Creating Collective Identity: Geek Theatre, Fringe Festivals, and Fan Audiences

Abstract

Fringe Festivals and Geek Theatre share a plethora of affinities: both have penchants for generating offbeat and experimental theatre as labors of love on shoestring budgets, attracting quirky subcultural audiences made up of theatregoers and newcomers alike, and creating a sense of community based on values of egalitarian access to self-expression. Geek Theatre manifests in an intersection between the affinity spaces of fandom and the live experience of staged theatre, facilitating a uniquely community-based affective experience in which artists and audiences share a common language and love for the geeky genres of their subject matter. The history of Geek Theatre is embedded in Fringe culture, which I argue is the perfect incubator for its campy aesthetic and dialogic relationship between production and fan audience.