Hollywood Fringe, Honestly Jonah Weiland Coffee Date Jonah Weiland

You’re thinking about mounting a show at the Hollywood Fringe Festival? Great, do it. After three years producing shows, two years performing in them and one year as a playwright, I’ve learned a few things and I want to share them.

The Hollywood Fringe Festival is part arts festival, part community. Community is something you contribute to, not just take from. As someone who loves this community, it’s time to give some of what I’ve learned back.

What I share below is my experience – this isn’t the way it should be done, but one way it has been done. My experience and observations of the festival are mine alone and may not fully apply to your production or situation. These are suggestions, not rules.

I’m also open to feedback and questions. Feel free to leave a comment or drop me an e-mail directly with any questions you may have about producing a show at the Hollywood Fringe. I love talking about it.

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How Can I Get My Show Into the Hollywood Fringe

Hollywood Fringe Festival Some Fringe festivals operate as lotteries or are invite-only. Hollywood Fringe is pay-to-play. Have an idea, rent a theater, hire a crew, register with the festival. That’s it.

If you’ve got the money and the time, you can have a show at Hollywood Fringe. It’s that simple.

Will I Make Money

The answer is unlikely, but it depends.

Let’s start with economics, because whether you like it or not, you need money to mount a show. This advice assumes you already live in Los Angeles, so your fixed costs of living are accounted for.

Depending on how you produce your show, you’ll be lucky to break even. It can happen. Consider a Fringe show an investment in yourself rather than a potential loss of money, but let’s talk specifics.

How many people does it take to get your show off the ground? A tech-easy, one-person show you wrote, performed and marketed yourself keeps costs low. But a four-hander like my last show, COFFEE DATE, needing a director, assistant director, producer, production designer, graphic designer and a paid cast for every rehearsal hour, does not come cheap.

Most people at the Fringe work for free. Nothing wrong with that, but it affects the final product. How much will your team invest if they’re not paid? And if they’re not paid, are you appreciating them enough? Finding that balance is key to a successful production.

My first show, I’LL BE WITH YOU IN A MINUTE, I was a happily unpaid producer. My friend Natalie asked me to produce it. I had the time and wanted to work with her and learn the process. I’m glad I did. It brought us closer and I discovered Fringe was something I wanted in my life. Natalie lost money on the show, but gained invaluable acting and writing experience and donated half the proceeds to charity. The rewards were there, just not financial.

My second production, STUCK, was different. I was a performer & executive producer and paid for the production. The actors (myself and Sam Ciavarella) and the playwright (Brandon Ciavarella) worked unpaid, but the director, sound designer, production assistant and third actor were paid. Marketing and design fell entirely to me. We recouped about 65% of our costs.

My third production, COFFEE DATE, was a big step up. I was executive producer, writer and one of four performers. I didn’t take pay, but I own the project. Everyone else got paid, though less than they were worth. I hired a dramaturg for five months, then a director, producer, assistant director, three more cast members, a sound designer, production designer, photographer, videographer and graphic designer and had materials printed by four different companies. Outside our production intern, every team member got paid, including actors at LA minimum wage for every rehearsal hour, a rarity at Fringe. Costs were high, but I could absorb them and chose to see them as an investment in the people I wanted to work with and in myself. I recouped just over half the overall cost, on a budget twice the size of STUCK’s.

I could have skimped. Not paying actors by the hour, printing fewer mugs, doing the design myself, skipping the assistant director who turned out to be invaluable, producing it myself. The show and I would have suffered for it (producing this myself would not have been a sane choice). This was my first outing as a playwright, and I wanted to give it the best chance to succeed. I’m glad I did.

The show was nominated for Best Comedic Theatre.

These are my experiences, but I’ve talked to plenty of other Fringers, and the refrain is constant: I didn’t make any money. Some losses run 10 to 20 percent. Others run higher than mine.

One mistake new producers make is overestimating ticket sales and forgetting to account for the discount and comp tickets they’ll hand out. Your first goal at Fringe, after mounting the show itself, is getting people in seats. Offer discounts. Give away tickets to fellow Fringers, friends and industry folks. Being stingy with tickets tends to backfire.

Here’s the math that doesn’t work: a 50-seat theater costs $2,000 for five shows, tickets are $20 each, so a sold-out run means $5,000 in revenue and $3,000 in profit. That’s not going to happen. Even the most successful shows at Fringe, the ones with a following and an award or two, don’t sell every seat at full price. They comp friends, press and industry. They offer participant discounts. And some shows simply won’t sell out, whether the marketing didn’t land or 11 p.m. on a Wednesday is a hard sell no matter how good the show is.

You will lose money. Treat it as an investment in yourself and be open to what it brings. Three years at Fringe have given me friendships and opportunities I couldn’t have imagined, and taught me more about myself than almost anything else I’ve done. What you lose financially, you make up in personal gain. It might be worth more than an acting class. Keep taking those, too.

Pricing, Discounts & Comp Tickets

Build your budget first: the maximum you can spend, the maximum you’re willing to lose. Then price accordingly.

For a 60 to 90 minute production, here’s what years of going to Fringe shows have taught me:

Solo show: $10 to $15
Two-person show: $15 to $20
Three or more: $15 to $25

These numbers come from what’s worked for my shows and what I’ve seen sell at others, adjust for your own market.

Remember the Fringe adds a $3 fee to every ticket sold through their site (more if the ticket is over $25), so that’s the real cost to your audience. For COFFEE DATE, I priced regular seats at $22 and on-stage seats at $35, which included a limited-edition coffee mug. It worked because we built added value into those seats beyond proximity to the action. Past $25 you’re asking a lot of your audience.

For shorter shows, 30 to 45 minutes, go pay-what-you-can or cap it at $15, with $10 as the sweet spot.

Offer discounts. Every team member got a personalized $5-off code to share. Close friends got deeper discounts or free tickets. Don’t expect to sell most tickets at full price. Your goal is getting people in the room, not making money off your friends.

Offer comps. I believe every Fringe participant should get a free ticket, though larger venues make this easier than small ones. Fill the big rooms. Be more selective in the small ones.

If comps aren’t realistic, offer a participant discount through your ticketing portal, available to anyone registered in another Fringe show. I cut the price in half for COFFEE DATE. Next time I’ll make it pay-what-you-can with a suggested $5. I’ll still comp fellow Fringers who ask, but some prefer to pay something.

Price too high, above $20, and people start doing math about whether your show is worth it. $10 to $15 keeps the barrier low. Everyone at Fringe is investing money and a lot of sweat equity, and asking their audience to take a chance on them. A discount or a free ticket makes that choice easier.

Choose Your Theater Wisely

As Hollywood Fringe has grown, so has the list of available theaters and the festival’s geographic borders. If your venue sits at the edge of that area, it can affect whether your audience makes it to your show.

The view of the COFFEE DATE set from the on stage seating we created at the Broadwater Main Stage.

This is one person’s opinion, but I’d call these three the center of the Fringe galaxy: The Broadwater, The Hudson Theatre and The Actor’s Company. That’s where I saw most shows over the last three Fringes. Regular but smaller players include The Three of Clubs (walking distance from the Broadwater), Upstairs at El Centro, LGBT Center, Hobgoblin Playhouse (new location in 2026), Thymele Arts (a great location for rehearsal space rental) and Zephyr Theatre, along with plenty of others that have been part of the festival for years.

Tour your options in advance. I know people who chose a theater on price alone, or whatever time slot the venue offered. This year I saw shows staged in classrooms, in the lobby of a larger complex, in a converted conference room and, memorably, inside a wig shop on Hollywood Blvd. Some of these worked (the wig shop really did) and some didn’t. It depended entirely on the show.

Find the theater that fits your production. Do you need a projector, and does it need a screen or can it hit a wall? Smaller stages usually mean simpler lighting rigs, though a few venues offer programmable, movable lights instead of a fixed plot. Do you need isolated light? What about sound: two fixed speakers, or four with programmable output? Are you a one-person show that wants intimacy, or do you need a full stage?

In 2026 I put COFFEE DATE, a four-hander, on the Broadwater Main Stage. The larger space let us seat the audience inside the coffee shop set with us, and nearly 600 people saw the show over seven performances (comped and paid seats both). STUCK, in 2025, needed something smaller and went into the Broadwater Black Box, where fewer than 250 people saw it over five performances. My first show played the Stephanie Feury Studio Theater, capacity 36.

Sell-outs deserve a second thought. A sold-out run often just means a smaller theater or a short run. A “sold-out run” banner is a nice flex, but if it came from three performances in a 36-seat room, it’s not much of a call to action. Our 46-seat theater for STUCK sold out all five performances in 2025 with roughly 230 people total. Our 100-seat theater in 2026 sold out two of seven performances with over 550 people total. I’d rather more people see my work than post a sold-out banner.

Ask a lot of questions before you book. Load-in and load-out times. Whether you can store set pieces on site. How strictly they hold start and end times (they should, loose timing throws off your audience’s schedule). What parking looks like nearby, since it affects whether people arrive on time if you don’t allow late seating. And whether the rental includes general liability insurance or if you’ll need your own. Some theaters add you to their policy, others require separate event insurance (ask your theater for vendor recommendations), which typically runs $100 to $150 for a 99-seat theater or smaller.

Then think through tech. Most theaters give you two, two-hour technical sessions with a stage manager for a one-hour show, and that time disappears fast even for a show with modest tech needs. Two things will save you hours:

Come in with a fully marked-up script and cues ready for the stage manager. Ask ahead of time if they want a specific format.
Build your QLab file in advance if you can. Your stage manager should only need to learn when to trigger each cue.

The entire set for STUCK was gaffe tape, but we spent a lot of time that first tech figuring out where in the theater it would go and how to easily recreate that every show. In the Broadwater Black Box we had only 15 minutes of load-in time.

Across three shows, our tech needs looked different every time. I’LL BE WITH YOU IN A MINUTE ran a full cue-to-cue in our first two-hour tech, building the sound file on the fly (a QLab file ready in advance would have saved real time), then used the second session for a stop-and-start dress. STUCK spent its first tech on set placement and cues, spent the first hour of its second refining that work, then got a full dress rehearsal in, helped by a 47-minute runtime. COFFEE DATE needed more: our two included techs, plus four extra hours without a stage manager to fine-tune the set and run the whole show in the space, plus two more hours for an invited dress rehearsal. That invited dress mattered. Judges and reviewers often catch preview performances and our first public show was far stronger for having a real dress rehearsal behind it instead of treating the first preview as one. It cost extra, so budget for it if you can.

Some theaters include a stage manager with your rental and require you to use them. Others expect you to hire your own. Factor that into your choice and your costs: do you need someone embedded with your production, or is a Fringe-assigned stage manager enough?

I can vouch for the professionalism of The Broadwater. Every stage manager I’ve worked with there has been excellent, and the team bends over backwards to help your show succeed, though they won’t do the work for you. Be good to them and they’ll be good to you.

Start touring theaters a year out. Use what inspired you at the previous year’s Fringe as a starting point, learn what each venue can technically do, compare prices, then match it to what your production actually needs. The Broadwater may be the most popular complex at the festival, but that doesn’t make it the right fit for your show.

Timelines

This is one area where you’ll need to nail down your own deadlines, but here’s a rough calendar that’s worked for me.

December: Start touring theaters. Most venues don’t begin booking until January, but touring early lets you get your request in first. There are 450+ shows competing for space, especially at the top venues, so book as early as you can for the best time slots.

January/February: Choose and book your theater, and request your dates. Not every theater opens booking this early, so check each venue’s own timeline.

Sometime in April: Fringe registration closes. Know the exact date and pay your fees before it. You can book your theater before paying your Fringe fees.

May 1: Ticket sales go live. This is when your marketing push should really begin, ramping up week to week through early June. I see people announce their shows in February or March, which feels premature to me. Tease it if you want, but save your announcements, cast reveals and calls to action for the window between May and opening.

Script development doesn’t follow a set calendar the way the above does. I’LL BE WITH YOU IN A MINUTE developed over almost a year. STUCK came together in barely two months. COFFEE DATE started ten months earlier and wasn’t locked until three weeks before our first performance.

I’ve heard of shows going from concept to stage in 30 days. Fringe is a place to experiment and a lot of shows are workshops rather than finished product. Get your show to a place you’re comfortable sharing, then share it. Don’t wait for perfect.

Contracts and Paying Your Team

Most Fringe shows run on handshake agreements. Most don’t pay their cast or crew, though some offer a cut of any profits instead. That’s entirely within the spirit of the festival, and I’ve worked for free, or close to it, more than a few times myself.

For COFFEE DATE, I wanted to run the production like an Equity show, even though I’m not a union member. Every team member got paid, aside from a few volunteers who helped with set-up and strike, and everyone signed a basic contract.

That contract covered pay rate, timing and method, a code of conduct, the full schedule of shows and tech and dress rehearsals, expected rehearsal hours (a 30 to 50 hour range for two of our actors, 40 to 60 for a third), and each person’s listed conflicts. It spelled out each participant’s duties, the length of the agreement, what would happen in the case of an extension or remount, that this was a non-union production, who owned the intellectual property, basic conduct expectations, the production’s responsibility for personal property, the governing jurisdiction (Los Angeles County and California) and who had final say on production matters.

Because everything was spelled out, there were few questions from the team, and it helped me too. I knew exactly which days I owed payments, how they preferred to receive that payment, all their contact information and which days people weren’t available. It was a simple four-page document customized for our needs with some suggestions from AI and a lawyer friend.

Following Actor’s Equity Association standards, I think COFFEE DATE was one of the more professionally run productions I’ve been part of. But budget and need vary show to show. Figure out what you can afford and who you actually need.

Casting Your Show

Most Fringe productions cast through friends and existing networks, though not always.

For COFFEE DATE, I invited actors to our first private reading of draft five. One of them, Spencer Weitzel, nailed the role so clearly that I offered him the role of Roger within a week. Julia Christgau read for Tizzy at that same reading, then told me she was pregnant and thus couldn’t act in the show, but was interested in directing. She became our second hire.

We still needed Tizzy and Laura, so we mixed friend auditions with an open casting notice on Actors Access, listing pay, dates, character breakdowns and our self-tape and callback timeline.

Here’s where it got wild:

Laura (F, 40-49, any ethnicity): 87 submissions, 23 self-tapes requested, 13 received
Tizzy (F, 35-42, any ethnicity): 193 submissions, 32 self-tapes requested, 11 received

From there we brought in 19 for in-person callbacks, plus 9 more the team already knew personally, for 28 total auditions (two cancelled on the day of). We ultimately cast Stephanie and Lenka. Humbling as an actor to see those numbers, overwhelming as a producer to sort through them. We saw a lot of talent, and choosing between strong options, for reasons sometimes outside anyone’s control, was hard.

We didn’t have a casting director. Between myself, director Julia Christgau and producer Lexi Sloan, we had three people with a sharp eye for talent and we found the right actors for both roles.

Be a Part of the Community

Hollywood Fringe runs on its community as much as its stage time. Weekly “Office Hours” meetings put you face to face with other Fringers, pitching shows, trading comps and meeting fellow artists. Go to as many as you can. Networking is the backbone of building relationships here.

Be authentic. Don’t work a room just to fill seats, though you’ll see people try. Go to shows that genuinely interest you, whether for the subject matter or the person who told you about them. Take chances on unfamiliar work.

I met a young playwright at the 2025 Fringe whose pitch and title hooked me. I took a chance, was blown away by the show, and made a friend. She attended the private reading of COFFEE DATE and gave outstanding, useful feedback, and in 2026 I watched a play written by one of her cast members from that 2025 show. You never know what a random show will bring.

I get social anxiety at these events too. After three years, I’ve learned most other people in the room feel the same way. Ask questions, be curious, you’re doing fine.

See as many shows as you can, but protect your health while doing it. Balancing your own production, a day job and everyone else’s shows is exhausting. I made it to 37 shows in 2026 (I’d planned for 46), 32 in 2025 and 12 in 2024. Some people do five performances and see 50 shows. Others do seven performances and see 10. Do what you can, and don’t beat yourself up over the shows you miss. Most Fringers understand, though I’ve met a few who take it personally, worth noting as a red flag. Just be direct. If you book a ticket and can’t make it, let them know so someone else can take the seat.

Show up for your friends. Go to their shows, talk about them online and in person, recommend them from the stage after your own performances. On the COFFEE DATE Instagram, we ran three posts spotlighting shows we loved, including ones in our own award category, without expecting anything in return. Being part of this festival means showing up for other people, not just being shown up for.

Give other Fringers discounts or free tickets when your budget allows. It matters enough that I’ve dedicated a whole section to it above.

A few notes on conduct. Skip review swaps, where two shows agree to see and positively review each other. When someone proposes that to me, it reads as a lack of confidence in their own show. You also don’t owe a review to every show you see. I write about half of what I attend, the ones that moved or inspired me most, and I post them under my name, not anonymously. If you have critical feedback, keep it constructive and rooted in the show’s own intentions, not a rewrite of what you’d have done differently.

After each performance, Fringe automatically emails ticket holders asking for a review, and some producers follow up again 24 hours later. My approach is simpler: mention it once at the end of the performance and let people decide for themselves. They’re already getting a reminder, and if they’re moved, they’ll write something.

Come awards season, most shows post For Your Consideration content and email their audience to vote. Common practice, fair game, but two things to avoid: don’t vote in a category where you’ve only seen one show, unless it’s genuinely great or a close friend’s, and don’t offer to “trade” votes, especially with someone you just met. That’s a fast way to turn people off.

That’s been my approach, anyway. Be supportive, stay curious, and the community tends to give back what you put in.

Marketing and Publicity

Your mileage here depends heavily on your show and your team’s size. Social media is likely your best free and paid option, and there’s real earned media potential too.

Pick one account as your hub, whether a dedicated show account or an existing account with a following. You’ll collaborate with your team on posts, but centralize where most of it lives. I’d heard it’s sometimes better to post from whoever has the biggest following. We tested that and saw no difference in engagement, so we stuck with the main COFFEE DATE account.

Be authentic. Don’t post promo constantly. Mix it up, let your marketing have some personality, and let your tone echo that of your show.

We printed these stickers and they were quite a hit. Saw many people wearing them during the festival.

Try boosting posts on Instagram. It’s cheap to test, narrowly targeted and low commitment, around $10 a day is enough to see if it works for you. In 2025, with STUCK, a $50 spend sold five $20 tickets, paying for itself and putting five strangers in the seats. In 2026, a $200 spend across three posts sold at least two on-stage seats and five more tickets I could track, likely more I couldn’t, since the click rate on our ad was strong.

Most of your marketing will come from earned media: posts, interview requests, flyers. Fewer coffee shops accept flyers than they used to; most don’t want to manage postcards for a business they don’t know. You can ask, but expect fewer yeses than in past years. Skip telephone poles; postering there is illegal in the City of Los Angeles and can carry a fine or worse.

Press coverage is a mixed bag for new shows. With nearly 500 productions competing for attention, major outlets rarely cover Fringe more than once a year, usually only shows with an established following.

I hired a publicist in 2026 as a test. He handled listing submissions and press outreach for $250, and saved me roughly five hours of legwork.

We had five reviewers attend, including one from a local major outlet, but only two published reviews ran. One reviewer’s piece got bumped for breaking news. Another told me in person he loved the show and would publish, but never did. The fifth? No clue. The two reviews that did run were kind, though neither moved the needle that I could measure.

The publicist also landed me one interview, which became a strong Instagram carousel even without a large readership behind it. Worth it for the time saved. Impossible to say if it moved tickets.

Some smaller websites will sell you a listing with a promised review attached. I tried this once with STUCK. What I didn’t realize going in was that the ad package included a guaranteed reviewer visit, and I later learned these outlets tend to run positive coverage regardless of the show’s quality. In the end the reviewer never showed, life got in their way, and the site gave me no reporting on the ad itself. I can’t say the spend did anything for us. I didn’t need a paid review to feel good about the show, and I don’t think you will either.

Of the people I know who landed real press, it moved the needle only slightly on ticket sales. For one friend, it helped him land a manager. For the few who landed larger publications, it was life-changing, though most of those folks had performed at the Fringe before and already had a fan base built.

I’ve twice tested paid ads on the Fringe website itself, in 2024 and 2025. You get impressions and clicks, but no way to tie that back to ticket sales. I skipped it in 2026. I don’t think it does much, though it’s inexpensive and supports the festival directly.

A local Instagram influencer, NOHO NICK, covered our show in 2026. The post didn’t go viral, but a handful of people came because of it and he believed in the work enough to attend himself.

We partnered with CHAOTIC SINGLES PARTY, a like-minded local newsletter and social account, for COFFEE DATE. No money changed hands, just cross-promotion. Good visibility, unclear ticket impact. We never got around to reaching out to local coffee shops, which is on the list if we remount the show.

Building an email list took real effort. I scrubbed ten years of sent and received email addresses, pulled 2,800 contacts down to 420 relevant ones, assembled them in a spreadsheet, categorized them and used a tool called Mail Meteor to send personalized emails by category. It took roughly two full days of work, and it drove more ticket sales personally than anything else I tried. I now have a list ready for future shows, though it needs upkeep.

For content ideas across your promotional window, consider: a playwright statement, a director statement, rehearsal footage, a look at your design process, team spotlights (director, playwright, cast, then producer and extended crew), calls to action 24 hours before each show, sell-out announcements, audience or press reviews, and production photos.

Social media and direct outreach will do more for you than most paid options. Test Instagram ads if you have the budget, weigh a publicist against your own time, and don’t skip the email list.

Print Production

A handful of the printed material used during or to promote COFFEE DATE.

I used four printers for COFFEE DATE.

GOTPRINT is my go-to for business cards and 4×6 postcards, the best price I’ve found in LA. They’re in Burbank, so I skip shipping and pick up in person. I hand out more business cards than postcards, since they fit easily in a wallet, and print 500 to 1,000 of those. Postcards mostly live at the venue, with a batch handed out at networking events. 500 total is usually enough. Sign up for their mailing list and you may end up with a discount code prior to printing.
VISTA PRINT handles my 11×17 posters. They’ll do small batches of 10 to 20, where Got Print requires a 100-piece minimum, and Vista’s print quality edges out Got Print’s for posters specifically. They’re based in Michigan, so budget one to two weeks for delivery.
BURBANK PRINTING is my choice for one-off posters when I only need two or three. Their quality beats the other options, at around $15 a print.
MINUTEMAN PRESS, also in Burbank, handled our custom mugs. Pricier than the others, but responsive, easy to work with, and the final product was exactly what I wanted. I’d likely print mugs online with more lead time, but they came through.

Shop around. I prefer to stay local when I can, but weigh printing time against cost for each piece.

One Last Thing

Everything above is one producer’s experience across three shows and three years. It’s not a rulebook, and it’s not the only way to do this. Your show, your budget and your team will shape a different path, and that’s exactly how it should be.

I’d love to hear from you. If something here doesn’t match your experience or you’ve got a question I didn’t cover, leave a comment or drop me an email.

Hollywood Fringe, Honestly