophobic dog — adopted by a gay couple. Quentin Tarantino’s “Pulp Fiction” hit men — zapped back to Shakespeare’s day. A carnivorous plant — from another planet. And the members of a local theater troupe, playing themselves — in plays they wrote themselves.

They’re all part of the eclectic mix at the sixth annual Vegas Fringe Fest, which launches a two-weekend run Friday at Las Vegas Little Theatre.

From comedies to dramas to musicals, from solo shows to ensemble works, the festival will serve up a theatrical buffet that embodies the proverbial “something for everyone.”

Everyone who’s hungry for offbeat fare, that is.

The annual Fringe festival presents “a great opportunity to do plays that may not be as well received” elsewhere, says Benjamin Loewy, artistic director of Poor Richard’s Players, which has captured three consecutive “Best of the Fringe” awards. “It’s so conducive to shows that are off the beaten path.”

That includes the group’s 2015 entry, “Never Tie Your Shoelaces in Paris: 30 Plays in 60 Minutes.”

Following three award-winning comedic presentations, Poor Richard’s members wanted to expand to “comedy, parody, very heavy drama, social commentary,” Loewy explains.

So “Never Tie Your Shoelaces’ ” six cast members each wrote several plays, ranging in length from 30 seconds to four minutes. Although they’re “not supposed to be thematically linked,” he adds, “they are personal. We have emotional investments. Whether ridiculous or sincere, the stakes are high.”

Especially because the performers, appearing as themselves, have no idea which plays will be performed in which order. Audiences receive “a menu,” Loewy says, and “call out what they want to see.”

Overall, the Fringe Festival’s 10 productions — new and established works performed in 90 minutes or less — represent a nice mix of new folks and veterans, says Walter Niejadlik, president of Las Vegas Little Theatre, which has hosted the annual festival since it began.

This year’s lineup has three or four fewer presentations than last year, he says.

But that’s not necessarily a bad thing.

“The producers all agreed that we were probably right at the cusp for maximum occupancy” in both LVLT’s Mainstage and Black Box theaters, Niejadlik says. “Everyone gets a fair amount of performances (during the seven-day festival). It’s not too overloaded.”

And with a variety of participants, “you’re exposed to everyone’s work,” Loewy says. “One of the great things about having Las Vegas Little Theatre as host is that we get their audience” in addition to their own.

The festival also enables participants to share new and creative approaches to theater, says T.J. Larsen, co-artistic director of FounDoor Theatre, which is teaming with Endless Productions for a double bill of award-winning playwright Israel Horovitz’s “Stage Directions” and “Spared.” (Endless Productions also is presenting “Bard Fiction,” which transports “Pulp Fiction” back to Shakespeare’s day.)

Horovitz’s works date to the 1970s but remain quite innovative, Larsen says. “The playwright is stretching a little bit” in how to tell a story.

Make that two stories: “Stage Directions,” about siblings gathered for a family funeral who can only communicate through meant-to-be-unheard stage directions, and “Spared,” which focuses on a man who repeatedly tries to kill himself, only to be spared by fate.

In general, fringe productions show “what you can do with no money,” when “you fill in the box with creativity,” Larsen says.

Some of this year’s productions feature more high-tech elements, however.

Melissa Ritz’s “Bombshell: The Ina Ray Hutton Story,” for example, features video projections of the 1930s bandleader during the musical show, in which Ritz sings, dances and plays a dozen characters. “I feel like she’s sharing the stage with me.”

Ritz, a UNLV graduate now based in New York, presented “Bombshell” at LVLT in March and decided to reprise it at the Vegas Fringe Festival.

“I had to be a part of it,” Ritz says, noting that the festival’s success signals how the Las Vegas “theater community has grown and gotten stronger.”

Besides performing, however, Ritz hopes to attend as many other fringe productions as possible.

“You want to support the community and see what other talents are out there,” she says.

“It’s a great sharing platform,” Loewy says of the festival, likening it to “one big family.”

To Larsen, who’s been in, and at, the fringe since it began, “it’s really thrilling to see” the level of collaboration at the festival, with “all these little pods and islands” of local theater coming together. “It’s a place to come and bring something more experimental and breathe some life into it.”

Although the festival focuses on local theater, Niejadlik says the presence of some out-of-town participants signals that “we’re starting to see the beginnings” of Las Vegas’ fringe taking the first steps to becoming a regular stop on a national circuit stretching from San Francisco to Orlando, Fla.

“We’d love to, one day, be a part of that circuit,” he says. For now, however, “we’re thrilled to be able to host this festival every year.”

And whether any given production “falls flat, or it’s a huge success,” Niejadlik says, there’s always “a sense of excitement.”

Read more from Carol Cling at bestoflasvegas.com. Contact her at ccling@reviewjournal.com.