Squeaky Wheel puts Sarasota on the fringe festival map

In retrospect, it all seems so clear. Sarasota is the perfect location for a fringe festival. 

But last year it seemed as if festival founder Megan Radish was taking a big risk by launching the Squeaky Wheel Fringe festival, which ran from June 8-9 at the Jane B. Cook Theatre at the FSU Center for the Performing Arts.

Was Florida's Cultural Coast ready for a festival of weird, wacky and wonderful performances bound to offend somebody in the audience? Indeed, it was.

"It went very well," says Radish, commenting on Squeaky Wheel's first fringe festival. "We had 12 applicants for nine slots. We made over $5,000 that went back to the artists. We like to keep the money in the community."

This year, Radish had 20 submissions for the same number of slots. The fringe fest is back at the Cook Theatre this year from June 4-9.

On the audience front, Squeaky Wheel attracted 450 attendees, Radish says. Each performer or troupe gets two shows and the audience determines the festival's winner, who gets a third show.

If you're not familiar with fringe festivals, here's a little background. The concept got its start in 1947, in Edinburgh, Scotland. The Edinburgh Fringe Festival is still going strong and is considered the granddaddy of fringe. (In the world of fringe, the word is used interchangeably as an adjective and a noun.)

Most fringe festivals follow Edinburgh's model and use a lottery system, but some, like Sarasota's Squeaky Wheel, are curated. Be warned, they are mostly aimed at adults and often have themes outside the boundaries of conventional good taste or political correctness. Hence the term "fringe."

"Fringe is some of the best stuff you will ever see and some of the worst," says fringe festival veteran Keith Alessi, who is coming to Sarasota for this year's fest with "Tomatoes Tried to Kill Me But Banjos Saved My Life."

Radish said after last year's festival, many performers in the community came up to her and said, "I wish I had known." 

Slowly but surely the word is spreading. Part of the reason for the low profile is that Squeaky Wheel doesn't have a marketing budget per se. It does have a robust website that is much improved from last year.

All artists in the festival are responsible for their own marketing, producing their own shows and determining their ticket prices. All of the artists keep the money they raise from selling tickets, which start as low as $6.50.

Last year, Radish sold Squeaky Wheel Fringe Festival buttons to cover the cost of renting the Cook Theatre and other expenses. All festival employees, including Radish, are volunteers. 

Ditching the buttons

Radish has a day job but a decade of theater experience. Before founding the nonprofit Squeaky Wheel Theatre Group in 2020, she worked in regional theater, in a variety of roles at venues ranging from the Ogonquit Playhouse in Maine to the Utah Festival Opera.

According to Radish, last year's button scheme didn't quite work out. Ushers were reluctant to deny admission to a patron who showed up at the last minute with a ticket but no festival button. 

This year, Radish has solved the problem by tacking a $3.50 festival fee onto each ticket sale. There is also a platform fee of $2 or $3, depending on the ticket.

If you're not sure fringe is for you, you can find out by attending Squeaky Wheel's free Fringe Teaser performance on June 4. That show is a sampler of what's ahead at the Cook Theatre over the following days. 

The Squeaky Wheel teaser brings to mind the 1994 movie "Forrest Gump," where Forrest's mom (Sally Field) famously told her son (Tom Hanks), "Life is like a box of chocolates, you never know what you're going to get." The same could be said of a fringe festival.

The teaser is designed to reduce unpleasant surprises like strawberry creams. And, of course, there is a program outlining the festival's acts to give potential patrons an idea of what's in store for them. 

More than half of the fringe fest shows (five out of nine) feature local artists. Some are familiar names and faces to theatergoers in town. 

Courtesy image

Leah Verier-Dunn, artistic director of Moving Ethos Dance, is one-half of the team that staged "Florida Woman" in the Historic Asolo Theatre as part of The Ringling's Art of Performance series. Her partner was Rosie Herrera of Miami. Dunn is bringing a piece called "I'm Fine" to Squeaky Wheel Fringe.

Amanda Heisey Finnerty, who performs in Sarasota's Hardheart Burlesque at McCurdy's Comedy Club and other locations under the stage name Karma Kandlewick, will be repping burlesque at the festival with "Arthurian: The Knights of the Round Table, and Other Furniture. A Burlesque."

Scott Keys, the retired chair of the theater program of Booker High School, was part of Squeaky Wheel's inaugural fest last year with a show called "The Sequestered Jester." Keys is back this year with "Tea and Armageddon." No doubt, he's directed a few student productions of the classic play "Tea and Sympathy" during his career.