Press play Winnipeg Fringe Festival stays virtual but expands lineup, improves experience for this year's free event
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Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 28/06/2021 (1179 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.
Arriving at what looks like the tail end of the pandemic, the Winnipeg Fringe Festival will remain maddeningly remote when it opens for a truncated six-day online run Monday to Saturday, July 12-17, with the inspirational theme: Play On.
On the other hand… it’s all free, viewable on the festival’s YouTube and Facebook sites.
“It was all timing based on where we were with COVID protocols,” explains festival executive producer Chuck McEwen. “Last year, we were trying to predict where we might be in three months or four months time to give the artists enough time to figure out what they were agreeing to participate in, and what options they had.
“We had to make that call pretty early again this year. And as it turned out we aren’t in any better situation this summer than we were last summer regarding in-person performances.”
Whereas last year’s online fringe festival was a spotty affair, with a drastic reduction in the number of artists, this year’s festival will look very much like past festivals in its content, which includes contributions from 75 artists and companies, including travelling fringe stars such as New York’s Martin Dockery and L.A.’s Shelby Bond, and reliably entertaining local artists, including the sketch comedy troupe H.U.N.K.S., and monologuist J.D. Renaud (whose usual “Placeholder Show” title carries extra significance under the circumstances). There are even contributions from local improv troupes ImproVision, Club Soda Improv and Crosseyed Rascals.
It should look better too.
“Last year, obviously, the technology was new and the timing was pretty crazy because we were sort of rushed and we didn’t have the skills and the equipment to do livestreaming shows last year. We had to develop that really quickly like in a month or two,” McEwen says. “So with more time and the skills we learned from last year, we really wanted to provide more performance opportunities to more artists.”
Whereas fringers might impossibly aspire to seeing every fringe show in a normal year, it’s actually easily achieved this year, with a festival schedule running nightly from 7 to 9 p.m., and a band performing in an approximation of the usual evening concert in Old Market Square from 9 to 9:45 p.m.
“We probably have three times the number of performance slots based on all the different kinds of programming that we have going this year,” McEwen says.
For the juvenile fringer, a Kids Fringe program operates daily, Monday to Thursday, from 1 to 2 p.m., featuring recognizable kids fringe stars such as Melanie Gall and Rob Malo (a.k.a. TiBert le Voyageur), as well as all-Canadian clowns Maple and Sticky (Spenser Payne and Alissa Watson). That aspect of the fringe will be viewable live, and will remain online for the rest of the summer, McEwen says.
The evening fringe program contains a competitive aspect with alternating Monologue and Poetry Slams every evening at 7:30 p.m., culminating in finals for each category on the Saturday night at 7:45 p.m.
“Every night for the first five nights, there will be six artists participating (in the slams) and the audience will be able to vote for their favourite artist live after after each performance period,” McEwen says. “The audience will actually be able to select the finalists live every night.
“Some festivals are making it so you still have to pay to watch the shows, but again, for our second year we wanted to make everything free for our fringers,” McEwen says
“It’s not perfect but we’re at least giving a few more artists the opportunity to be creative and get their juices flowing artistically and give the public a few more things to enjoy.”
The entire fringe schedule is currently online at winnipegfringe.com. The Facebook link is at facebook.com/WinnipegFringe; the YouTube link is at youtube.com/user/WinnipegFringe.
randall.king@freepress.mb.ca
Twitter: @FreepKing
Randall King
Reporter
In a way, Randall King was born into the entertainment beat.
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History
Updated on Wednesday, June 30, 2021 8:41 AM CDT: Adds links
