Erica Fee

Founding Producer, CEO, and Board President of the Rochester Fringe Festival

ERICA FEE is the founding producer, CEO, and board president of the annual Rochester Fringe Festival, which celebrates its 14th festival in 2025. Under her stewardship, the non-profit Fringe has blossomed from the mere seed of an idea to the largest multidisciplinary performing arts festival in New York State. It has become an internationally-known powerhouse festival for theatre, comedy, music, dance, children’s entertainment, spoken word, and multi-disciplinary work. Over 850,000 people have attended the more than 6700 performances and events since its inception.  In 2023, The New York Times named the Rochester Fringe Festival “one of the country’s more prominent multidisciplinary events.”

Fee is a classically trained professional stage and screen actor with an M.A. from ArtsEd London. She first became involved in fringe festivals after performing at the Edinburgh Fringe to nightly sell-out crowds. 

Fee lived in the United Kingdom for ten years, running her own London-based theatrical production and general management company. Her many producing, directing, and performance credits include U.K. premieres, and productions in London as well as at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. She was the first American to receive the prestigious New Producer’s Award from StageOne (Society of London Theatres/TMA), winning it twice, which is the maximum amount. She was mentored by acclaimed Broadway and West End producer, Paul Elliott.

In addition to her M.A., graduated with a B.A. (magna cum laude) from the University of Rochester, where she was elected a member of Phi Beta Kappa.  She also holds certificates in Commercial Theatrical Production from StageOne, Festival Production from the University of Minnesota,  Non-Profit Leadership and Finance from Cornell University, and in Art in Public Space from the In-Situ European Platform for Artistic Creation in Public Space in Marseille, France.  

She is a frequent speaker, panelist, and invited delegate to numerous educational and arts and culture forums worldwide.  She is also an International Advisory Board member for the Master of Management International Arts Management (MMIAM) through HEC Montreal and SMU.

In addition to running the Rochester Fringe Festival, Fee runs her own theatre and TV production company.

In 2016, Fee was honored by her alma mater, the University of Rochester, as their Commencement Speaker.  In 2024, she was inducted into Who’s Who in America.