About

Atlanta Fringe Festival

Overview

The Mission

The Atlanta Fringe Festival is dedicated to connecting adventurous artists with appreciative audiences for the betterment of the Atlanta arts community.

Operation

The Atlanta Fringe is produced by Twinhead Theatre, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, and is operated by a core volunteer committee of 10 dedicated people, with assistance from many event volunteers, as well as paid festival technicians and front-of-house staff.

The Gist

Years of ATL Fringe

Artist Companies Produced

Audience Members

Paid out to artists, technicians, and staff

Staff & Board

The Atlanta Fringe has been a labor of love for a small group of enthusiastic arts and Atlanta lovers. Since summer of 2010, we’ve been envisioning, constructing, and selling the Fringe from the ground up, using very little monetary resources and Facebook to get the word out. This grassroots approach has lent the festival its own unique energy and it has taken on a life of its own since we began building it. We hope for even more of that energy and growth in years to come!

Diana Brown

Executive Director

Diana Brown received her B.A. in Theatre from Georgia State University. In 2003, she helped found Twinhead Theatre, and has contributed as a writer, performer, and producer for over 30 productions. Since 2007, she has acted as the company’s Managing Director. She headed up the planning and organization of the Atlanta Fringe Festival, coordinating six venues across the city and managing ten volunteer staff members.
In 2012, she was invited to sit on the performing arts selection panel for Art on the Atlanta Beltline. She currently co-hosts the popular iHeart Radio podcast Ridiculous Romance, available wherever you get your podcasts.

Nadia Morgan

Production Manager

Nadia has a diverse entertainment design and production background, in a variety of roles as a production manager, stage manager, scenic designer, charge scenic artist, technical director, and more. She received her M.F.A in Scenic Design with a specialty in Scenic Painting from the California Institute of the Arts and returned home to Atlanta in 2009. Since then, she has worked with many companies, including Dad’s Garage, Theatrical Outfit, Full Radius Dance, the Modern Atlanta Dance Festival, The Lucky Penny, Georgia Ensemble Theatre, Horizon Theatre, as well as being a Scenic Artist in the local film and tv union. She is proud to see the calibre of work being created in her hometown and loves the role the Atlanta Fringe plays in bringing adventurous new work to the city.

Chris Alonzo

Marketing Manager

Chris is a playwright/musician/producer and a regular performer in Atlanta live lit showcases like Write Club Atlanta, Scene Missing, and Naked City. He graduated from the University of Texas with a BA in Theatre, a three-time recipient of the university’s James Michener award for writing. In New York City he was a playwriting fellow with the New York Theatre Workshop, worked as a marketing assistant for Broadway and Off-Broadway shows, served as Managing Director of Manhattan Children’s Theatre and independently produced and marketed theatre and music for himself and a bunch of other weirdos. He currently works as a Creative Specialist in financial services marketing and lives in Alabama with an awesome kid who looks just like him.

Jessica Bodiford

Fringe Audio Director

Jessica Bodiford has molded Fringe Audio from the ground up, making the Atlanta Fringe Festival the first festival in the Fringe circuit to have a podcast initiative.

For almost 6 years she lived in Haiti working on USAID-funded communication projects. She created messages for Haitian people ranging from the importance of handwashing to disaster preparedness. She returned to the United States in 2020.

She is a podcast producer and enjoys writing stories about the people and places she’s seen.

Molly Kristyn Shepherd

Fundraising Coordinator

Molly is a fundraiser by trade, actor by vocation, and rabble rouser by accident. A co-founder of Atlanta Fringe, Molly now supports the festival’s fundraising efforts. She is an Associate Director for Development at the Haas School of Business, UC Berkeley. Her fundraising career stretches back to 2004 and her theatrical projects, performances, and experiences to 1993. Molly is an alumna of the American Musical & Dramatic Academy (NYC). She also holds a BA in Sociology, and a Graduate Certificate in Nonprofit Management, from Georgia State University.

Ted Wenskus

Fringe Audio Award Coordinator

Ted Wenskus is a playwright and theatre/voice actor who has worked on 100+ audio dramas and radio plays, including live staged performances, audio projects for the National Park Service, and titles for Audible. His own work has won an Audio Verse Award for Best Writing and national recognition at the HEAR Now Audio Fiction and Arts Festival. His short plays have been produced in England, Dubai, Australia, the Philippines and throughout New York, earning a TANYS award for playwriting in the process as well as Judges and Audience Choice awards in the Short + Sweet play festival in Dubai. He lives in Rochester, NY where he is currently working on numerous theater and radio drama projects (as always).

Mari Martinez Zinser

Family Fringe Coordinator

Mari Martinez Zinser is a teaching artist who holds a B.A. in Theatre from Florida State University and a M.S. in Educational Theatre from City College of New York. She coaches teachers across metro Atlanta in using arts integration strategies in their classrooms. She has worked with DreamBox Theatre, Atlanta Theatre-To-Go and as a Wolf Trap teaching artist with The Alliance Theatre for the past seven years.

Larry Mason

Accessibility Coordinator

Larry Mason (he/him) is a multifaceted artist who has received awards for his Writing, Acting, Sound Design, and Instrumental playing. After receiving his BA in Theatre from Jacksonville State University in Alabama, he continued his education by pursuing his MFA in Collaborative Theatre Creation with Touchstone Theatre in PA. Now he is focusing on polishing his craft and developing his own form based on Augusto Boal and Brecht, focusing on facilitating conversations on and around disability and accessibility. About people affected by disability and their loved ones.

Atlanta Fringe Team

Bobby Andrews

 

Fringe Festival History

Back in 1947 in Edinburgh, Scotland, the biggest theater arts festival had a little brother named Fringe. The Fringe Festival allowed indie, underground, original theater companies and artists—amateurs and professionals alike—to showcase their work. Historically, Fringe festivals are all about being performance arts-centric, original, rapid-fire, uncensored, and easy to participate in. Most festivals try to get a good mix of local, national, and international talent, and AFF is no different.

Today, Fringe festivals are all over the world (Prague, Canada, Singapore, Australia, Ireland, Budapest) as well as many major cities in the United States (New York, Minneapolis, Hollywood, New Orleans, Chicago), and they are a tremendous hub for new, original, and exciting performance work.

Years of History

Number of Festivals