Is Hollywood Fringe finally becoming the theater festival that L.A. deserves?

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When Lois Neville and Ellen Boudreau-Den Herder became co-executive directors of the Hollywood Fringe Festival in early 2020, their first job, Neville likes to joke, was to cancel it.The trauma of the COVID-19 pandemic closures led to even greater challenges for the city’s theater community as sales to live shows continued to plummet, arts grants were canceled and audiences dwindled.Remarkably, when it came to the Fringe Festival, those problems added up to a major opportunity to rethink the sprawling event — criticized for its lack of cohesion — into the kind of theater festival L.A.

deserves.This year’s event has a record number of participants, and is set to break even after operating at a loss for the last two years.The motto “L.A.

is a theater town” is emblazoned on posters and T-shirts all over the festival, which kicks off Thursday and runs through June 28, featuring thousands of artists in nearly 500 live performances, including clowning, solo shows, dramas and musicals.Entertainment & Arts Ella Turenne stepped onto a small Hollywood stage singing the early-2000s hit by neo-soul singer India Arie, “I Am Not My Hair.” The COVID pause allowed new leadership to address major issues including longstanding complaints about a lack of diversity and representation.

They also moved from a volunteer-run organization with a yearly stipend for employees to a paid model because, said Den Herder, “You can’t keep staff if you’re not paying them.”Aside from the cost and challenges of mounting even a simple show, the start of 2020 saw the passage of AB5, the California bill that required independent contractors to be treated as employees — which meant theaters couldn’t operate on a volunteer model.This caused many theaters to drastically cut their schedules and costs, or close altogether.But AB5 also led to Hollywood Fringe becoming a refuge for artists, ...