The 9th annual Aspen Fringe Festival kicks off this weekend. For the festival’s artistic directors, politics play a major role in this year’s presentations.
One theme the founders of the festival saw as problematic in last November’s presidential election were national expressions of misogyny. This led co-artistic directors David Ledingham and Donald Sage MacKay to bring on the festival’s first female playwright.
Two shows written by British playwright Penelope Skinner will be presented this weekend. One called “Angry Allan” is getting its world premiere at the festival. The play features her first male protagonist navigating the world of men’s rights online.
“It’s like a fringe kind of internet movement but increasingly is kind of gaining attention in the mainstream press,” she said. “Some of it negative, but there’s an audience for it.”
The hope is that multiple performances presented in Aspen this weekend will be accepted into the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in 2018.
