Creating a Lasting Career as a Fringe Artist

S1E15 of What the Fringe?!

In the world of theater, few spaces offer as much artistic freedom as fringe festivals. For performer and playwright Martin Dockery, fringe festivals are not a side project or a stepping stone, but the foundation of a sustained artistic life. His career, built over years of touring solo shows and two-person plays across the globe, offers a case study in what it takes to thrive in a niche where fame is fleeting, money is modest, but creative autonomy is absolute.

Martin Dockery performing at Vancouver Fringe's Cabaret of Bullsh*t

In the North American Fringe Circuit, Martin Dockery is somewhat of a household name, as he has been performing at fringes for close to twenty years. In the fringe world, he has established himself as a master storyteller, and his shows are always audience favorites. Dockery is quick to admit that “fringe fame” is highly situational. In a given city during the days of a festival, a performer might feel like a local celebrity. Step outside that bubble, and recognition evaporates. A favorite story involves proudly buying a newspaper featuring a review of his show, only to have a stranger at 7-Eleven assume his stellar review was talking about a TV appearance. Moments like that keep the ego in check, and in Dockery’s view, that humility is part of the Fringe’s value.

The draw to fringe is complete control over the work.

Commercial theater and on-camera work can offer good pay but come with creative compromises. Fringe provides the inverse: little money but unmatched freedom to stage exactly the story an artist wants to tell. For Dockery, that freedom is essential to creating work that connects with audiences on a deeper level, work that contributes in some way to the broader human conversation.

Dockery's process reflects that commitment. For plays, he spends months writing a script without sharing the concept in advance, preferring to protect the fragile energy of a new idea. For solo shows, nothing is written down at all. Dockery develops them orally, rehearsing by speaking them aloud while walking or jogging. This approach ensures that the delivery feels organic, as if the story is unfolding in real time for the audience.

Dockery alternates between presenting solo shows and two-handers, finding that the contrast keeps his work fresh. Solo shows allow direct connection with one voice speaking openly to the audience. Two-handers are built as puzzles, gradually revealing twists that shift the audience’s understanding of what they are seeing. While the formats differ, both forms serve the same larger purpose: to create shared moments of connection among strangers in a room.

Sustaining a Fringe career, he acknowledges, requires a steady confrontation with the American obsession with fame and financial success. Ticket sales and audience numbers will fluctuate. There will be nights with small crowds, and the artist must find satisfaction in the impact on those few people rather than in mass recognition. For Dockery, the measure of success is not whether the work is lucrative, but whether it resonates, whether performer and audience together feel that this moment matters.

In the end, Dockery’s career demonstrates that longevity at the Fringe is less about chasing the next big break and more about holding fast to why one makes art in the first place. It is about valuing creative freedom over commercial gain, embracing both the humility and the exhilaration of intimate performance, and finding meaning in the connections made, one room, one show, and one audience at a time.

This blog post was inspired by S1 E15 of the What the Fringe?! podcast, and was written utilizing AI technology, in conjunction with human oversight and editing.