Thank You!

As we wrap up another incredible year, we extend our heartfelt thanks to all the artists, supporters, and patrons who made the 2024 festival a tremendous success. Your passion, creativity, and dedication brought our vision to life, and we are grateful for your involvement.

Thank You!

As we wrap up another incredible year, we extend our heartfelt thanks to all the artists, supporters, and patrons who made the 2024 festival a tremendous success. Your passion, creativity, and dedication brought our vision to life, and we are profoundly grateful for your involvement.

Welcome to Cleveland's Most Innovative Theatre Festival!

We Are Mission-Driven.

BorderLight’s mission is to present innovative theatre that inspires, builds cross-cultural understanding, and celebrates the diversity of the human experience.

Large-scale performing arts festivals are some of the most celebrated community events—and largest economic drivers—in the world. BorderLight promises to bring the vibrancy of an international performing arts festival to downtown Cleveland—and shine a spotlight on our city's abundant arts and culture community, as well as our rich cultural assets.

We Are Ambitious.

Our mission is ambitious. Your support will help us get there.

When you make a gift to BorderLight, you are supporting cross-cultural artistic collaboration that provides a unique, compelling theatrical experience for our city. In these unprecedented times, arts organizations need your support now more than ever. No gift is too small - every dollar makes a difference.

Thank You to Our Leading Supporters

We Are Impactful.

BorderLight 2024 had $597,504 in total economic impact. 

BorderLight featured the work of 340 artists representing 155 performances from around the United States as well as individual artists and companies from the local Cleveland theatre community.

WE ARE LOVED...
BUT DON'T TAKE OUR WORD FOR IT

Diverse and delightful fringe fest.

Facebook Reviewer

Thank you, Borderlight, for making the city the stage with so many outside performances! [...] I am thrilled my hometown is hosting this international festival for a second season. Where else would I experience Yiddish folktales and conjure with witches coming out of retirement?

Facebook Reviewer

Super performances! A must see while in the CLE!

Facebook Reviewer

The care and expertise in bringing together some of the best local, regional, and international theatre artists... to Cleveland!

Facebook Reviewer

The range of performance opportunities to experience and the diligent organization of the event was stellar!

Facebook Reviewer

I enjoyed the opportunity to connect with different perspectives from my own! Art can provide beautiful learning experiences. 

Annonymous

Unique opportunity to see performers from all over the world. Many venues.

Facebook Reviewer

I am so grateful that BorderLight happens in my hometown! It's an amazing event and I plan to sing your praises to everyone! 

Anonymous

I could gush for WEEKS about how much I love BorderLight. It is the coolest theatre event in Cleveland, and I am so immensely grateful to have been able to participate in it all 3 years. 

BorderLight Artist

I am so grateful for this festival in Cleveland. It truly adds such an important element to our art scene. 

BorderLight Artist

Love being a part of BorderLight Fringe! It's consistently been my best theatre experience as an artist in Cleveland. 

BorderLight Artist

It was a pleasure to bring Pajama Stories by Marie Cooney Stories to the festival from MN. Thanks for the warm welcome. I met some fabulous people: artists, staff, audience, volunteers. A very intimate and supportive Fringe Festival. My first touring event! I look forward to many more!

Facebook Reviewer (Presenter)

I got to experience places in Cleveland I've never been to before. 

Anonymous

So thrilled that Cleveland can showcase theater in such a creative and intimate way.

Facebook Reviewer

[BorderLight]..expanded my theatrical experience. 

Anonymous

We Are Diverse.

The BorderLight Theatre Festival is committed to advancing equity and inclusion. We aspire to reflect the diversity of our community at every level of the organization, and to serve as a platform for sharing different perspectives on the human experience.

The BorderLight Theatre Festival was conceived to bridge cultural and social divides. As theatre presenters, we believe it is in sharing stories and bearing witness that we all build our capacity for empathy and understanding. Our stages are platforms for artists who reflect a range of identities and nationalities. Their performances provide a shared experience that connects us and allows us to reckon with our histories and imagine new futures.

We Are Cleveland.

Cleveland has an incredible theatrical infrastructure, ideal for supporting an ambitious theatre festival.

Cleveland's per capita arts attendance is among the highest in the nation. In fact, in a recent report by the Cultural Data Project (SMU/Arts), Cleveland ranked 5th among the nation’s leading cities for arts and culture, alongside New York, Baltimore, Boston, Chicago, Cincinnati, Columbus, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, Los Angeles and San Francisco. Once dubbed "The Best Location in the Nation," Cleveland is located a day's drive or less from most major cities of the east coast and midwest USA.