Fitting for the weekend before Earth Day, the theme of Westmont’s Fringe Festival this year was “Earth in Motion,” inspired by Dino Ahmetovic’s quote: “Dance with me. The earth is spinning; we can’t just stand on it.” The idea behind this theme, according to Artistic Director Ciena Fitzgerald, is that it is a “call to action to celebrate progress without waiting for perfection and to find beauty in impermanence.” The plays, films, and poetry presented in the festival explore this idea.
Due to the focus on creative expression, many of the pieces in Fringe are more abstract. This year, that included Tell Us, a play written by Matt Thellathala and directed by Jake Siaki that shows planetary bodies moving around each other in an exploration of their relationships to each other; Opposable Thumbs, a play written by Emma Schillage and directed by Jordyn Clinton that tells the story of an opossum who wants to become human; and Homebound, a play written and directed by Claire Bassett and Simeon Michelson that explores the idea of someone being dropped into a different culture through the lens of aliens.
In addition to those more abstract stories, this year featured multiple plays inspired by classic stories such as Icarus, Echo and Narcissus, and The Great Gatsby. Autumn Havlik and Jake Siaki wrote Dear Icarus to show Daedalus’s response to the death of his son, Icarus. Voices, written and directed by Claire Nemec (me!) retells the myth of Echo and Narcissus in a modern university setting with an all-female cast. Alaina Dean uses Miss Daisy Fay to tell The Great Gatsby from Daisy’s perspective.