Postcards from the Fringe
Culture Magazine, Written by Wayne Current
The Ottawa Fringe Festival is well underway. I’m having a ball promoting my own show, mingling with performers at the beer tent, and seeing local, national, and international theatre acts. The Fringe is unique among theatre festivals for the sheer diversity of shows it offers to the public. This year there are 60 shows in several venues. There really is something for every taste including: a rock musical based on an Inuit myth The Duck Wife, dance shows like Art DeXo, and — of course — tons of great theatre.
Read more: Postcards from the Fringe
At the Fringe, Context Is King
Unfolding Magazine, June 2010
I’ve never heard such an un-manufactured buzz surrounding one arts event in Ottawa as the communion coalescing around the Ottawa Fringe Festival in just its second day. One reason must be a huge uptake of social media, especially Twitter and Facebook. But these un-contextualized conversations are a bit overwhelming, like offering 80 brands of bottled to water to someone who’s just spent two months in the desert. There’s something else going on.
The momentum’s cause, while not new to Fringe festivals, is unique to Ottawa’s, and it’s streaming out of a Website called Fully Fringed. The spawn of Evan Thornton’s Tron-like brain, co-hosted by Apartment 613, the site is posting reviews of every Fringe show – 19 of the 60, at this writing – and I’ve already heard from a dozen people not in the Twitter/Facebook universe that it has grabbed their attention enough to plan a visit.
Read more: At the Fringe, Context Is King
Good times with high energy G-Men
Red Menace has little to fear from duo
By Patrick Langston, The Ottawa Citizen
G-Men Defectives
Garkin Productions
Commies on the right, commies on the left. And they don’t have a thing to worry about with G-Men Marmaduke and Garfield, graduates of a mail-away commie detection course, training audiences in the recondite art of red spotting. Ray Besharah is Marmaduke and Sterling Lynch plays Garfield, and two more hapless defenders of capitalism couldn’t be imagined. As silly as the whole business of mid-20th century commie hunting was, this duo squabbles, cracks bad jokes about mothers and would likely escape the Red Menace only by making the Marxist horde laugh itself sick.
Read more: Good times with high energy G-Men
Tale Wagging Theatre debuts tonight at Ottawa Fringe
Orleans Star – Dan Plouffe
Orléans writer John Cook jumped off a building in an attempt to kill himself.
Or at least that was the (untrue) rumour that inspired him to pen the script for The Rooftop Guy, the premiere production for his Tale Wagging Theatre company, which runs June 17-27 at the Ottawa Fringe Festival.
Read more: Tale Wagging Theatre debuts tonight at Ottawa Fringe
Indie streak: June features almost 70 independent theatre productions
By Patrick Langston, The Ottawa Citizen June 7, 2010
Strap on your track shoes, fans of independent theatre. This is the month you live for.
Between the Ottawa Fringe Festival at various downtown locations June 17-27, the Piggyback Fringe Festival in Wakefield June 25-27 and shows like Gruppo Rubato’s Airport Security in the Irving Greenberg Theatre Centre Studio until June 12, almost 70 productions by independent companies open this month.
Some will be good, some bad, some by Ottawa companies, some not. Question is: why so much?
Read more: Indie streak
Emma, At Home: Behind the scenes with the director of Six: At Home
Ottawa Tonight, by Andrew Snowdon
Emma Zabloski makes it look easy. She was sitting in a sliver of shade on the concrete steps of Laurier House as I arrived for our appointment.
“I was just thinking about going to lie in the grass,” she said.
This is hardly the picture of nervousness and stress one would expect from the director of a production less than two weeks before opening night—especially when the show hasn’t even seen its first full group rehearsal.
Director Emma Zabloski on the set of Six: At Home
Emma is directing Six: At Home, a collaborative effort consisting of six solo performances taking place throughout the halls and rooms of Laurier House. Located in Ottawa’s Sandy Hill neighbourhood, Laurier House was once the residence of Sir Wilfrid Laurier, and later William Lyon Mackenzie King, and is now a National Historic Site operated by Parks Canada.
Read more: Emma, At Home: Behind the scenes with the director of Six: At Home
Fringe fest always a surprise – ‘Absolutely different mix every year’ for theatre smorgasbord
TRACEY TONG/METRO OTTAWA
This year’s Ottawa Fringe Festival features a diverse lineup with dance, comedy, drama and even puppetry, said the festival’s executive producer, Natalie Joy Quesnel, at the festival launch yesterday.
This year’s Fringe features 60 shows and 350 performances in 15 venues, including five official venues (the SAW Gallery, the Academic Hall and Studio Leonard Beaulne at uOttawa, the Arts Court Theatre and the Arts Court Library) and 10 bring-your-own-venue locations that the artists themselves have arranged.
When you walk into an Ottawa Fringe Festival show, there’s a feeling of anticipation and uncertainty that comes with not knowing quite what to expect.
Read more: Fringe fest always a surprise
Fringe feast: Summer theatre festival offers something for every taste
By Patrick Langston, The Ottawa Citizen
David Gaines brings his one-man play, 7 (x1) Samurai, to the Fringefest, which features more performers and venues this year.
Ottawa Fringe Festival
When and where: June 17-27, various downtown venues
Information: 613-232-6162, www.ottawafringe.com
Read more: Fringe feast
Love And Hate At The Fringe Festival
UnFolding Magazine Ottawa, Ottawa’s arts, events & creativity
“Some of my best memories are of the most appalling shows,” says Natalie Joy Quesnel.
It is a statement of pure affection. While we all have bitchiness in us, Quesnel is nowhere near that page when talking about the Ottawa Fringe Festival, which she helped nurse-maid for years and this year became its official nanny – the executive producer. Starting June 17, she has 60 performance groups staging 370 shows, and some of them are going to fall flat on their faces.
Read more: Love And Hate At The Fringe Festival
It’s festival season in the capital
TRACEY TONG, METRO OTTAWA
Ottawa is widely known as the city of festivals.
For residents looking for something to do on weekends without having to leave the city, the lineup doesn’t disappoint.
Read the full article on the Metro website to see a run down of a few of the many, many events that will be happening over the course of the next few months: It’s festival season in the capital
