Arguably, the single most important development in Canadian theatre in the last decade or more has been the fringe festival phenomenon.
Loosely modeled on the enormous Edinburgh Fringe in Scotland–which sprang up alongside that city’s official festival and now dwarfs it in size the first fringe theatre festival in Canada took place in Edmonton in 1982, undaunted by the absence of a legitimate festival to which to be “fringe.” But what fringe really meant, and still means, is “fringe” to the regular theatre season a huge summer bazaar of independently produced theatrical wares being flogged on the open market in a festive neighborhood setting. Small theatrical productions on their own are easy to ignore, but marketed as an event, they achieve a critical mass that cannot be denied.
Originally, the fringe appeared to be a western Canadian novelty. When a fringe festival was announced for Toronto four years ago, skeptics warned that it would be redundant in a city which boasts year-round theatre activity second only to New York City in North America. In fact, the Fringe of Toronto has been so popular that two further summer festivals have been started by artists unable to get into that fringe.
This summer there will be 11 fringes spanning the country from Victoria, British Columbia in the West, to Halifax, Nova Scotia in the East (something even the railway doesn’t do anymore) making the fringe a truly coast-to-coast happening. Although each fringe is operated independently, fringe producers meet every fall to trade ideas and help new fringe festivals get off the ground. The festivals range in age from brand new this year (Cowichan and Sudbury) to 12 years old (Edmonton), and can feature as many as 160 shows on 18 stages over a scant 10-day period (Edmonton).
And fringe fever is catching on south of the 49th parallel as well: Seattle held its third annual fringe festival in March, Orlando, Fla. had its second scheduled for the end of April, and a first Minnesota fringe festival is proposed for July 1994 in Minneapolis-St. Paul.
So what is a fringe festival and why is the phenomenon spreading like wildfire?
The two essential characteristics of a fringe festival are: a non-mandated selection process; and artists receive all box-office revenue.
Literally anyone can apply to be part of the fringe, but typically it’s independent theatre artists or fledgling theatre companies that do. Participants pay an entry fee of C$300-400 which gets them six performance slots, a technician, box-office services and basic publicity. All participants have to do is supply a show. “Everything’s taken care of except the art, so that they can concentrate on that,” says Fringe of Toronto producer Gregory Nixon. For struggling young theatre artists in recessionary times, the fringe just may be the only way they can afford to produce a show.
Ticket prices must not exceed C$7 (or C$10, depending on the fringe) and most venues are under 100 seats, so the fringe is no get-rich-quick scheme–although popular shows can turn a profit and some groups manage to tour a show to several different fringe festivals. Mump & Smoot, a team of hilariously macabre clowns, toured their latest show, Mump and Smoot in ‘Ferno’, right across Canada last summer, selling out most of their 60-plus performances. The Toronto-based duo produced its first show for the first fringe of Toronto in 1989 and continue to use fringe festivals to “try out” each show before bringing it home for an extended run during the regular theatre season.
In Canada, most fringes receive some portion of their budget from government arts councils so that they can provide all they do for participants at such a low fee. The fringe of Toronto’s budget this year, for example, is just over C$200,000, 50 percent of which comes from various levels of government, 35 percent from entry fees, and the rest from merchandizing and private sponsorships.
Most festivals accept entries on a first-come-first-served basis, while saving some slots for out-of-town or out-of-country participants. (Fringe participants have come from as far afield as England, Australia and Russia.) At many fringes, demand far exceeds supply; this year the Toronto fringe, for example, had 281 applications for its 65 slots. Rather than first-come-first-served, organizers there have instituted a lottery to ensure every applicant has an equal shot at a slot.
While every fringe has its own flavor–largely due to whatever neighborhood it takes place in and how successful the organizers are at making the festival festive with outdoor performances, beer tents and the like–what all fringes have in common is the element of risk. Since there is no quality control, no artistic direction, audiences are left to pay their money and take their chances. Reading reviews and listening to word-of-mouth are essential strategies for happy fringe-going (or “fringing” as it’s often referred to) if you care to avoid seeing the mind-numbingly bad shows which inevitably are to be found at any fringe.
On the upside of the risk equation, what audiences do get is a sense of excitement from having so many shows going on at the same time. Plays that would have trouble drawing an audience if produced on their own during the theatre season can sell out in a matter of minutes if they get the right buzz. People who wouldn’t normally set foot in a theatre find themselves caught up in the frenzy of dashing from venue to venue, choosing between dozens of different shows on tap (at some fringes) from noon to midnight. I compare attending the fringe to panning for gold: once you uncover a gem of a play or two, the fever grips you, making it possible to ignore the fact that you’ve endured hours of the theatrical equivalent of silt. And that’s the genius of the fringe festival concept: The whole really is greater than the sum of its parts; the sense of “event” draws you in like no individual show in the festival could.
And don’t be fooled into thinking that “fringe” means “alternative.” While fringes are hotbeds of activity for new plays and wacky new forms of theatre, there’s usually a dose of conventionally staged conventional plays (yes, even Neil Simon) at any fringe as well. “The fringe is not an aesthetic criterion; it’s a production environment,” Nixon points out.
Still, what has made the fringe festival phenomenon so important to Canadian theatre is that it’s arrived at a time when arts council grants and money for theatres to develop new plays are in desperately short supply. Fringe festivals make theatre happen.
On the other hand, some critics have argued that the fringe phenomenon is breeding a whole generation of young playwrights who don’t even know how to spell dramaturgy; and that fringe success is often more about marketing than creation. Fringe shows sometimes succeed largely on the strength of a catchy title (for instance, last season’s Kevin Costner’s Naked Butt by Three Dead Trolls in a Baggie) rather than a well-developed script.
On the plus side, the very concept of a fringe festival helps take the power to create new plays away from those in control of established institutional theatres and puts it back in the hands of independent artists. “What the fringe effectively does is rule out this arbiter-of-taste class,” Nixon enthuses. “Thanks to the fringe, there is a whole wave of Canadian theatre being created without anyone having to nod from on high and say, ‘Let’s do this.'”
Nigel Hunt is editor of Theatrum, a national theatre magazine in Canada.
