Held annually during the month of September, the Rochester Fringe Festival hosts a kitten’s caboodle of vibrant downtown events: theatre, dance, music, comedy — you name it, they’ve got it aplenty. This year’s lineup sported events from the likes of techno yoga to poetry tarot, as well as more traditional (by Fringe standards) happenings, such as interactive light exhibits, drag performances, and contemporary dance showings on the nightly.
Of course, with two weeks of festivities, the Fringe provides ample opportunity to explore most, if not all, of what it has to offer, from indoor shows to outdoor spectacles to everything in between.
Yet, what does one do with only one night at the Rochester Fringe?
While there’s no set answer to the matter, here’s how I spent mine.
After making my way downtown to the Eastman campus on the Red Line shuttle, my evening properly began after a quick walk to Parcel 5. While no one event overtook the venue at the time, the buzz of the festival echoed throughout: passersby chattered as they picnicked, jugglers put on their aerial spectacle to wide-eyed patrons, and music radiated over the grounds on the warm autumn evening.
Eager to return later in the night, I left the area with a jerk chicken plate from Everything Iz Good’s Caribbean food truck in hand, a well-seasoned start to the evening that satiated my appetite yet heightened my excitement.
Along with its space at Parcel 5 and events held at varying arts venues across the city, the festival’s hub is found at the aptly named One Fringe Place, set up directly across from the Eastman School of Music.
The highlight of the plaza, a fancified parking lot now draped in the Fringe’s flamboyant orange design, is Spiegeltent: the festival’s big top round tent which hosts many of its headlining events — including “Cirque de Fringe: Claws Out”.
With an abundance of kettle corn samples and a ticket in hand, I meandered my way to the sunset lit tent and shuffled into an empty aisle: it was just about time for the show.
Cirque de Fringe: Claws Out
I’ve never seen “Cats” the musical and I don’t intend to. However, after “Cirque de Fringe”, I think there’s no need; there’s no better way to watch adults in cat ears and cat tails prance around on stage than at the Rochester Fringe Festival.
Of course, the annual Fringe circus is conscious about the campiness of this year’s theme: most of the troupe seem to recognize that they’re adults dressed as cats. One troupe member even refused to wear cat ears. Part of their persona, I’d like to assume.
Hosted by the beloved socialite and renowned opera singer Kitty Eastman-Kodak Ross Wegman Sinclair, a drag queen with a red-wigged and cat-eyed presentation somewhere between Stevie Nicks and Gladys from “Weapons,” the show moved across the lines of circus, burlesque, comedy, magic, and a variety show, careful not to overstay its visit into any territory (yet diligent to mark it).
With snippets of comedy and commentary in between, each member of the kitty cat ensemble took the stage to showcase their feline fine skills: baton tossing from Cody the Twirler, limbo and floor acrobatics with the Kenya Golden Lion Acrobats, and even a trio of trained pups (much to the fright of the ensemble themselves. Poor kitties.)
However, to my dismay, the majority of the performers removed their cat ears and tails before their individual acts. Perhaps their claws were out, but their ears were not. Had we lost the plot?
Yet, much to my relief and much to the similarity of the 2019 film adaptation of “Cats,” “Claws Out” featured a Taylor Swift lookalike: a red-lipstick dawning and blond-banged aerialist who pushed the limits of the Spiegeltent while spinning mid-air on a series of sky high apparatuses. Never wearing the cat ears, but instead a sparkly leopard print leotard, she completed her performance often contorted and upside down.
The death-defying feats continued through the acts of Brett Loundermilk, an “America’s Got Talent” accredited comedian and magician with charisma that turned audience feedback into his own form of catnip. While you may wonder what about comedy is so dangerous, his quick-witted snark and cheeky remarks on “performing in a parking lot” put him at a hearty risk of being tomatoed off the stage by both the Rochester crowd and Kitty Ross herself. That, and he was a swordswallower. Talk about having nine lives.
Throughout the performance, Ross’ drive to showcase her powerful pack of pussies often went at odds with their feline behavior. Let’s just say some kitties were better trained than others.
When a laser dot beelined to the seat of an unsuspecting audience member and lion-attired Matt Morgan pounced (not to scratch, but to give a lap dance), Ross came running, spray bottle in hand.
When she, Matt Morgan, and his wife, Heidi (the two arguably most on theme with the whole cat thing), went to perform an excerpt from “Phantom of the Opera” with Ross as Christine and Heidi as the Phantom, Matt sabotaged his casting as Raoul by switching his character to Darth Vader, mask and sound effects and all. I never expected to see a musical mashup of Phantom, “Les Misérables”, “Star Wars”, and “Titanic” all in one show, yet I’ve come to learn you never know what to expect at the Fringe. In the name of comedy and the silliness of the circus, perhaps it’s better for us all.
Luckily, Ross eventually found her way to the spotlight with a baton-accompanied performance of “Memory” from “Cats” — a tear jerking end-of-arc for the show’s titillating host — and another reason why I’m convinced that “Claws Out is the final form for any “Cats” related media. Rochester did it first.
SPHERE by eVenti Verticali
Now back at Parcel 5 after taking a quick stop to enjoy the sights and snacks of One Fringe Place, I was eager to close the evening with “SPHERE”: a crane-assisted live aerial performance brought to life dozens of feet above the ground of the plaza.
While many acts of theatrical magic rely on suspension of disbelief, for “SPHERE,” suspension itself was enough. Five performers twisted and moved in synchrony as gravity failed to pull them back to earth, held by the strength of rope and wire and the might of a grand metal apparatus above.
Artistically, the 30-minute showcase felt like watching a rebirth. Midway through the show, the namesake sphere expanded from its hanging jellyfish form to a rounded entity, carrying one of the performers within. The others swept up and down the outside, circled the apparatus on rings, and basked in the shifting greens, pinks, and blues of the night.
At the close, the sphere seemed to combust as its smoke escaped into the night air and the material returned to its small state, the performers standing atop in triumph as psychedelic sound and red light washed over the plaza.
While the performance came to a close, the spectacle felt eternal: a celestial effect that kept the image of the sphere in my mind floating directly over the square.
Although the Fringe Festival is over for the 2025 year, its return will eagerly be awaited for next fall.
