The Aspen Fringe Festival returns to the Wheeler Opera House for its 15th season. This year’s Junefest is the first to feature an entire musical line-up of musical theater, dance, film and opera, with award-winning composer Craig Baumler. I recently spoke with festival founder and executive director David Reddingham about his deep connection to Aspen, why he founded the Aspen Fringe Festival, and this year’s unique musical offerings.

and: Tell us about yourself – did you grow up in Aspen?

DL: Yeah, I grew up here since middle school. My family ran the B&B lodge “The Snow Queen” in Aspen for 47 years. And my aunt ran the Little Red Ski House next door. My mother and aunt were identical twins, so in the 80’s they were known as the Victorian Lodge Twins.

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I left New York to be an actor, and I still do, but came back to run the company. I quit my acting career in New York because her mom said, ‘You better get out of here and take over, or you’ll lose your shop and you won’t get anything.’

and: When and why did you start the Fringe Festival?

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DL: Right after that. I came to Aspen, worked at the lodge, did a lot of shows at the Aspen Theater as an actor, and was a director there. I also attended the final season of Crystal Palace and really enjoyed it. Then they sold Crystal Palace and I was forced out of the job. And suddenly I thought, “Oh, I should come up with something.” That’s why I invented the Aspen Fringe Festival. That was 15 years ago.

and: What is Fringe Festival?

DL: We’re a bit of a niche because theater isn’t the only thing we do at Fringe. We do theater, dance, music, opera and film. I wanted to make it an art festival in the truest sense of the word.

and: What are you most proud of?

DL: There are about seven shows that are credited with developing with A-list and B-list playwrights. One of them was Fringe at his Fest Awards in Edinburgh and was later to be developed into a television series by NBCUniversal, but that plan was eventually dropped. But it was really, really fun. we will do anything

I hope that further developmental efforts will be made in the future.

and: What is unique about this year’s festival?

DL: What’s really cool this year is that this is our first musical, Fringe. Everything is completely music based.

However, in the same format as last year, where we chose an artist and explored their work, this year composer Craig Baumler will stay here for 10 days. The great thing is that I know this composer from doing musicals. My favorite musical is “Enter the Guardsman”. Based on the 1800s play by playwright Ferenc Molnar, with music by Böhler.

i love this musical It’s really hard to produce and perform because I can’t always perform, I produce all the time. I’m planning to do a concert version, so it will be a light production. It will be a much slimmer version. But the best part of this whole thing is Craig playing his own score of “Enter the Guardsmen” while we act and sing on stage. I can share my performance with the community, which I don’t do often.

AT: It’s Friday night, what about Saturday?

DL: And on the second night, just like last year, we will be performing selected pieces from his (Böhmler’s) various musicals in our Musical Salon.

I’m planning to bring “Blue Eclipse” with dancers from New York. It was choreographed by his wife (Adriana Thompson) and the filmmaker who created the score for the production on the second night of the Musical Performance Salon. Performing operatic excerpts produced by Boehmler for the Emmy Award-winning documentary Riders of the Purple Sage: The Making of a Western Opera. And it is his one of the few operas he knows that is authentic West American opera.

More than anything else, I want to do something fun this year. yes. And it will be a fun fringe festival. The musical is hysterical. Music is great. And the second night has a lot of cartoons.

and: What is the biggest challenge in producing a festival?

DL: I think one of the hardest things is getting sponsors and donors to do something cutting edge and exciting. Aspen is a pretty conservative town artistically. Probably my biggest challenge is finding financial support.

We hope that someone in this community will support the Aspen Fringe Festival and be aware of the great opportunities available to support new productions. I always hire locals and students to work with professionals. Last year, we also had students working with Tony Award-winning playwright Simon Stevens. He was literally sitting with them in the room giving them feedback on the scenes he had written.

Afterwards, they all came to me and said, “This has changed my life. Thank you so much.”