The Rockwell Hosts Massachusetts' First Fringe Festival
- Bradley Babendir
- May 30
- 6 min read
Updated: Jun 10
For Deby Xiadani and Anton Monteleone, founders of the first-ever Boston Fringe Festival, it started with a simple question: why not here?
Monteleone, who lives in Boston and has performed and taught at Improv Asylum and Union Comedy on top of his work as a digital marketer, said he has always been a fan of fringe theater. “I loved going to New York and Chicago and L.A. and seeing all these weird, interesting, unique, one-of-a-kind shows. And I've always wanted to find a home for that in Boston.”
Xiadani, a Cambridge native, experienced the power of a Fringe Festival from the stage. Directing a solo artist's clown show at PortFringe in Maine and Frigid in New York City was an inspiring experience for her. “The opportunity to tune up shows throughout a festival in a short amount of time was so helpful for our creative process,” she said of her fringe debut.
What's a fringe festival?
It has been over 75 years since the first Fringe Festival—then called Festival Adjuncts—was held in 1947 in Edinburgh, Scotland. The event was organized by a handful of theater companies who had been excluded from the Edinburgh International Festival. From the start, the bedrock principle was that everyone was welcome. There would be no gatekeepers and no juries.
As the Edinburgh Festival Fringe grew increasingly popular, the spirit spread to small theaters above pubs in London and off-off-off-Broadway houses in New York and beyond. The festivals are a home for weird and unique performers to learn, grow, and find an audience.
Xiadani and Monteleone thought it was time for Massachusetts to throw open its doors.
Planning the state's first fringe festival
When the pair met last summer, they bonded over their shared love of Fringe and sat down for a three-hour meeting to see if a festival in Somerville was possible. Xiadani is the artistic director for The Rockwell in Davis Square, and the venue had a week open for booking in May. The date worked because it did not compete with events happening in New York and Maine in April and June, respectively.
They decided the festival would have ten 45–50-minute slots and ten 25–30-minute slots. Their selection process was based on the Canadian Association of Fringe Festival guidelines. There was no jury and no exclusionary criteria. Half the shows gained acceptance on a first-come, first-served basis and the other half were accepted via a random lottery.
Another essential piece of the Fringe Festival ethos is affordability for all performers and audiences. Acts pay submission and production fees and then receive all ticket proceeds.
They landed on a $30 submission fee, $200 production fee for the 30-minute slots, $400 production fee for the 50-minute slots, $15 individual show tickets, and $75 festival passes.
With this, the foundation of Massachusetts’ first true Fringe Festival was in place. Xiadani noted that other festivals—like Boston University’s Fringe Festivals—have adopted the moniker but do not meet CAFF’s guidelines because they restrict who can perform.
The submission portal opened on December 15, 2024, at 12 p.m. and, according to Monteleone, it flooded with nearly 50 submissions in the first 15 minutes.
The performances
The festival ran from May 5-11 in The Rockwell’s subterranean theater. Each full-length show ran three times throughout the week, and the shorter shows ran twice in paired hours on Saturday and Sunday.
One hallmark of a good Fringe Festival is variety and Boston’s inaugural event was no exception. Performances included a dance murder mystery called Facts & Figures; a musical maritime folktale called The Wrath of the Selkie; and Miss Route 1, a mock beauty pageant performed by Xiadani.
A world-bending comedy
SOME caught three full-length shows. The first was “Jackie & Allison into the Multiverse,” written and performed by Jackie Skinner and Allison Villaseñor. The show, which had already won Best Comedy at New York City Fringe by the time it arrived in Boston, follows the duo as they flee the responsibilities of their dull desk jobs to the wild ups and downs of other possible and impossible worlds. Dressed as a pair of Italian chefs, they mime basketball with the audience. Dressed as a mid-century private eye, Villaseñor hits the mozzarella cheese a little too hard. Skinner and Villaseñor’s energy, chemistry, and commitment grounds their performance as the show rollicks through absurd sketches.
A cast wearing many hats
Later that same day was Spiritual Advisors, a collection of four short plays written and directed by members of Boston’s Asian-American Playwright Collective. Five actors—Karla Goo Lang, Chantha Luk, Noli French, Vivian Liu-Somers, and Ash Quasney-Sandler—performed all roles across the four plays, each appearing in two. As the name suggests, each show in the tetralogy is organized around an encounter with the guiding hand of an outside force.
A relatable reflection on daily life with a dramatic twist
The show opened with “Luz & Urduja,” written by Michelle M. Aguillon and directed by Jenny S. Lee. Luz (Goo Lang) is a divorced mother with an (unseen) deadbeat ex-husband struggling to balance her responsibilities as a parent with her desire for a social life. She is visited by a vision Urduja (French), an ancient legendary warrior and Filipino heroine, who helps her navigate modern challenges while trying to get her daughter Maya (Quasney-Sandler) off to school. Goo Lang’s performance, which weaves through frustration, triumph, disappointment, and acceptance, gives the show a solid emotional center of gravity.
A romance
Second was “Madam Tiffani, The Minor Arcane” written by Michael Lin and directed by Violet Villanueva. In this charming play, Andi (Liu-Somers) and Ducky (Luk) sit down at Madam Tiffani’s (Quasney-Sandler) tarot table. The easy setup—Andi is a believer, Ducky is a skeptic—flips as it becomes clear that Ducky’s weariness cannot protect him from Tiffani and Andi’s scheme to get him to admit his true feelings for Andi. It’s a funny, sweet, and well-paced snippet of theater.
A college admissions scandal?
Third was “Deadline,” written by Jamie Lin and directed by Villanueva. Here, Cassie (French), a high school student struggling with her college essays, is visited by the spirit of Lao Shu (Liu-Somers) who tries to help her get back on track. Lao Shu endeavors to guide her toward a useful experience from her past. This show felt more hampered by the tight runtime and the frenetic pace of the Fringe Festival, as 10 minutes did not feel long enough to tease out the emotional significance of this particular moment and the performance suffered from the actors stumbling over their lines.
A comedic nightmare
The closer was “Whose Dream is it Anyway?” written by Liu-Somers and directed by Villanueva. Tina (Goo Lang) is visited in her dreams by the aptly named Dream Fairy (Luk). Tina expects to live out her dream of working as a professional singer but when it is time to perform, she cannot make any noise. It is a straightforward and humorous premise performed with aplomb by its starring pair, overcoming its barebones set which required using a handful of chairs with a blanket as a stand-in for a bed.
Reflections on dating
The last show SOME caught was “Fidget. Spinster.” written and performed by Amma Marfo. Part stand-up show, part TED Talk, Marfo explored the difficulties of modern dating and the joys of single life. Her performance is assured, and the show is cleverly organized. This allows her to oscillate between presenting research about racism from potential partners and a story about her parasocial relationships with Instacart shoppers with ease.
A smooth run of show
Both Monteleone and Xiadani said that the festival ran smoothly. They were particularly excited by the community that the event fostered.
Xiadani said that performers seemed to be mingling well throughout the festival. “It felt very friendly and warm … I was really delighted by that—that it felt like a little community by the end of the week.”
This was not just true for the performers, either.
“I would go to people who came to double-digit shows and I would talk to them and say, do you know any of the performers? Have you heard of anybody? And they said, ‘not one. I just love what you're doing and I want to see all these shows and I want to be a part of it,’” Monteleone said.
What's next
Neither founder is resting on their laurels. They are planning to expand the festival in future years.
“We love the idea of incorporating local businesses, local storefronts. This hair salon is now doing a standup show. And Dragon Pizza has an opera going on inside at 7 p.m.,” Monteleone said. “I would love to have visual media here as well. Videos and movies would be great. Paintings, sculptures.”
“We would love to be able to accept more people,” Xiadani said. She reminisced about the energy at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, with performances on every corner and a future where it felt like “an entire neighborhood fringe festival.” She also said they might consider expanding it to include areas of Cambridge and Boston.
But they are not getting ahead of themselves.
“I’m certainly going to cherish this because it won't be the same next year. This was the first time we did it all,” Xiadani said. We created it. We'll pivot and change it. But I don't think anything will ever feel this way, where you're
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