SF State Fringe Festival adapts to shelter-in-place, moves online for first time
By Jamie Oppenheim, SF State News
School of Theatre and Dance rolls out student plays online throughout May
For 25 years, San Francisco State University’s School of Theatre and Dance has produced the Fringe Festival, featuring original short plays written, directed and acted by students. But in true dramatic fashion, the COVID-19 global pandemic threatened to cancel the 2020 show. For a short while, Fringe Fest was scrapped. But then a graduate student playwright, along with Theatre Arts Professor Roy Conboy, decided the show must go on.
Creative Writing graduate student Ali Littman wrote “Marla,” her first-ever play about a real-life friend who was killed in a terrorist bombing in Israel. She hoped to stage it at Fringe Fest this spring. When she heard the show was canceled, she was heartbroken, fearing this could be her only chance to stage her show. So, she and Conboy hatched a plan to save the festival by debuting the productions online.