Sam Spade's San Francisco

The 19^th Annual San Francisco Fringe Festival is only a month away, bringing theatre performances that are most often thrilling, thought-provoking, and even therapeutic. The Burroughs and Kookie Show (S.F.) has William S. Burroughs hosting a late night talk show. Paper Angels (N.Y.) tackles the detention of Chinese immigrants on Angel Island. Levitate, a Canadian entry, postulates a guru of goofiness.

Regrettably, Madogs of Diego, which was to have been performed by a theatre troupe from the Indian Ocean island of Mauritius has had to withdraw, citing the sudden lack of promised government funds to get them here. Their show has been replaced by the next one on the waiting list, Zero to 90 in 90 Minutes!!!, subtitled “Short Plays by 4 Smart Women,” a program assembled by Linda Ayres-Frederick, managing director of San Francisco’s Phoenix Theatre. The four playwrights are Joya Cory, Ruth Kirschner, Naomi Newman, and Ayres-Frederick.

The San Francisco Fringe Festival will run for twelve days, September 8-19, 2010. Forty of the shows, numbering over 250 performances, will be at the EXIT Theatreplex, 156 Eddy Street and around the corner at 277 Taylor Street, all in downtown San Francisco. Three others will be presented in “Non-Traditional Fringe Venues” – the Four Star cinema on Clement Street, Portsmouth Square in Chinatown, and the F-Market Muni Turnaround in the Castro.

Here’s a sampling of what’s on tap for the 2010 SF Fringe, with performers from the Bay Area, all over the U.S. and Canada.

Dangerous Lorraines Dance Theatre (Sacramento) presents Café Lorraine, opening doors to new perceptions of human interactions in a collage of movement, text, and video. With The Stories of Caesar Chavez, Fred Blanco (L.A.) brings the late labor leader to life. Sharon Mathis (Atlanta) explores a world turned inside out with He/She and Me, an examination of a lover’s relationship with her soul mate who has undergone a change in gender.

Sammy Wegent and Allison Page (S.F.) are back together again (in more ways than one) with Wegent and Page Give It Another Try, a show about second chances, second thoughts, and having to play second fiddle to each other. Picture Lucy & Desi or Sonny & Cher trying the make it work again.

Returning to the Fringe are favorites OPM (Los Angeles) the popular Asian sketch comedy troupe, this time with OPM’s Green Tea Party. SF playwright Joe Besecker is back with a new drama, the very dark comedy Zinnia Rosenblatt. Besecker previously won three “Best of Fringe” awards for drama. Also returning are popular comic actors (and Fringe winners) Karen Ripley and Annie Larson (SF) with The Angina Monologues. Back, too, is former SF performer, now based in Brooklyn, Julia Steele Allen with another multi-media musical tale ranging from Transylvania to Texas, Little Tainted Blood.

It’s not San Francisco without a nod the neighborhoods. Just go to a city Supervisors’ meeting – or, less painfully, go to Eat Our Shorts: A Peek Behind San Francisco Neighborhoods, a collection of short pieces by the Guy Writers, a collective of playwrights, actors, director, and technicians who really do know SF. The Guys find the answers to burning questions like: what does a rich older couple from Pacific Heights talk about? What are the lamest pick-up lines men use? Is there life outside the Castro?

San Francisco Fringe Festival tickets range from $7.00 to $10.00 (two shows are free), with a ten-show Frequent Fringer pass at $75 and a five-show pass at $40. The EXIT venues are all within walking distance of Union Square and the Powell Street BART station. For complete listings of venues, shows, and times, go to www.sffringe.org. Or call the fringe hotline at .