Fringe Blog

Official Fringe holdovers announced

Fri, 22 Aug 2008 16:10:51 +0000

The bittersweet part of Fringing on the last weekend of the festival is the numb reality that a good chunk of the high-buzz shows have already sold out.

First rule about eating Fringe goodies

Fri, 22 Aug 2008 16:05:45 +0000

Don't worry about eating Fringe Festival site goodies!
The beautiful thing about the Fringe Festival is that it's a once a year event where you can happily and exuberantly binge on a wild assortment of eclectic theatre!

Second rule about eating Fringe goodies

Fri, 22 Aug 2008 16:04:42 +0000

It's great to visit the Fringe and make a huge theatrical discovery, like stumbling across the heart-warming
play Jake's Gift of the quirky and wonderfully produced one-person show The Particulars. It's also a great joy to wander the site and make an equally groundbreaking food discovery!

Dining at the Fringe: Spread your culinary wings!

Fri, 22 Aug 2008 16:03:20 +0000

A great thing about the Fringe Festival is how social it is. Not only do you end up bumping into tons of people that you know attending plays and hanging out on the site, you can also bring pals along to see plays with you.

Hamlet (Solo)

Fri, 22 Aug 2008 15:55:26 +0000

Stage 3, the Academy at King Edward School
I saw and loved this daring deconstructive take on Shakespeare's play about the depressive Danish prince when it was performed at the Workshop West Canoe Festival this winter.

Respecting the Action for Seduction: The Brownlee Affair

Fri, 22 Aug 2008 15:49:29 +0000

BYOV A, Strathcona Public Library
The saga of Depression-era Alberta Premier John Edward Brownlee is probably the most poignant and salacious story in our province's whole political history.

Art

Fri, 22 Aug 2008 15:47:09 +0000

Stage 3, the Academy at King Edward School
You have to give the System Theatre points for being gutsy. Not only are they daring to mount a full-length play at the notoriously short-attention-spanned Fringe Festival, they are going out on an even thinner limb by mounting a deconstructive French intellectual comedy by Yasmina Reza.

2 Queens & A Joker

Fri, 22 Aug 2008 15:44:29 +0000

BYOV B, Varscona Theatre
Given the recent interest in the Tudor dynasty on TV and on film, its grand to see the Guys in Disguise theatre--the folks who brought you BitchSlap!--take a poststructural and wildly salacious swipe at the historic struggle between royal cousins and rivals Elizabeth I and Mary, Queen of Scots.

Maggie Now Part 3: Claude and Maggie Now Part 4: I'll Bury Youse All

Fri, 22 Aug 2008 14:58:17 +0000

BYOV F, Strathcona Baptist Church
The Sterling nominated cast that produced the uber-popular historical drama Maggie Now Parts 1 and 2 are playing the Fringe for the third year in a row with the two concluding chapters of an epic Irish family making their way in early 20th century Brooklyn.

Mathemantics

Fri, 22 Aug 2008 14:31:31 +0000

Venue 4, Cosmopolitan Music Society
Mathemantics, by emerging Edmonton playwright Evan Smith, is one of the most socio-politically clever plays of Fringe 2008.

Redbird

Fri, 22 Aug 2008 13:33:32 +0000

Venue 11, King Edward School Gymnasium
One more of Fringe 2008's dystopic, near-future/alternative world plays, Redbird--the one-person show written by and starring Joel Crichton--is set in a grimy, media-besotted, ultra-violent and crime-ridden theocracy.

Spiral Dive

Thu, 21 Aug 2008 22:42:04 +0000

Venue 4, Cosmopolitan Music Society
Fringe legend Ken Brown (Life After Hockey, Letter from Wartime) has been fascinated for years with the aerial Battle of Britain and the significant Canadian participation in that bloody engagement.

Stars and Sons

Thu, 21 Aug 2008 20:52:09 +0000

Stage 8, Walterdale Theatre
What I love about the Fringe Festival (when it works well) is how it can so effectively present home-grown stories. Stars and Sons is just such a hometown tale, set as it is in a Nisku truck stop.

Eleanor

Thu, 21 Aug 2008 20:40:43 +0000

Venue 8, Walterdale Theatre
Penned by Jon Lachlan Stewart (Grumblestock's and Twisted Thing), Eleanor is set during the groundbreaking 1871 Commune of Paris--the brief insurrectionary and proto-communist local government formed at the end of the Franco-Prussian War.

Singing at the Edge of the World

Thu, 21 Aug 2008 15:17:51 +0000

Venue 5, Acacia Hall
A Fringe Festival staple with five solo shows under his belt, master storyteller and folk singer Randy Rutherford has earned a well-deserved fan following in Edmonton and in other Fringe stops across the country.