Fringe Lottery Time!!

Every Fringe Festival that belongs to the Canadian Association of Fringe Festivals (CAFF) reserves a select number of show spots for the winners of the CAFF lottery. These lottery winners apply to CAFF and choose five Fringes that they want to tour to. This year’s CAFF lottery winners that are coming to the Vancouver Fringe are Daniel Nimmo, David Gaines, and Button Eye Productions (the creators of Die Roten Punkte)! You can catch their shows at the Vancouver Fringe in 2010! Congrats to these winners!

If you’d like your production to be included in the lottery for the Vancouver Fringe, we’ll be accepting applications till November 27 (for the mainstage category).

The draw will be conducted on Saturday, December 5 at the Carousel Theatre and everyone’s invited! We’ll be playing bingo with the lottery results and dancing to DJ Lizard of Oz till late into the night! It starts at 8:00pm and it’s free! So come on out and see who’ll be performing at the 2010 Fringe!

Bring Your Own Venues are chosen on a first-come, first-served basis and that application will go online on our site on December 9!

$5,000 in 5 Days?? You Did It!!!

You folks are so Fringin’ awesome! We destroyed last year’s total and reached our goal!

It was a crazy week around here, but thanks to you, we raised $5,383!!

We owe it to you for making this our best email campaign yet!! You’ve helped support our foundational and legacy work, such as the Joanna Maratta Award!

Thanks to you new donors, we’re off to a fantastic second quarter century!!

From the artists and all of us here at the Fringe: thank you, thank you, thank you!

P.S. Don’t worry if you didn’t get a chance to give–we’ll still gladly accept all new donations!

Industry Images’ Hot Ticket Program

As the Fringe Festival’s print sponsor, as well as the print sponsor for other arts organizations such as the Calgary Underground Film Festival, the Fernie Mountain Film Festival, and the Saskatoon Reggae Festival, it’s no surprise that Industry Images supports the arts.

In addition to printing pre-addressed grey square postcards so people could easily send their thoughts on the arts funding cuts to Gordon Campbell, Industry Images has recently announced The Hot Ticket campaign in support of local non-profit arts groups.

Until June 1, 2010 or until 50,000 free tickets are printed, any non-profit arts organization that produces at least three shows a year can take advantage of Industry Images’ free ticket printing!

So if you’re looking for tickets and you think your organization fits the criteria, download this info sheet and application and email Kate Wilkins at Industry Images today!

A Long Overdue Welcome

Back in July, we here at the Fringe had to scramble to find a new Artist Services Coordinator after Andrea Fraser-Winsby was offered a position working in TV. The Artist Services Coordinator is responsible for arranging billets for artists during the Fringe, addressing concerns, ensuring artist get paid from their shows, and pretty much anything that pertains to making sure the artists are kept happy.

When Michelle Leclair turned up to fill the position, she was a godsend! Despite describing herself as being “an overall pain in the ass,” with a history of working in film, Michelle has just the right combination of organizational wizardry and artist wrangling capabilities to fill the role of Artist Coordinator at the Fringe.

Extended Runs=More Fringe!

If you missed The Seven Lives of Louis Riel or Lavignia: A Modern Fairy Tale of Gigantic Proportions at the Festival back in September, here’s your chance to catch them again!

Lavignia stars Tara Travis, who the Winnipeg Sun says “keeps audiences of all sizes hooked along the way with her charmingly sheepish demeanor, exaggerated physical antics, eccentric puppet friends and unexpected guest stars.”

And the Winnipeg Free Press called Seven Lives: “Irreverent? You bet. But tempered with a massive dose of salty humour, Gladstone’s play is, ultimately, a tribute. And a terrifically funny one at that.”

Open now and running until November 14 at the Firehall Arts Centre.

Fringe Flashback

The Hope Slide

The Hope Slide was at the Fringe in 2004 and was about Irene, who is inspired by the Doukhobor protests, which included naked marches and bombing government buildings in BC in the 1960s.

The Hope Slide stared Terri-Lyn Storey, who played 10 characters. In 2008, Terri-Lyn’s Following Foster won second place in the “Five Minutes to Change Your World” documentary-making contest.

You came through for us last year and we need your help again! This year, be a bigger part of creating a stable financial future for the Fringe: fax or mail in this form to become a new monthly donor!

Monthly donations give us the kind of steady income stream we need to plan and mount our 2010 season with confidence — even in the face of drastic funding cuts from government! Last year, we raised over $3,000 in five days! That really is a fantastic amount… but soooo last year!

We challenge you to beat it - we’re shooting for $5,000 in five days!

The cost of one DVD rental a month… that’s all it takes to become a fundamental part of our second quarter century!… and no sittin’ on the couch at home for your entertainment, either — you get live theatre!!

• $5 a month enters you into an intimate “Fringe Fling” with us! Benefits include a t-shirt ($20 value)!
• $9 per month helps ensure we can cover the basics: venues and techs and you become a Fringe “Sweetheart!”
• $25 per month gets you into the 25th Anniversary club and you will be “Going Steady” with the Fringe!
• Plus, you still get all your regular Fringe Benefits, including t-shirts, tickets to other exclusive events, and more!

Just download the safe, secure authorization form, fill it out, and fax or mail it in to us. It’s that easy! (NOTE: If you use Mozilla Firefox, you may experience downloading problems — try using Internet Explorer or Safari to download the form instead.)

Or you can visit CanadaHelps.org for a quick and satisfying donating experience!

We had a great 25th Anniversary season and Festival — increasing attendance by 6% and contributing to our theatre community with the Fringe Awards Night and its legacy-building awards.

Let’s keep up the momentum and make 2010 an awe-inspiring start to our next quarter century!!

Hurrah for the 2009 Fringe Festival!

What a Festival! We staged 471 performances of 68 plays for an audience of 21,000 (an increase of 6% over last year! We formed a spontaneous village of volunteers, artists, and fans to celebrate theatre!

For a Festival that doesn’t jury its programming, there was a great depth to this year’s lineup including renewed energy from veterans of the theatre community and a bumper crop of newcomers and touring artists.

We celebrated our 25th Anniversary with a new awards component (see below), a new Fringe Bar location, and many new and committed sponsors. Thank you to all who made this year’s Festival a resounding success!

Fringe Awards Night

Hosted by Fringe veteran and comedian extraordinaire, Toby Berner, the Fringe Awards Night was held on September 20 at Performance Works to a full house of artists, volunteers, staff, and fans. We created new awards to provide development opportunities for artists, to celebrate our joyous proliferation of theatre and community, and to celebrate our 25th Anniversary!

The Awards and their winners are:

Cultchivating the Future Award: Ginette Mohr for Fish Face

From the Fringe and the Cultch, the Cultchivating the Future Award paid tribute to Fish Face for its unique potential and rewarded it with development resources and a run at the Cultch.

Talk of the Fringe Award: Ryan Gladstone for The Seven Lives of Louis Riel

Plank Magazine’s Talk of the Fringe Award recognized Seven Lives for generating the most online and in person buzz. (Plank even made the award shown here on the left.

Joanna Maratta Award: Cara Yeates of Some Reckless Abandon

The new Joanna Maratta Award honoured Cara Yates for showing potential to make the greatest contribution to the Vancouver theatre community through artistic achievement and demonstrated community leadership. Cara will be awarded with a mentorship with TJ Dawe.

25th Anniversary Award: Jacques Lalonde

Celebrating the inimitable and unstoppable Jacques Lalonde and his contribution to the Fringe over our first quarter century. Jacques has now performed in 23 consecutive Fringes!

Volunteer Choice Award: The Honeymoon Period is Officially Over

The Honeymoon was the buzz of the volunteer centre and it was chosen by volunteers (some of our biggest fans) as the Volunteer Choice Award!

The SOFA (Spirit of the Fringe Award): Saving Faith

In addition to relentlessly flyering (in a jock strap and helmet no less), Rolf Reynolds continued to perform even when his acting partner Dennis Innes had to leave the Festival for several days due to a death in his family. Then Dennis returned to perform the remaining performances with Rolf. Now that’s spirit!

The Nasty Award: The Cockwhisperer: A Love Story

Yes, there actually were other contenders, but the Cockwhisperer perfectly fulfilled the criteria of  the show you’d least like your grandmother to see. Thanks to Collette Kendal for being the gracious recipient of this fun award!

Thank you to all our 68 performing companies for contributing to an extremely rich and diverse year of theatre! Awards are just one way of celebrating. We’re proud to say that every day of the Fringe was a celebration of theatre and the artists who create and perform it!

Sweet on the Fringe?! Yes You Are!

Eleven presenters, over 20 volunteers, 11 artists, four venue techs, and, most importantly, almost 5,000 audience members were involved in this year’s Sweet on the Fringe campaign! Through quarters, loonies, toonies, and some exciting bills, we raised almost $9,000 and gave away over 4,500 Cocoa Camino chocolates! Most got tasty morsels of dark chocolate, but some lucked out with big, spicy bars! Frenzied audiences cheered as a zany musical medley spurred volunteer “pilots” to zoom through the laughing crowds collecting “fuel” for the Fringe.

It peaked when our Executive Director, on the back of legendary Charlie Ross, led a piggy-back horse race through the happily crazed crowd. Charlie then donated a one night only fundraiser performance of his world famous One-Man Star Wars Trilogy to close the Public Market Pick of the Fringe. That sold out night brought us $3,500!

Mid-way through the Festival, we joined our artists in mounting a secret cabaret for the final Saturday of the Festival. Together we raised $1,000 and gave the lucky attendees a gut splitting Fringe highlight!

Finally, during (and just prior to) the Festival, individual donors responded to the sudden provincial funding cuts with $1,600 in direct donations and ticket purchase top ups!

Have You Taken Our Audience Survey?

We’re hoping to gather some information from you, our audience members, so that we can learn about your experiences at the Fringe!

As a thank you for taking the time to fill out our very brief questionnaire, you’ll be entered to win a Superpass for the 2010 Fringe (that’s an all access pass!)–just be sure to leave us with your name and contact info in the very last question of the survey.

To take our Audience Survey, click here! And feel free to share this link with the friends you brought to the Fringe!

Wanna be part of the 2010 Vancouver International Fringe Festival?

The deadlines for the Fringe are coming up fast and are as follows:

October 28, 2009: Canadian Association of Fringe Festivals Application Due (this is for those of you who want to do the Fringe Circuit and travel to at least five Fringe Festivals)

October 28, 2009: Artist Application for Vancouver International Fringe Festival goes online (for mainstage venues)

November 27, 2009: Artist Application Deadline for the Vancouver Fringe (for mainstage venues)

December 4, 2009: Lottery (this is when we draw shows out of a proverbial hat)

December 9,  2009: Vancouver Fringe BYOV Application available online

February 24, 2010: Vancouver Fringe BYOV Application Deadline

Fun Stuff Round Town

We here at the Fringe get invited to lots of stuff… stuff that we want to invite you to too! Check out these upcoming fun things:

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Monster Theatre’s The Shakespeare Show Or; How an illiterate son of a Glover became the Greatest Playwright in the World is playing at the Genstar Studio Theatre at the ACT in Maple Ridge on Saturday, Oct. 17 at 8:30pm. It features Fringe favourites Tara Travis (Lavignia: a Modern Fairy Tale of Gigantic Proportions) and Ryan Gladstone (The Seven Lives of Louis Riel).

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Evil Dead: The Musical opens on Oct. 22 at the Vogue Theatre and runs till Halloween! Henry Kolenko, the show’s Artistic Producer (who just happens to be Fringe Alumni) let us know that if you come out, you need to decide ahead of time if you’re up for sitting in the Splatter Zone…

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Here Be Monsters is a theatre festival meant to facilitate the creativity of new work! With only 48 hours to put together a show based on a random “inspiration package,” performing groups will put their shows on at Performance Works on Oct. 30 and 31. And they’re still accepting applications! If you’re up for the challenge, fill out the application (trust us, they’re still accepting applications even though it’s past the deadline!).

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Fringe Shows being held over at the Firehall Arts Centre:

From Oct. 21-31 nggrfg and Oh Winnipeg! A Surprising Musical Memoir are being shown at the Firehall Arts Centre! Don’t miss this chance to see these Fringe shows! Visit the Firehall’s website for times and ticket info.

Lavignia: a Modern Fairy Tale of Gigantic Proportions and The Seven Lives of Louis Riel are also being held over at the Firehall November 4-14. Times and ticket info here.