#yegfringe — Public Fediverse posts
Live and recent posts from across the Fediverse tagged #yegfringe, aggregated by home.social.
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Edmonton events calendar update:
Fringe holdover schedules have been announced for next week, for those of you running out of room to cram everything in this weekend...
- official holdovers at the Westbury Theatre in Fringe HQ
- Varscona theatre holdovers
- Grindstone theatre
- Rapidfire has also in the past had their own holdovers, but I don't see schedules yet. (And maybe also Theatre Network AKA The Roxy?)
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Evie and Alfie
See this if you like the bits in When Harry Met Sally where older people tell stories about their relationships in cute and charming ways, and think seeing one of those expanded out into a full story would be appealing. This show is particularly well acted, as well. Very solid performance.
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Seanchaí (pronounced "Shawn-ah-key")
See this if you want to see a sweet story about memory, loss, and the stories we pass down within our communities and our families. The specific framing is around irish folk tales and the people tasked with passing them on (the titular Seanchaí), but I think it's very relatable to anyone.
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Object of Divinity
See this if you like the idea of a fairly abstract take on the historical religious figure The Public Universal Friend, and their gender, and a lot of very odd puppets designs like a hairbrush, a couch cushion, and a glove representing people.
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Question for #YEGFringe regulars: Do you know how to access the "daily discount" tickets?
There are no links or additional info on that page, and the online ticket sales do not have any special price options for those shows. Are the extra discounts only available at the in-person box offices on site?
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Bimbos Save the World
Go to this if you like the idea of a combo of short-form improv, live music, and an interview talk show about sex, love, and relationships complete with guest. Note that it is 90 minutes. Funnily enough the guest in mine was the star of Solovela!
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Solovela
Go see this if you like any combination of the following things: long-form improv, soap operas (maybe specifically telenovelas, but probably not necessary), and audience participation that is gentle on the shy in the audience but still involves someone coming up on stage.
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The Human Cat Experience
Go see this if you like the idea of Harold and Kumar go to Whitecastle, but it's human-sized cats going to the Catsmart to get kitty litter and they're high on "the nip" instead of pot. And if you want to know what a feline burlesque show might look like. Or if you want to point laser pointers at the stage or spray water on the performers.
Definitely the show to see if you love weird.
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incidentally you can actually watch Edmontask's previous runs on youtube! I'm really looking forward to seeing this year's run when they post it on youtube before next year's fringe because they had some serious looking camera gear so I think it'll work a lot better than the last couple did.
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Edmontask
If the idea of legally distinct local Taskmaster sounds cool to you you should absolutely check this out. It's now on a bigger stage then it was when I last went two years ago, and everything about it is so much more professional now.
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Merkin Sisters
Go see this if the concept of a giant extremely hairy woman, played by two women in a pile of wigs where one is playing the vagina, interests you more than it scares you. Or maybe even if it scares you. It's weird, but a great display of talent.
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Beings
Go see this if like one woman shows about life with a twist and you want to wonder about which is the metaphor and which is the true story: the ufo abduction or the heartbreaking family losses. Are they aliens or are we?
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gore (I want to disappear)
Ever wanted to see a modern queer take on ancient legends, complete with a chorus of social media addicted Furies and 6 carefully placed bottles of Gatorade? Then I *highly* recommend this one for you. You know who you are.
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Perils of the Penzance
Do you love musical theatre? Especially Gilbert and Sullivan? And silly dramas about theatre ownership? Then this is laser targeted at you!
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Between the Covers
You should see this if you love burlesque. It has a funny and silly frame story and features a very diverse cast.
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Dienasty
If you wanna hear the inside baseball of the fringe told in a funny way, with guest performers and maybe even local celebrities, you should check this out. It's a daily soap with an ongoing story throughout the fringe. Iykyk.
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Alex and Michael and Hannah
You should see this if you are kinda interested in poly or queer stories, especially if you already know a little about them, but that's not required.
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A Lesbian In The Kitchen
You should see this show if you really like earnest autobiographical stories about queerness, womanhood, family, and baking, and you want to find out what a "vagina cookie" is. You'll even get recipes in the program!
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Tbh if I stopped seeing shows altogether now I'd probably consider it a huge success as one of the best "quality to shows seen ratio" fringes I've been to (and I've both been to a lot of fringes and seen a lot more shows at many of them).
I am still going to write up some small posts on what I've seen but honestly none of them are shows that I wouldn't recommend to *someone*.
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Edit: this post is now a log of shows I've seen and plan to see that I'll keep up to date until I have enough brain space to dump deeper thoughts.
I've had a very hectic first three days of fringe where I've seen five shows and haven't gotten around to writing up anything about any of them yet like I usually do :(
But so far I've seen:
- lesbian in the kitchen: a cozy queer baking show (Friday)
- Alex and Michael and Hannah (Friday)
- dienasty day 1 (Friday)
- between the covers (Friday)
- perils of Penzance (Saturday)
- gore (I want to disappear) [Sunday]
- beings (Sunday)
- merkin sisters (Monday)
- edmontask (Monday)
- the human cat experience (Monday)
- solovela (Tuesday)
- bimbos save the world (Tuesday)
- ~~hereafter (Wednesday)~~ decided to just focus on volunteer shift today
- object of divinity (Thursday)
- seanchaí (Thursday)
- Evie and Alfie (Thursday)
- ~~late night cabaret (Friday) ~~ crash day
- vaping gay (next Saturday)
- ~~a story about a storyteller telling a story about storytelling (Sunday) ~~ missed due to accidental sleep in
- neurohilarity (Sunday)Will write up thoughts on shows when I can... :)
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After dark, StoneJoy paid tribute to the Parliament Funkadelic era of funk. Excellent local jazz-funk players, led by Peter Felice on keytar & trombone, which has to be about the funkiest instrument combo you can imagine.
Crowd was surprisingly small, but many eventually got up off of their things. Fringe Music series is free, folks! That crowd should have been much bigger on a lovely early-early-autumn Friday night. (And summer weather is supposed to return for the rest of the week.)
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The rest of my #YEGFringe evening was spent around the main stage in McIntyre Park.
The half-hour "Free-for-All" invites two dozen fringe acts to use 1 minute of stage time to convince you to see their show. (Additional sessions at 8:15pm tonight & tomorrow.)
Highlights:
The singing vulva from Period Problems, exasperated with medical system's dismissal.
A duo in fish masks wittily rhyming about The Shape of Seamen.
The bashful clown from Softie awkwardly discovering that his wireless mic didn't let him reach the crowd.
The 1-woman cast of Solovela correcting the host's pronunciation as she borrowed his mic without missing a beat as her headset flaked out.
The earnest but lovely singing of the young couple from Witches in the Closet, debating if death is worse than life as a wife.
A paranoid goth opera singer from — what the hell was that!?
A 60-second sample of the storytelling hip-hop from My Life in 60 Minutes.
The Soldout Circus explaining they'd sold half their spot & you'd need to see them for more. -
#YEGFringe review: Houdini
Winnipeg-based illusionist/escape artist Brett Oddly pays tribute to the legend of his craft by performing various feats of dexterity originated by Houdini himself. He sets up each trick with a bit of context/history, delivered in a friendly & informative manner with minimum flash or fuss. But the main attractions are the big "How did he do that?" moments. Some are explained, some not. Some are done behind a curtain, some out in full view. All impressive.
Front row will get the best view & highest likelihood of being asked to participate (by holding keys, testing chains, etc.)
At the Backstage Theatre, $20, 45min actual run-time. Some performances already sold out:
https://tickets.fringetheatre.ca/event/601:7609/ -
GORE - I want to disappear
Didn’t expect to set the high bar this early in the festival. A straight telling of the Oresteia that rhymes the trauma and pain and angst of the ancient stories with the disorientation and dysphoria of queer life and family of the present day. Intense and raw channeling of and connection to the classics.
🎭🎭🎭🎭🎭 - having the land acknowledgement delivered deadpan and intense by The Furies goes fucking HARD
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Remind me later to tell the story of the rando shirtless longboarder me and my fellow front of house volunteers convinced to see a midnight fringe show that's a one woman improvised telenovela when he accidentally hit a toilet handle outside the venue on his way to who knows where...
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Kicking off my week at the Edmonton Fringe Theatre Festival. Caught this adorable busker-audience interaction while eating nasi goreng. Watch to the end - for reals! #yeg #yegfringe #Edmonton
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My favorite washroom stall name at the fringe so far this year (they let you name them for a donation) is "Mark CarnPEE"
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Edmonton! The weather may be unusually brisk this week, but it's still August & there's lots of summer left to enjoy. Here's your monthly events calendar, part 2, taking you through to Labour Day weekend.
The big festival of the next few weeks is the Fringe (Aug 13-23) which is really multiple different festivals in one: music, theatre, busking & more. I will not attempt to summarize all the theatre options, but follow the #YEGfringe hashtag for folks' reviews (and leave your own!). And remember that there will be holdovers after the festival official wraps up.
But of course there's lots going on beyond the fringe, too. Music festivals, food festivals, dragon festivals, pride festivals; some big budget, but lots of free events large & small.
1/15
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#yegfringe hot take: riffs on Shakespeare are likely to be basic. Go for the Classics — performers only gonna remake the Oresteia if it really means something to them, and the extra distance from the source material leaves more room to breathe.
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https://tickets.fringetheatre.ca/
The physical guide (my preferred way to browse) doesn't come out until the 29th, but Edmonton Fringe show listings are up on the website now!
If you go to some shows I might be the one scanning your ticket! :)