THURSDAY PICK | Minnesota Fringe Festival blankets the Twin Cities in performing arts

Individually, the shows are perforce modest: a one-man Hunger Games parody, a quick riff on Shakespeare, a dirty-song cabaret. But in total, the Minnesota Fringe Festival has become the most important thing to happen to the local theater scene since the 1978 founding of Theatre de la Jeune Lune. A generation of performing artists have now come up through the Fringe, going on to found their own companies and make lasting marks.

As in previous years, the Daily Planet will be dispatching our several Fringe bloggers to cover the Fringe's 165 shows as best they can. I'll be doing less blogging myself this year, since I'll have my own show in the Fringe. Gulp! The capable Morgan Halaska will be stepping up, though, to add her voice to our happy cacophony.

Coverage of issues and events affecting Central Corridor communities is funded in part by a grant from the Central Corridor Funders Collaborative.