Every June, the annual Hollywood Fringe Festival transforms the Hollywood neighborhood — from wig shops to parks — into a stage. A tradition hailing from the original Edinburgh Fringe Festival, Fringe celebrates uncensored artistic freedom through live performances of theater, comedy, cabaret, musicals and more, in a festival where anyone can apply to feature their art.

This year, several USC alums are participating in the festival, with projects that range from clown shows to long-form dramatic plays. Here are a few of the shows this month featuring USC talent.

“F*cking Famous”

For the absurdists and camp-obsessed, “F*cking Famous” is a one-woman clown show written, directed and performed by Molly Sharpe, in which she turns into the ultimate pop star on a tour gone off the rails — or in this case, off the freeway. The show follows the premise that, while on the road, Sharpe’s tour bus was hit in a “horrific accident,” killing her entire team and leaving her to perform entirely by herself and with the help of the audience.

“That’s where the clown element comes in. It’s fully audience participation, much in the way a concert is,” said Sharpe, who graduated from USC in 2014. “I had to bring the audience in to perform many tasks that my team would have done, like my backup dancers and my musicians, lighting, and various other things.”

“F*cking Famous” will have nine total performances throughout the festival, all hosted at Outfitters Wig, a wig shop located on the Hollywood Walk of Fame — an intentional decision of venue by Sharpe.

“In a space like this, I feel like the instinct is more so to involve yourself and engage, and so I’m kind of cheating there, making the audience want to engage more by having it there,” Sharpe said. “My hope with the people that are there to come see it is that they think it’s really funny, and that they have a lot of fun. … Most important to me is that they feel like I took care of them.”

“What Women Taught Me”

Recent graduates Haley Warren and Dylan Dolson Gonzalez are co-writers of “What Women Taught Me,” a satirical play about misogyny in which they expose the infamous performative male persona. Gonzalez plays the role of Kirk Anthony Bellagio, who presents himself as a feminist ally organizing a play about women’s rights, but all the while is actually undermining his female peers, primarily his classmate Issa.

“Kirk is taking this [stance of], ‘I’m trying to empower women by speaking on their behalf, and using their suffering and struggle for my benefit,’” Warren said. “We were like, ‘Okay, well, what’s the natural inverse of that?’ It would be Issa trying to reclaim her feminist roots and empowering the women around her.”

Both Warren and Gonzalez said that Kirk isn’t directly based on one single person they know, but takes inspiration from many of the men they’ve met in the entertainment industry and the casual misogyny they witness in the industry today.

“How we think of bigotry now is a lot more subtle, and it’s not as overt, right? We’re not in the age of misogyny where it’s, ‘Go make a sandwich in the kitchen,’” Gonzalez said. “We’re in an age of misogyny where men want to come across as the right guy, but are still influenced and holding onto beliefs, like ‘your body, my choice.’”

Audiences can watch the 50-minute unraveling of Kirk at The Activist Kitchen with three performances on June 26 and 27.

“Slack Tide”

“Slack Tide” is a more traditionally structured narrative, centered on a group of four friends at a pivotal moment in life. The play is set on a picnic bench in Maine and discusses nostalgia, tradition and the characters’ futures, and will run six times between June 5 and 28.

“I think our piece is very different than what’s usually in the Hollywood Fringe,” said Katy Kragel, the producer and assistant director of the show. “Usually, the Fringe is more clown shows or fun experimental theater or short theater, and we want to bring long-form drama to the Fringe and see how it goes.”

According to Kragel, presenting a more traditional play to a Fringe audience is exciting because, as the audience changes from night to night, so do their reactions to the show.

“Some audiences think it’s so funny, and so when you’re watching it, you’re like, ‘Oh, this is a comedy.’ And then other audiences, the more dramatic, sad or deeper conversations that the characters have seem to strike more, so it’s a more silent audience, and that makes it feel like a totally different play,” Kragel said. “That’s what’s fun about doing a hyper-realistic show.”

Hollywood Fringe runs through June 28. Check out these productions and other performances from USC alums at the festival.