Welcome to The SummerWorks Edition of #CdnCult Times, which asked three artists who are participating in the festival to contribute through different discourses that are supported by the WordPress medium.
Eric Moschopedis and I had an online chat about politics and culture in Canada, which we imported into the site. M. NourbeSe Philip contributed poetry, which we imported as images to ensure the correct layout. Sean Frey and Amy Siegel communicated a narrative about their piece that is primarily image-based.
The resulting edition is analogous to the way The SummerWorks Festival has also grown. The festival has an increasingly national presence, with projects that challenge traditional concepts surrounding form and content in contemporary performance.
Play: Blacks Don’t Bowl || Playwright: Vadney Haynes Shoot: Pointe St. Charles || Models: Josh Goldberg, Kareem Alleyne
SHERMAN: Ya gotta be careful sometimes with images. Powerful stuff, man. The wrong images in the right eyes and who knows where that could lead.
PINTO: Look at you. Porn-boy talkin’ ’bout censorship.
SHERMAN: I didn’t say anything ’bout censorship. Why are you always putting words in my mouth?
PINTO: So I can hear you say something intelligent.
SHERMAN: I’m just saying you’ve got to be careful, ‘specially when it comes to images of Black people.
PINTO: We don’t need to be protected, thank you very much, even by the likes of that half-Jewish, half-Irish Darwinian experiment called Sherman O’Donnell.
SHERMAN: Bite of my potato bagel?
PINTO: If we keep being afraid of how we’re perceived, then we’ll never get out from under, and nothin’ will change. Thick skin beats small mind any day,
Blacks Don’t Bowl was first produced by Black Theatre Workshop in Montréal in 2006.
It’s mid-summer, which in Canadian Theatre means high season for The Fringe, as festivals roll out across the country. Last weekend, in ‘Has the Fringe circuit been good for Canadian theatre?’, Globe and Mail critic Kelly Nestruck raised some provocative questions about the role of Fringe in the theatrical ecology “Has a three-decade torrent of low-budget shows of varying quality been good for Canadian theatre as a profession – or has it flooded the market”?
For this edition, we asked Executive Directors of both the Montreal and Ottawa Fringe Festivals to write about what it means to curate a festival that is by definition uncuratable. We also asked Rob Salerno, an artist and writer who has toured work to several Fringe festivals across the country, to weigh in on what he sees possibilities and challenges for the Fringe circuit moving forwards. Their answers imply that while Fringe is a singular phenomenon, their success is related to how each is specifically related to the community they serve.
Patrick Gauthier randomly selects Fringe Festival participants.
To be almost entirely glib about it, my artistic contribution to the Ottawa Fringe Festival involves pulling names out of a hat.
To be slightly less glib, my artistic contribution to the Ottawa Fringe Festival probably goes unnoticed by the majority of our audiences.
To be entirely sincere about it, how can I hope to make any sort of artistic contribution to the Ottawa Fringe Festival all while staying true to the Fringe concept and ideals, attempting to marry the needs of our various artist stakeholders – emerging artists cutting their teeth; pros working out the kinks on something new; touring performers trying to keep their heads above water on the road; someone with a story to tell trying out theatre for the first time; everyone and anyone in between – and remaining open and accessible to audiences?
In September 2013 I changed jobs, moving from GCTC – where I ran the undercurrents festival – to the Ottawa Fringe (but for the sake of this writing let’s momentarily forget undercurrents will move to Arts Court and be produced by the Ottawa Fringe starting in February 2015). The two festivals couldn’t be more different: undercurrents is a six-show, curated festival of original Canadian work taking place in a single venue; the Ottawa Fringe features 60 companies chosen via lottery, across five regular venues and (in 2014) nine BYOVs, hosting local, national, and international artists.
Admittedly, moving from producing a curated festival to a non is a bit of a culture shock, if only because running a Fringe takes so much out of your control (and I like to be in control. Probably why I got into directing). Besides the obvious answer of festival programming, Fringe producing takes a good portion of the marketing out of your hands, as well as control over the majority of your venues (sometime I’ll tell you about the bar used as a BYOV that instituted a one-drink minimum without telling us, and then told ticket-holding audience members they would have to leave if they didn’t comply). And as much as Fringes rely upon and couldn’t exist without the army of volunteers who come out in 17 Canadian cities each summer, it’s inevitable that when working with more than 300 of them there will be some miscommunications along the way.
What we can control, however, is the audience experience at our festival. As theatre makers, aren’t we always (or shouldn’t we always be) obsessed with what the audience experience be when they buy a ticket to our show? How can we expand that obsession to cover 400+ performances over 11 days? Ottawa Fringe has shown excellent growth over the past few years precisely because the festival has poured a lot energy and resources into creating an inviting atmosphere for patrons, into giving them a festival experience – whether or not the show(s) they saw changed their perception of the medium or had them looking at their smartphone 7 minutes in. As a Fringe we can’t curate our programming, but we can certainly curate the audience experience when they attend our festival.
For Ottawa this curation is about more than ancillary artistic activity like concerts or free late-night programming or cabaret nights (though we certainly include our share of those as well), but also about making the ticket buying process as smooth as possible, an inviting Courtyard and festival bar, a well-designed and easy to navigate website, clean and accessible festival venues, and knowledgeable staff and volunteers. It’s the Fringe artist’s job to make the best art possible; it’s the Fringe festival’s job to create the best possible circumstances for them to succeed.
Another way we “curate” the Fringe is by attracting high caliber artists to Ottawa. Performers who have toured the circuit recognize that each stop has its own quirks and unique personality, and as an organization we need to be aware of what we can offer artists (both touring and local) besides fame and fortune. As a medium-sized Fringe Ottawa can’t compete with the revenue potential of a Winnipeg or Edmonton, but what we can offer has its own value: a warm, loyal, and growing audience base; excellent venues and technicians; and – not to be underestimated – a great nightlife and social scene (I’ll argue to the day I die that the Ottawa Fringe Courtyard is the best of its kind on the circuit).
Because of this, local professionals have come to use the Ottawa Fringe as a space to practice and experiment – for either the first public performance of a work in progress, or maybe to try their hand at writing or directing or writing and directing for the first time. That’s part of the draw for our audience: “See it here first.” With a great number of local professionals participating in the Fringe it has become even more attractive to students and emerging artists who want to showcase themselves alongside their established peers. And as we’re positioned at the beginning of the summer Fringe circuit, touring performers have found Ottawa a great place to get their show into shape in front of a friendly audience before moving on to the more lucrative western stops.
Sure, as a Fringe we leave programming to the Fates, and some years will inevitably be stronger artistically than others – but we certainly have the capacity to create the best conditions possible for audiences to find our artists. If we create those conditions we’ll attract broader base of artists to our lottery, which will increase the chances of strong and interesting work being in the festival, which will attract more audiences, which will attract a still broader base of artists to our lottery, which will…
Toronto Fringe star playwright Kat Sandler (Punch Up) and Red One Theatre Artistic Director Benjamin Blais stage a fight as part of the Flip The Fringe installation at the Toronto Fringe 2014 beer tent.
Fringe Theatre is a disruption of the delicate theatre ecology that threatens the stability and livelihoods of the establishment.
Fringe Theatre is the only viable path to production for a large majority of theatre creators.
Fringe Theatre is a populist low art form.
Fringe Theatre is the only place where the truly weird, risky, original, and unsafe work can get to the stage and find an audience.
Fringe Theatre is no way to make a living.
Fringe Theatre is the only way for some creators to make a living, and my 2010 Fringe tour provided a big chunk of my down payment on my condo.
All of the above contradictory statements, unfortunately, are true in 2014.
**
I started touring the Fringe circuit in 2007 and stopped in 2012, hitting 30 festivals with 5 original shows in those six summers.
In 2008, I toured my first play, Balls, to six festivals. My partner and I walked home with about $4000 each for our summer’s work. Not bad for two 22-year-olds who weren’t paying rent.
I had had some delusions that artistic directors would be scouting Fringes across the country for hit new plays to mount in their seasons, but despite favourable reviews, none responded to my personal invitations. Maybe it was something about being an unproven 22-year-old. It was, putting it mildly, a bit of a letdown to pack up the show in Vancouver and realise, that was it.
I tried mounting the show on my own in Toronto the following spring, knowing less than nothing about what it takes to produce a show from scratch. I lost more than double my earnings the previous summer. I realised the Fringe is a great training ground for producing on the Fringe, but finding your audience without a festival backing is hard.
**
The Fringe is basically the only time of the year you’ll see straight theatre, stand-up comics, sketch comedy, improv, live music, dance, musicals, even opera sharing spaces and audiences. These are all integral parts of a healthy performance ecology, and yet the practice in Canada is to keep them far, far, apart – different venues, different time slots, different audiences, different pages in the shrinking Arts sections of newspapers.
It’s always struck me that this mingling is one of the keys to the Fringe’s success. It encourages audiences to break out of their expectations and try something they’re not used to. It can make a star out of a Scottish performance poet or an aging lesbian sketch comedy duo. Let’s see Tarragon do that in its regular season.
**
Of course, some of the mainstage companies are now trying to do just that, by unearthing that rare gem at the Fringe or SummerWorks, and putting it on their stage as a finished product. And that can be even more problematic.
While The Globe’s Kelly Nestruck worries that the flood of cheap shows of varying quality that are found at Fringes across the country has reduced the appetite for professional theatre at the majors, my worry is instead that the majors are coming to see the Fringe (and similar emerging works festivals) as a scouting ground – a way to skip the expensive work of developing shows (and talent).
And so, with shrinking paths to development in the mainstream, many of us creators go off, unguided, into the Fringe, taking on huge financial risks in the vain hope that maybe, maybe, this will be the show that captures Andy McKim’s attention. And then maybe it will get a poorly promoted and weakly attended two-week run in TPM’s backspace in a couple years, which you will be expected to fundraise half the costs for anyway.
And good luck getting production grants from the Arts Councils, which are now seeing more and more applications for productions in festivals, which crowd out the grants for indie productions outside of festivals.
**
“There’s a generation of artists out there who are saying, ‘I don’t have aspirations beyond this. I want to reach this audience. I want to have a great Fringe run.’ That’s fine with me,” Toronto Fringe executive director Kelly Straughan told Toronto Star reporter Richard Ouzounian.
It’s a surprising statement coming from a Festival that is proud to tout the spinoff successes of past shows like Kim’s Convenience, Da Kink In My Hair, and, especially, The Drowsy Chaperone.
And yet, it’s absolutely true. Perhaps recognizing the absurdity of playing for long-term “mainstream” “success,” creators are setting new goals. Playing to full houses across Canada. Earning a living through the summer without waiting tables. Getting real reviews in newspapers (when was the last time you felt certain you’d get a review of your indie show in Toronto?). Building a body of work and a fanbase that comes to your shows year after year.
I’m looking at Vancouver’s Monster Theatre. London’s Jayson MacDonald. TJ Dawe. Edmonton’s Ken Brown. Boston’s Cameryn Moore. The UK’s Jem Rolls. And dozens of others who are plying their talents on the boards across Canada every summer.
And the funny thing is, they’re making it work. They may not be rich, but they’re making a living. And they’re finding an audience.
And sure, some Fringe shows are mindless, populist, disposable trash. But there’s also some rich, interesting, unique work there. Where else but the Fringe could you find a hit show about an overweight, sex-positive, self-described phone whore in a relationship with a trans man? Or a literary puppet show? Or an anarchist slam poet?
That’s not to say Fringe is devoid of challenges. The demand for slots in the Fringe rises every year, but the available audience is not growing at the same pace. The ticket prices and artist revenues have been steadily eroded by inflation. The technical limitations can compromise artistic choices. But the completely unprogrammed nature of the Fringe still offers some creators the most viable path for a livelihood in personal expression on the stage.
Anything goes. ANYTHING. From a solo spoken word show to a company’s debut production to inspiring contemporary dance to saucy burlesque to reading a phone book aloud onstage to puppetry for all ages to stand-up comedy to a musical to a complete train wreck to the next big thing in Canadian theatre. Anything really goes (as long as it stays within the law of course!).
But does it work on paper? Good question. If you’ve never been to a Fringe before, you might think that the concept of an uncurated or unjuried festival is a risky approach, but for over three decades the Fringe has made an everlasting mark on the Canadian theatre landscape. Starting in Edmonton in 1982, there are now seventeen Fringe Festivals in Canada and twenty-three festivals as a part of the Canadian Association of Fringe Festivals which also encompasses several American Fringe Festivals. Uniting these festivals are our unique set of ideals (taken from the CAFF website):
Participants will be selected on a non-juried basis, through a first-come, first-served process, a lottery, or other method approved by the Association.
The audience must have the option to pay a ticket price, 100% of which goes directly to the artists.
Fringe Festival producers have no control over the artistic content of each performance. The artistic freedom of the participants is unrestrained.
Festivals must provide an easily accessible opportunity for all audiences and all artists to participate in Fringe Festivals.
Montreal Fringe Staff. Photo: Cindy Lopez
I may be the Executive and Artistic Director of MainLine Theatre (the company that produces the Montreal Fringe), but I often refer to myself as simply the Festival Director come Fringe season. You will routinely find me overseeing operations, working on audience development or coming up with a new marketing plan. The truth is that I often feel like a protector of the festival. I’m not involved in the content of performances, I’m facilitating the conditions under which the art will hopefully thrive.
I wonder: Am I influencing the curation of the festival if I visit a ton of schools to do outreach around application time? Will there be more French companies in the festival if I post on billboards in France? Is it wrong to target the application process to specific groups? Seeing as we select by lottery, will there ever be a dud Fringe, where most of the shows aren’t very good?
Le Monstre – Théâtre Kata. Photo: Cindy Lopez
With that in mind, it’s possible for one to be tempted to turn their back on the values of the Fringe movement. The most significant part of my job as a Fringe director is to uphold the integrity of the festival by following our national mandate and therefore protecting its values of diversity, accessibility and community. The moment a Fringe Festival anywhere starts to abandon its ideals, is the moment that festival begins to lose its authenticity. I.e., it might be easier in Montreal to acquire more funding or to sell a few more tickets if we could guarantee that every show is going to be an entertaining box office success.
The challenge is to be confortable with the risk that the festival’s artistic structure creates. For years, the Montreal Fringe’s reputation in our city’s festival landscape was built on being the alternative that welcomes boldness and brass. While always being badass. When you have a festival that has over 100 productions, it’s certainly easy to rely on the productions that push the envelope to stick out of the pack.
But while celebrating risk taking is an important part of what we do, the real passion I hold lies in the ideals, in that we are a part of a revolution in Canadian theatre that is gaining more and more momentum with each passing decade.
Play: Zadie’s Shoes || Playwright: Adam Pettle Shoot: Shaar Hashomayim Synagogue || Models: Seth Galina, Donovan King
ELI: You don’t know how to confess and it’s not because you’re Jewish… it’s because you’re still hiding.
BENJAMIN: I’m trying.
ELI: Try harder.
BENJAMIN: I can’t.
ELI: Why?
BENJAMIN: I’m scared. (Beat.) I’m so fucking scared.
ELI: Of what?
BENJAMIN: Of everything?
ELI: No, of what?
BENJAMIN: I don’t know.
ELI: Stop hiding.
BENJAMIN: I couldn’t… She gave me the chance and I couldn’t… I couldn’t watch her hate me. I can’t have anyone hate me.
ELI: Why?
BENJAMIN: I need them to like me… to love me. I love her… I love her so much and this… it… I would be such a good boyfriend if I didn’t… and…
ELI: What?
BENJAMIN: I did everything so she wouldn’t see it because if she saw it she would leave and I’d be…
ELI: Say it!
BENJAMIN: It’ll take over… it’ll… and then no one will see how wonderful I am anymore. How much I can love. They’ll just see it. I’ll become it… and I’ll be ugly. I’ll be so fucking ugly… so dead and ugly and… alone. I’m alone. How could I…? How can I… How can I get better?
Zadie’s Shoes was first produced by Factory Theatre in Toronto in January 2001.
