BorderLight International Theater Festival is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit established to launch a summer festival of contemporary international theater in Cleveland beginning in July 2019. Co-directors Dale Heinen and Jeffrey Pence have spearheaded BorderLight’s inception and programming. BorderLight is conceptualized in its debut form as a four-day international theater festival located in Cleveland, Ohio.1 It will include curated performances by international, national, and local artists—as well as an independent fringe festival—and will focus on engagement with underserved audiences and communities.2 This makes BorderLight a bifurcated theater festival, which is a combination of a curated and uncurated festival whereby some content is juried and curated by staff of the festival, and some of the content is not curated. The idea behind a bifurcated festival is to present formal, curated works, while still maintaining an edgy nature of a uncureated fringe festival.

The purpose of this feasibility study is to provide BorderLight’s stakeholders with information that contributes to a reflective and informed decision about hosting a theater festival in Cleveland.