Why was there a Memphis FRINGE?
Voices of the South started when co-founders Alice Berry and Jenny Madden prepared a theatre piece to take to the International Fringe Festival in Edinburgh, Scotland in 1996 and 1997. The Fringe was the inspiration and catalyst for Voices of the South and its 30-year history of touring the world and building a strong foundation in the Memphis Theatre Community. In founding the Memphis FRINGE Festival, Voices of the South aimed to give artists the same opportunity to create and perform.
Now in its third decade, Voices of the South has expanded its mission, starting up the Writers' Cabaret, hosting play readings and emerging fiction practically monthly.
Why was there a Memphis FRINGE?
Voices of the South started when co-founders Alice Berry and Jenny Madden prepared a theatre piece to take to the International Fringe Festival in Edinburgh, Scotland in 1996 and 1997. The Fringe was the inspiration and catalyst for Voices of the South and its 30-year history of touring the world and building a strong foundation in the Memphis Theatre Community. In founding the Memphis FRINGE Festival, Voices of the South aimed to give artists the same opportunity to create and perform.
Now in its third decade, Voices of the South has expanded its mission, starting up the Writers' Cabaret, hosting play readings and emerging fiction practically monthly.
Why was there a Memphis FRINGE?
Voices of the South started when co-founders Alice Berry and Jenny Madden prepared a theatre piece to take to the International Fringe Festival in Edinburgh, Scotland in 1996 and 1997. The Fringe was the inspiration and catalyst for Voices of the South and its 30-year history of touring the world and building a strong foundation in the Memphis Theatre Community. In founding the Memphis FRINGE Festival, Voices of the South aimed to give artists the same opportunity to create and perform.
Now in its third decade, Voices of the South has expanded its mission, starting up the Writers' Cabaret, hosting play readings and emerging fiction practically monthly.
One of our own won!
Keegon Schuett, a Voices of the South Writers' Workshop member, won the Yale Drama Prize in 2024. Since 2020, 15 dedicated writers have met weekly to hone their craft. Several members of Voices Writers' Workshop attended the ceremony and reading in person or in spirit. We can only kvell (Yiddish for feel immensely proud at another's accomplishment).
“In this time of immense political and social upheaval when it feels as though hopelessness is a cloud that hangs heavy over all our interactions, this dry spell hit me like a cleansing rain,” said Harris, in his second year as the competition judge.“With its simple yet deeply poetic love story I found myself swept up in ways plays once did for me as I was first discovering the dramas that made me want to act and write for the theatre. It also felt like a brazenly assured work in a season that brought to me some of the most accomplished new plays I’ve read since taking on this post.”
--Jeremy O. Harris, Playwright and Yale Drama Prize Judge
As part of The Artistic Congress, Long Wharf Theatre in partnership with the Yale Schwarzman Center, presented a world premiere professional staged reading and hosted a conversation between Keegon and Yale School of Drama Prof. and Long Wharf Theatre Artistic Director, Jacob G. Padrón.
During his remarks on the value of Keegon's play, this dry spell, John Donatich, director of Yale University Press, referred to "Schopenhauer's Porcupine," Edward Albee, Tony Kushner, Greek mythology, and more.
Rachel Fine, Yale Schwarzman Center’s executive director; Keegan Schuett, Voices of the South’s own(!); Francine Horn, director of the David Charles Horn Foundation with her pet; and John Donatich, director of Yale University Press.
Keegon Schuett, along with their sister, Meredith, and their mother, watches the staged reading of this dry spell, as Voices of the South's Artistic Director, Professor Alice Rainey Berry, performs.
