For anyone even remotely interested in the spectacle of theatre, the Edmonton International Fringe Festival can be fiendishly seductive.
From Aug. 12 to 22, it celebrates 11 days of revealing theatre under the theme We’ll Show You Ours. “It’s definitely a tongue-in-cheek message and a bit rude, but it’s about being very proud of what we do in promoting Alberta artists and also bringing in many artists from different parts of the world,” said festival executive director Julian Mayne.
The 29th version of this bare-all, giant summer bash, the largest in North America, has grown even bigger with artists flying in from as far away as Germany, Ireland, Austria and South Africa.
Fringees trouping to Old Strathcona get to experience 1,300 plus performances from about 220 indoor shows and outdoor busking acts that run daily from noon until midnight.
This year there has been an explosion of bring-your-own-venue (BYOV) sites where more artists book and program their own shows. There are 28 indie sites, up from 18 last year, and they’re scattered in five areas across Edmonton. The festival map locates them in Old Strathcona, at the University of Alberta, near the FacultĂ© St. Jean, in downtown Edmonton and in the north end on 118 Avenue.
“Last year when we added more BYOVs, I was a bit concerned. But we sold a record breaking 92,600 tickets. My wish this year is for the artists to break the 100,000 attendance,” Mayne added.
In addition to the clowns, zombies, mascots and assorted freaks and weirdoes, organizers have programmed a sensory-based Kids Fringe, a late night cabaret, Fringe Forums and the traditional Performers’ Parade opening the Fringe tomorrow at 7:30 p.m.
Tickets for indoor shows can be purchased in person at the central box office in the Arts Barn, by phone at 780-409-1919 or online at www.fringetheatre.ca. Artists set their own prices and can charge up to $12 per ticket with a mandatory $2 surcharge tacked on by the Fringe for a maximum of $14.
Amidst the Fringe cacophony, the $6 program guide is key to navigating the bewildering terrain. The 97-page guide is available online or at Safeway, various Old Strathcona merchants and Tix on the Square.
For the festival duration, the Gazette will run reviews on shows with artists connected to the area. Reviews can be found at www.stalbertgazette.com.
Fringe artists with links to St. Albert, Legal and Sturgeon County are:
• One of St. Albert Children’s Theatre (SACT) most high profile alum, Bridget Ryan, pops the cork on what you think a cabaret should be in Bigger Than Vegas.
• Former St. Albert taekwondo instructor David MacInnis takes the lead in Dying City, a crafty drama of grief and violence by OBIE award winner Christopher Shinn.
• Where Have All the Lightning Bugs Gone brings together SACT actors Erika Moore and Luc Tellier in this romantic comedy about two people who meet and fall in love.
• St. Albert resident Jason Muirhead designed the set for Fake Life, a comedy/drama that sparks when two people wonder if being “best friends” is enough.
• St. Albert residents Scott Bourgeois and David Johnston team up in Game Face, a look at a high school kid who decides to raise his profile by becoming Wally the Woodchuck, the school mascot.
• One of Legal’s theatrical stars, Joelle Prefontaine, stars in Hoboheme, a musical adventure into the world of a rowdy gang of hobos riding the rails in the 1930s.
• Nicole Piotrkowski, a long time technical whiz for the International Children’s Festival and SACT, expertly stage-manages the comedy in The Completed Works of William Shakespeare.
• St. Albert actor Amanda Blair, a vengeful criminal, stars in this three-hander with Happy Whackin’ Jim McCrackin, a top secret and ruthless gun for hire.
• In 2007 St. Albert opera singer Melanie Gall released Europe, A Savvy Girl’s Guide, a travel book of popular places. Gall has now reworked her travels into music and is taking the lead in Europe, A Savvy Girl’s Guide: The Musical.
• Riding a wave of creativity, the talented Gall explores My Pal, Izzy: The Early Life and Music of Irving Berlin featuring a dozen of the maestro’s funniest songs.
• Former St. Albert singer Doug Hoyer slings his guitar during Call Me a Liar, a three-hander that explores, explains, abhors and adores the world of lies.
• Candice Fiorentino, a musical theatre instructor in St. Albert stars in Happily Ever After, a musical theatre piece on the real fairy tale endings princesses can expect.
• Two sisters from Bon Accord, Abigail and Alexa Cyr, are part of Theo in the Spotlight: A Concert for Haiti.
• St. Albert jazz singer Lori Mohacsy tap dances her way in The Missadventurous Perils of Pauline, a family comedy fraught with poisonous pink pastries, horrible hair perms and crazy hi-jinks.
• Once again the St. Albert improv cadre of Sean Bedard, Josh Languedoc, Terry Eggleston and Ali Yusuf explode with a patchwork of sketches in Live on 118th.
• Prepare for philosophical debates between two friends as Languedoc also stars in Fairforall, a political theatre production.
• Former SACT actor Scott Walters and Candice Fiorentino tackle Grimmer Than Grimmer Than Grimm, a dark and bleak comedic poke at fairy tales.
• Still in a comedic vein, Walters jumps into the world of risky decision-making and addictions in Bet Your Life – The Gambling Show.
• The M Word is a musical theatre brainchild of SACT artist director Janice Flower and it’s all about men. Surrounding her is a host of local theatre actors — Steven Angove, Jason Hardwick, Eric Wigston and Eryn Lemiski.
• In The Sandkeeper Canto, a one-man show, David MacInnis evokes a fairy tale with a forgotten God, a caramel skinned girl, a sea turtle and Aeon, Time’s bodyguard.
• Former St. Albert drama instructor Sam Varteniuk heads a sketch comedy cast in 15 Minutes, a tale of a writer plagued by his own genius.
• Former St. Albert resident Barbara North, a writer intern on the last season of Air Farce, melds white female stand-up comedy with handsome East Indian Bollywood-boy romance in My Bollywood Best Friend’s Wedding.
• SACT alumni Matt Alden, Jenna Dykes and Matt Busby set out in Anne-Abducted for an encounter of the third kind in a comedy that discovers love in the stars.
• Triple-threat SACT sisters Kate and Bridget Ryan pull out all the stops in Ankles Aweigh, a madcap musical romp with a Hollywood starlet, frisky sailors and international spies.
• Once again Matt Alden, along with a cast of thousands, whips out his firecracker humour in Die-Nasty: The Legendary Live Improvised Soap Opera.
• Lori Mohacsy goes into shock mode in >Bloom when her character, the recently widowed Alice, tours her husband’s farm and discovers a marijuana grow-op.
• Former St. Albert resident Sarah Sharkey is in The Tornado: A Musical Prairie Tragicomedy, an adventure that happens when a gale of biblical proportions rips through town.
• Bellerose High alumnus Kyle Giebelhaus stars in Can I Still Go to Heaven, based on a true story of a crazy man that takes a worship team hostage and threatens to blow up the church if they can’t prove God exists.
• SACT costume and set designer Marissa Kochanski puts her deft talents to use in Dragonfly, a musical docudrama about street kids.
• The Unraveling Trilburys, a.k.a. St. Albert resident Trent Worthington, former St. Albert resident Kieran Martin Murphy and Sturgeon County resident Ron King debut a one-hour mix of toe-tapping tunes.
• Former St. Albert actor Jenny McKillop stars in David Belke’s new work After, a comedy about a wife and an ex-wife that meet after the husband’s memorial.
• Skewering highbrow classical music is what the PreTenors do best. In A Fistful of Tenors, Kieran Martin Murphy and Trent Worthington mix a repertoire of classic hymns and Rat Pack selections.
