Grab the highlighters, open the calendar, and clear the schedule, for the festival season is officially in full swing. In the next couple of weeks, the Hollywood Fringe Festival will have you sprinting in between venues for back-to-back shows, while planning a weekend marathon of regional indie theater will take up the better part of your remaining free time.
Attending with a group is great and all, but finding friends whose schedules and tastes perfectly align with a packed festival matrix is nearly impossible. To conquer a massive day of independent theater like a true pro, you’ll need to master the distinct logistics of the solo binge. Flying solo is often the only way to catch everything on the wishlist.
Here is how to handle the marathon and keep your energy up from the first matinee to the midnight curtain call, including why going solo is the best decision this season.
1. Handle the Gaps Between Shows
The toughest part of a solo marathon is dealing with the 45-minute gaps between different showtimes (particularly if the show is good). Walking out of a heavy, intense performance leaves you with a lot to process, but suddenly you are standing in a loud venue lobby full of theater groups talking over each other (and probably not listening to one another).
Not sure what to do, you naturally whip the phone out. Now what? Instead of pacing around the room or staring at your phone to look busy, you need a quick way to clear your head before the next ticket drop. To prevent yourself from getting swallowed up in social media feeds or thinking about the next play, try something easier on the brain, like checking the weather or clearing a level of Tri Peaks Solitaire, for instance
By focusing on a simple routine or a fast card game, you give your brain a break from the constant crowd noise but don’t drift away from the show at hand. It gives your eyes and attention span a chance to rest, so you aren’t already fatigued when the doors open for your next one.
2. Own the Seating Strategy
Group visits have their perks, sure, but showing up to an intimate independent theater venue with a group of three or four people also has a huge disadvantage. It means scrambling at the box office for a contiguous block of seats, which almost always results in the group getting shoved into a back corner or along the far wall of a humid, tightly packed black box space.
Flying solo turns you into a tactical strike team. It becomes easy to slide into that single premium seat right in the dead center of the third row because no one else in the queue could fit there. Having said that, never use solo status as an excuse to hide in the back row to blend into the wallpaper or escape early. Walk right down the steps and get close enough to the stage to see the actors sweat.
What good does it do? Being up close changes how the performance registers. You are in a much better position to take it all in. All of a sudden, it is possible to catch the subtle nuances of facial expressions and physical choices that, sadly, get lost from the cheap seats.
3. Take in the Entire Production
The solo binge allows for little things that are virtually impossible in groups. You don’t waste pre-show energy making small talk, complaining about LA traffic, or debating where to get tacos after the final curtain call. When solo, that pre-show window belongs entirely to taking in the environment.
Open the physical program or scan the digital playbill and read it to understand the world of the show. While at it, look past the main cast bios. See who built the sets and engineered the soundscape. Notice how the small venue utilizes lighting to completely transform a blank stage. Solo time in the seats before the lights go down is the ultimate opportunity to soak in the atmosphere, undisturbed by distractions, setting the stage for total immersion once the performance begins.
4. Skip the Creative Groupthink
The finest benefit of binging independent theater alone is that personal opinions remain entirely, beautifully independent. The scenario is universal: a challenging new play ends, the house lights come up, and a friend turns and says that the production was an absolute masterpiece.
When binging solo, there is no need to negotiate personal taste with a single soul. If a piece brings inspiration that everyone else seemed confused by, that feeling remains undisturbed.
If a highly praised script completely missed the mark, the flaws can be analyzed without a debate over a loud, distracting restaurant table. The process teaches what actually resonates, not what a social circle dictates.
The Final Bow
At the end of the day, you don’t need a companion to help you digest a piece of live art. Waiting around for someone else’s schedule to clear or trying to force a friend to sit through a niche three-show lineup usually means you end up missing out on the best parts of festival season entirely.
The best way to experience independent theater is to let it hit you directly, without any outside noise. So throw out the hesitation about walking into a theater solo. Or better yet, test it out. Pick three or four diverse shows for this Hollywood Fringe Festival, buy the single tickets, and go test your stamina. See you in the lobby.