The “wild" and "weird” festival of theater known as the Fringe Festival started Wednesday in venues around New Orleans. But organizers say they got an unpleasant surprise when they discovered the city had filed an injunction shutting down the festival’s flagship performance venue, the Marigny Opera House, because of fire safety concerns.
Kristen Evans is the Executive Director of the New Orleans Fringe Festival. She said the closure forced organizers to scramble at the last minute for other venues.
"All of the performances at the Marigny Opera House had to be canceled last night," Evans says. "We worked very hard to find alternative opportunities for the performers, and we’re very excited that three of those groups will be performing at alternative venues tonight. However, we’re outraged frankly that the City of New Orleans, in spite of repeated efforts to get information from them, essentially did not return our phone calls or emails for days, and chose to take this action the opening day of the Fringe Festival."
The show will go on at the Fringe however — All of Thursday night’s Marigny Opera House performances will happen as planned in different locations. In addition, organizers have made these performances free of charge.
New locations for Thursday night's shows:
Thursday @ 5 pm, For Sins I Can Remember - at the Old Ironworks
Thursday @ 7 pm Now and At the Hour - at the Hi-Ho Lounge
Thursday @ 9 pm Professor Nakamoto's Nexus of Numbers - at the Hi-Ho Lounge