Entertainment

Edinburgh Festival Fringe takes over the East Side

“Les Mis” gets a ribbing in Sandro Monetti’s “Miserable Lesbians.”

“Les Mis” gets a ribbing in Sandro Monetti’s “Miserable Lesbians.”

With more than 2,000 new shows each summer, the Edinburgh Festival Fringe is the largest arts festival in the world. But if you don’t feel up to flying off to Scotland and digging through the morass for the good stuff, you’re in luck: 59E59 Theaters has done it for you.

Its eighth annual East to Edinburgh fest kicks off Tuesday and runs through July 28, providing a sneak peek at 16 American productions that will bow at the Fringe next month.

And it has some of the more titillating titles to date, including “Savvy Secrets of Successful Mistresses,” about a unique self-help seminar, and “Sex With Animals,” a one-man show billed as “David Attenborough meets Eddie Izzard on Grindr.”

And then there’s “Miserable Lesbians,” Sandro Monetti’s 45-minute spoof about “a brave band of lesbians” in the slums of Paris fighting to overturn anti-gay legislation.

“If I tell you that our lead character is named Anne Muffaway,” he adds, “you probably get the idea of the direction in which we’re going.” Its sixmember cast includes himself as the narrator and “Inspector Crowe, a tone-deaf policeman.”

Two iconic stars are name-checked in other shows: Jessica Sherr’s “Bette Davis Ain’t for Sissies” — depicting the legendary actress on Oscar night 1939, when she lost to Vivien Leigh for “Gone With the Wind” — and “Longing for Grace,” in which Grace Kiley channels her near-namesake, Grace Kelly, during the split second between life and death.

Kiley, who studied acting with the legendary Uta Hagen, says she feels a certain kinship to Kelly, the Oscar-winning star who quit acting at 26 to marry the prince of Monaco.

“I know what it’s like to put your passions on hold,” says Kiley, who gave up her acting dreams to move to Vermont, where she chaired the psych department at a small college. “I had the opportunity to go back, but she didn’t.”

The hourlong piece was first seen at the United Solo Theatre Festival, where it won three awards. That inspired Kiley, now teaching acting at NYU, to start a Kickstarter campaign to raise the $24,000 or so she needed for the set and costumes, which she describes as “very high-class, as Grace Kelly was.”

For a full lineup and tickets, $10 to $20, visit 59e59.org or call 212-279-4200.