Cooper has been the plucky executive director of the Minnesota Fringe Festival for the past five years, bringing the beloved assemblage of offbeat theater back from the brink of financial despair and growing it into the largest non-juried performing arts festival in the country. (There are now fourteen of them nationwide, and about fifty-three Fringe Festivals in the entire world.) But this is to be her last season overseeing this sometimes chaotic undertaking—she submitted her resignation earlier this year. When we caught up with Cooper recently, she was entrenched in the process of hiring her replacement, as well as, of course, preparing for the onslaught of camp, confessionals, and kung fu that commences on August 3.
So what the heck would make you leave the Fringe?
It’s just really that I’ve been here for a very long time. The previous two executive directors stayed for just four years each, so I’m already past the track record for burnout. But it’s not really burnout. It’s just that I’ve accomplished everything I set out to. I sort of saw coming in to rescue the Fringe as a way to help the community, as a way to give something back. And I feel like I’ve done that now. The job has been so demanding, but I’m an artist myself and it hasn’t left a lot of room for my own creations.
Also, my husband and I love to travel.
So, how did you go about rescuing the Fringe?
Well, the first thing was digging the festival out of a deficit. Prior to my coming on, in 2001, the festival had grown so rapidly on the outside, in terms of number of shows, numbers of audience members, and press coverage. But the institution hadn’t at all grown. Dean Seal [the Fringe’s previous executive director] had taken it over on his own with hardly any pay and it had just reached a point where it was too big for its infrastructure. So we’ve added the systems to support it all. We’ve hired staff. We’ve grown our funding base. We’ve incorporated promotions and publicity. Also, my life before the Fringe was in software—I was a database engineer. So we’ve also improved the accounting system and things like that.
About this husband you speak of. We understand you recently tied the knot with local playwright Alan Berks.
Yes. We were married in April.
How’d you meet him?
Through the Fringe Festival. He was here [in Minneapolis] on a Jerome fellowship through the Playwrights Center. And the fellows had invited various members of the theater community to come out with them, to help them get a sense of the theater scene. It was Alan’s job to get together with me. He and I had coffee and three hours later I was like, ‘Huh, I kind of like him.’
What’s next for you two?
We’ve leaving October 1. We’ve sold our house and everything in it and we’re planning an extended backpacking trip through South America.
Will you ever be back?
Oh, yeah. We both consider Minneapolis home. He’s from Chicago originally. And I’m from Los Angeles. But we’re two happy transplants.
The Minnesota Fringe Festival runs August 3 through 13. For more information, visit the beast of a website Cooper helped build: http://www.fringefestival.org.
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