Riding the Fringe

Outgrowth of SummerStage continues this month with Portico and new troupe

Performing arts in Tulsa changing. Some of the changes can be chalked up to “growing pains;” other parts remind us that keeping things going can be a challenge. Even more of what’s new on Tulsa’s theater scene proves that growth is exciting.

Tulsa Fringe has emerged this year as the leading alternative to everyday entertainment. The festival, an outgrowth of Tulsa’s traditional SummerStage, has already drawn a crowd to downtown with comedy, busking, and original stage scripts, performed both within as well as outside of the walls of the Tulsa Performing Arts Center. Next on the menu as the festival continues is a pair of shows that help us examine our own place in the fray.

Fruugensteinery Productions might be a silly term made up by college students, but the new company is anything but a lark. With “BARE: A Pop Opera,” the troupe redefines views on love and acceptance. “We chose to produce BARE because it contains a message that Tulsa desperately needs to hear,” said Tabitha Littlefield, who heads PR for Fruugensteinery. “Whether someone struggles with their identity, self-worth, body image, sexuality, or spirituality, there is character in BARE whom they can relate to.” The message is brought by characters Peter (Seth Paden) and Jason (Denny Mask), each of whom has kept their homosexual relationship a secret from their family, friends, and church leaders. (For the uninitiated, a “pop opera” tells most of the story through music, with sparing amounts of spoken dialogue.)

This group has moved forward despite warnings that the political content of BARE might be too challenging for local audiences. “We want Oklahoma to be on the right side of history when it comes to marriage equality,” Littlefield said. Indeed, Fruugensteinery is willing to put its money where its mouth is. The company will donate a portion of ticket sales to the Dennis R. Neill Equality Center and will offer a petition to end Oklahoma’s same-sex marriage ban in the theater lobby.

Fruugensteinery plans to continue donating portions of ticket sales to nonprofits and causes each summer it participates in Tulsa Fringe. “We want to use our productions to promote social change in the community,” Littlefield said. To this group, using art to both entertain and inform is part of the message.

BARE: A Pop Opera
July 18, 8 p.m., July 19, 2 p.m. and 8 p.m., July 20, 2 p.m.
Tulsa Performing Arts Center, 110 E. Second Street
facebook.com/fruugtulsa

Portico Dans Theatre has a history of being bold and keeping the arts accessible. “Our mission has been and always will be to keep an ‘open door,’” said Jennifer Alden, co-artistic director. “It’s about sharing that feeling and form of expression, which is what Portico means.” PDT continues to offer a stunning array of site-specific shows—just this spring the company performed in the tunnels that run below the streets of downtown Tulsa as part of eMerge Dance Festival. The regular-season performances are progressive, and sometimes they have been free and open to the public.

PDT’s newest outing, “Mob Mental.ity,” is just as innovative. Watching the crowd at a recent Muse concert, Alden and several of the dancers were inspired. “It was after this I really started thinking about groups of people and group think and what happens with a group,” Alden said. The idea grew as the members of the troupe brainstormed various types of mobs and how even innocent or positive circumstances may result in a group mentality where individual thought gets lost.

For those who have never seen a PDT production, get ready to be amazed. This interdisciplinary piece combines several styles of art aside from traditional dance. From video to original music to aerials, "Mob Mental.ity” seeks to integrate an almost cacophonous diversity of media. “We have a lot going on with this show, so this really takes a large group—‘a mob’ of people—to make it all happen,” Alden said.

Nina Madsen, a founding member of Tulsa Modern Movement, recently joined Portico as its newest co-artistic director. “She is director over Modern dance and really was the missing link that we were waiting for to bring Portico to the next level,” Alden said. Now, Madsen, like all new choreographers PDT, is busy creating a new full-length piece for the company; meanwhile, Portico welcomes guests such as composer and musician Karen Naifeh Harmon, filmmaker Kelly Kerr, and The Living Water Dance Company to explore and experiment with the elements of sound and movement. 

Mob Mental.ity
July 18-19, 8 p.m., July 20, 2 p.m.
Tulsa Performing Arts Center
porticodanstheatre.org

MORE TO SEE

She Kills Monsters
American Theatre Company’s final show of the season continues the magic in this high-octane comedy laden with homicidal fairies, nasty ogres, and 90's pop culture.
July 11, 8 p.m., July 12, 5 p.m. and 8 p.m., July 17, 8 p.m., July 18, 8 p.m., July 19, 8 p.m.
American Theatre Company (ATC) Studio, 308 S. Lansing Avenue
Americantheatrecompany.org

Tinkerbell Is Dead... No, It's Just A Flesh Wound!
The eighth-annual showing of "Tinkerbell Is Dead" features an evening of narrative monologues encompassing the profound to the absurd and everything in between.
July 19, 8 p.m.
Tulsa Performing Arts Center, Norman Theatre, 110 E. Second Street
theatrepops.org

Peter Pan
A local cast of 2nd-10th graders perform the timeless musical as J.M. Barrie's classic tale is brought to life.
July 17, 7 p.m., July 18, 7 p.m., July 19, 7 p.m., July 20, 3 p.m.
Bartlesville Community Center, 300 S. E. Adams Boulevard, Bartlesville
cmtonstage.com

Disney's The Little Mermaid JR.
July 31, 7 p.m., August 1, 7 p.m., August 2, 7 p.m., August 3, 2 p.m.
VanTrease Performing Arts Center for Education, 10300 E. 81st Street  
tulsacc.edu