The Edmonton International Fringe Festival is a proudly open access festival that mounts more than 203 shows ranging from theatre, multi-media, dance, cabaret, improv, burlesque and film.
The Edmonton International Fringe Festival is a proudly open access festival that mounts more than 203 shows ranging from theatre, multi-media, dance, cabaret, improv, burlesque and film.
It's a strong grass roots entity that grew out of spirit of the theatre community. Prices are low and numbers are up at this full-on destination stop.
Aside from mainstage shows, the carnival atmosphere is peopled with human sculptures, musicians, circus acts, fire jugglers that just add to the fun.
It's an inspirational environment where newcomers to veterans from across the world showcase their art and it's an opportunity for visitors to discover something new.
See what our reviewers think.
The Seminar: Breakthrough! 4 stars. Poiema Productions Venue 35 La Cité Francophone – L'UniThéatre 8627 Rue Marie-Anne-Gaboury
Want a hotter boyfriend and better sex? Dip into the fountain of youth.
“Choose to Change” is the cultish mantra in The Seminar: Breakthrough!
Back in 2011 Poiema Productions produced The Seminar, a brilliant attack on cosmetic surgery and the lengths people go to reshape their body.
In their follow-up, the four-woman troupe's satirical comedy focuses on the total image – how the beauty industry destroys a woman's outlook and confidence to sell its products.
The one-hour seminar is set up in a television studio where we, the live audience, are privy to the on-air salesmanship and off-air backstabbing.
St. Albert Children's Theatre instructor Candice Fiorentino is the slick host selling a perfect transformation to Becky (Sara Vickruk), a doe-eyed engineer who is all too ready to swallow false promises.
Melissa Blackwood is Dr. Veracity Jones, a questionable plastic surgeon with a Vanna White smile and a Kim Kardashian butt. The quartet's final beauty cheerleader is Brianna Jang as Macy Grant, a human relations expert with emotional-psychological issues.
Reminiscent of a fiery preacher, Fiorentino is delightful as the pushy frontwoman slinging her pat slogans. Jang completely charms as a ditz who is given less credit than she deserves while Blackwood's curvy figure and shining white choppers dazzle the audience.
Special kudos to Vickruck whose naïve character is the perfect foil to the other three piranhas circling her.
Poiema does an excellent job of skewering the insanity of extremes in both the beauty industry and the media that continues to partner with it.
– Anna Borowiecki
Double Double: The Musical Finally Sauces, 3.5 stars. Edmonton, Alberta, Canada King Edward Elementary School 8530 101 ST
The Edmonton Fringe is hosting the world premiere of the musical celebration of Canada's favourite coffee. The show created by Kristen M. Finlay and Anne Maria Szucs, and arranged by Matt Graham, is a love letter to Canada's favourite coffee house.
The show explores all the personalities and characters hidden in a local Tim Hortons and is backed by catchy and goofy musical numbers. Double Double perfectly captures the Canadian obsession with Tim Hortons, and the culture that created it.
The show lacks a clear story or a driving narrative but makes up for it with catchy songs and genuine laughs at our own cultural obsession. The performances get creative with a spoken word poem, a rap and even a tango to capture the many ways that Canadians care for their coffee and doughnuts. The show is a revolving door of characters supported by memorable songs that you are sure to be singing for days.
– Jennifer Henderson
Killing Earl Let's Have a Discussion 3 Stars. Production Venue 5 King Edward Elementary School 8530 - 101 St.
Clocking at a comfortable one-hour, Killing Earl chronicles a Southern love story inspired by the Dixie Chicks big hit Goodbye Earl.
It seems that the song kept looping in St. Albert playwright Josh Languedoc's head and he worked through it writing this script and workshopping it.
A stranger comes to town just as Wanda's two girlfriends head off to Hawaii for holidays. Over a poker game, Mary (Mary E. Stevenson) and Anne (Christine Maydew) try to persuade life-long-friend Wanda (Laura Niwa) to join them. Less keen on travelling, Wanda stays home to mind the family store.
Right at closing time a stranger walks into the store looking for directions. Wanda shows Earl (J. Nelson Niwa) around town and a quickie romance develops.
When Mary and Anne return home, Wanda's leg is in a cast, there is hole punched in her living room wall and Earl's underwear is lying around. All signs point to physical abuse.
The show is loaded with promise, but unfortunately Killing Earl loses its balance along the way. The individuals are Southern stereotypes, two-dimensional characters that struggle within the play's sagging momentum.
At times, the conversation feels manipulated and several events appear to be constructed to accommodate the ending rather than letting characters freely carry the dialogue.
Even director Bradley Bishop's blocking is limited. Killing Earl is a work in progress that shows a great deal of promise. Hopefully Languedoc will rework the script into a stronger presentation.
– Anna Borowiecki
Tip Tap Toe, if you love me never let me go! 3.5 Stars. Island of Pandaloo Productions Venue 18 Sugar Foot Ballroom 10506 – 81 Ave.
Love is confusing. But how do you discover what is really important without steering through emotional landmines?
That's one of the themes in Tip Tap Toe, if you love me never let me go! It's the story of a typical romance except that this is a world where speech is non-existent.
The only language of communication is tap dance. Set in typing pool, three tapper typists arrive for work. On this day, one of the typewriters stops functioning. A sleek, mustachioed repairman is called and he immediately starts flirting with the typist.
The office mail carrier is jealous that this smooth operator is showering so much attention on his girl and a tapping duel is fought. A stuffed poodle in peril and a glowing bowling ball soon join the fray.
The five athletic dancers, including St. Albert's Paige Tirs and Janae Olsen, do a great job interpreting the story and conveying emotion – the joy of an admirer's affection, the angst of rejection.
All the dancers' steps are beautifully synchronized and their energy is never-ending. Complementing the choreography is former St. Albert resident J. Daniel Cramer's scintillating score borrowed from multiple genres.
– Anna Borowiecki
Here Lies Henry, 4 stars. Grindstone Theatre, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada El Cortez Tequila Bar and Kitchen 10322 - 83 Ave.
Henry is a self-proclaimed liar tasked with the impossible responsibility to tell us something we don't already know.
The one-man show, starring Dallas Friesen and directed by Byron Martin, features Henry's hour-long monologue about life death and everything in between. The show features a constant cycle of repetition by a ranting man who can't seem to tell the truth.
As the dark comedy progresses we find out about a house fire he may (or may not) have lit and a body in the next room he may (or many not) have killed, while enjoying many epiphanies about beauty, hope, truth and lies.
Written by famed Canadian playwright Daniel MacIvor, the show takes the audience on an existential examination of life the universal truths (and lies) of our shared human experience.
The character of Henry first feels alien and uncomfortable, but Friesen delivers a convincing performance leaving the audience enchanted and wanting more. The show inspires the spectators to reflect on Henry's dark and depressing honesty and the true meaning of life.
– Jennifer Henderson
Pacific Time, 3.5 Stars. Oriflamme Event Production Venue 15, Cool Air Rentals Holy Trinity Anglican Church 10037 – 84 Ave.
Anyone who has ever read a science fiction novel or watched a sci-fi fantasy secretly wonders if it is possible to create a wrinkle in time that joins two parallel eras.
In Pacific Time, St. Albert playwright David Haas straddles the universe and brings to mind The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy's two famous rest stops – The Restaurant at the End of the Universe or the Old Pink Dog Bar?
Haas creates a quaint café that works as a time tunnel between two eras – the ‘60s and the present day. The front door leads into the present, the back door to the past. Jesse (Kevin Brian Huang), is the café server and guardian of sorts.
It's a quiet café where people drop by for a cup of coffee and “sticky buns to die for.” A romance develops between a regular Polly (Leah Beaudry) and newcomer Grant (Joel Dinicola).
Grant is a government researcher for a newly elected political party. Polly is a feminist writer penning the great Canadian novel.
Polly, who hails from Victoria, often uses the café's time-bending properties to share a coffee and ideas with Edmonton writers. Grant has no idea of the café's role in the galaxy, and much of Pacific Time's comedy stems from his disbelief at discovering its real purpose.
Beaudry and Dinicola have a fluid chemistry that fits comfortably like a jigsaw puzzle and Huang has just the right kind of humour for his role as listener and gatekeeper.
At 50 minutes, Pacific Time is a perfect warmup Fringe show.
-- Anna Borowiecki
Deadmonton, 4 Stars. Allspice Theatre Venue 4, Academy King Edward 8525 – 101 St.
A man picks up a prostitute on a street corner. They drive to a secluded cabin – a perfect location to dispatch the unwary.
He is a serial murderer. She is a serial killer. The slaughter is about to begin, but not against each other.
They are two peas in a pod sharing a blood lust for butchery. They are never so alive as when slaughtering unsuspecting victims.
Fate has brought two soul mates together.
Actors Alex Forsythe and Carmen Nieuwenhuis' characters are two speeding trains on a collision course with their own psyche. There is going to be an explosion. You sense it but cannot look away. You are completely riveted throughout the 70-minute production.
Forsythe and Nieuwenhuis seamlessly inhabit the skins of cold-blooded killers, chameleons that hide their true identity from the world. Yet, even murderers have tender moments and as lovers they dream of a life together far away.
St. Albert director David Johnston keeps the suspenseful action flowing at a fast pace where silences shout louder than words.
But much credit goes to playwright Andy Garland for shaping a horror using lyrical language and bold, poetic imagery. His use of language raises Deadmonton above the standard B-grade horror drama. Even if horror isn't to your taste, this play is so skillfully done it's worth a visit.
-- Anna Borowiecki
