Frigid Festival Makes A Triumphant Return To East Village Theatres

The FRIGID Festival, an uncensored indie theatre event that takes place in New York City’s East Village, returns for its 16th year with performances at both The Kraine Theater and UNDER St. Marks from February 16th through March 6th. Proof of vaccination is required for all in-person audience members, and virtual streaming will also be offered. Founded in 1998, FRIGID aims to form a structure to allow a diverse group of artists to create and perform new work. They provide affordable rental space to independent theatre artists to create true downtown New York theatre. FRIGID offers monthly programming, mainstage productions, artist residencies and seven annual theatre festivals that promote innovation and collaboration. The FRIGID Festival was born in 2006, after being accepted into the Canadian Association of Fringe Festivals. It represents a unique offering in a city so well known for its dynamic theatre offerings in that 100% of the proceeds go directly back to the performers. There is no censoring of the work performed in the Festival, and that includes no limitations on the playwright’s style, content or form. Among the 27 pieces offered in this year’s festival, topics include a play performed completely in the dark, improvised Shakespeare, mental health, breakups, funerals and heartfelt memories of Disneyland.

I spoke with Erez Ziv, Managing Artistic Director of FRIGID New York, about the experience of completely returning to the festival after two years due to the pandemic. We also discussed how the theatres have been forced to pivot to keep their audience members safe and the unique way that the eclectic lineup for this Festival is selected.

Risa Sarachan: What makes you most excited about this year’s FRIGID Festival?

Erez Ziv: I am super excited about finally having a large scale festival in the space again after being next to closed for the past two years. COVID-19 started hitting us in the middle of this festival two years ago. It will be a very emotional closing party this year as we close out a hopefully successful Festival the same week we mark the two-year anniversary of lockdown.

Besides that, I am super excited to have Theater Group Gumbo here with us from Japan. I have been hearing great things about this company from Fringe festivals around North America for a number of seasons now. I am honored that they are taking a chance on us here in New York City, a notoriously difficult town for out-of-town shows, especially during this very uncertain year.

Sarachan: I know under St. Marks is a tight (but magical) space. Have you had to pivot to keep things safe for performers and audience members during the pandemic?

Ziv: We have been living on a pivot point for two years now. It’s a very interesting and surprisingly liberating place to exist! We installed a new HVAC system at Under St. Marks, pulling in a great deal of fresh air into the space and sending all recycled air through a Merv13 filter. We are limiting seating capacity to 50% in-person and hoping to balance things out with viewing capacity online. Since this fall, 20% of all our ticket sales have been from streaming viewers, which has been very helpful. We are not operating the bar during the festival, and the audience will be required to be fully masked.

Saddest of all, we have canceled all but our closing night party. Here at FRIGID, we normally go out of our way to create a very social festival. We want to make sure that our artists get to know each other and they can create bonds that will follow them through the rest of the summer Fringe festival circuit in North America, Edinburgh and beyond. This year, we have to minimize cross-contamination at the expense of cross-pollination, and this is a sad aspect of doing a festival in these troubled waters.

Sarachan: What do you look for when selecting pieces for this Festival?

Ziv: FRIGID Festival, like all CAFF member festivals, lets the fates select the pieces for the festival. Shows are accepted into the festival by a combination of 1st come, 1st served and a lottery. FRIGID New York curates a full season of shows, residents, festivals, etc., but the FRIGID Festival is the one time a year we leave it up to greater powers and let the cards land where they may. Historically this has been a great way for us to meet amazing new talent to work with. We have pulled artists from this festival into our Resident Artist program, our ongoing Monthly programming, into our other festivals, and our general season of programming. This fall’s Broadway hit Thoughts of a Colored Man had its New York premiere at our FRIGID Festival a couple of years ago!

Ticket for the FRIGID Festival can be purchased here.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.