Just Announced: Fringe Fundraisers!

Wow! Our artists love the Fringe so much that a few of them are putting on special fundraiser shows just for us!

Martin Dockery, whose show Wanderlust has been called a “must-see” by the Georgia Straight, is performing his other travelogue show, The Bike Trip. The Bike Trip is a psychedelic bike trip through San Francisco, India, and Switzerland, and into the history of the world’s first acid trip. The Bike Trip will be performed at the Waterfront Theatre on September 22, at 8:00 p.m. Get your tickets now!

Chris Gibbs, creator of last year’s smash hit the Power of Ignorance and this year’s Antoine Feval will perform Gibberish.

The Edmonton Sun hails Gibberish as “comic genius” and the Toronto Star calls “stand-up gold.” Gibberish will be on stage at the Waterfront Theatre on September 23 at 9:00 p.m. You can purchase your ticket here!

And to top it off…Red Bastard is back!

Did you miss the indecent clown last year? But have a small place in your heart for him because of our commercial? Well you can catch his show again on September 26

at 8:15 p.m. Tickets are available now!

Tickets to these special fundraiser shows are only $18!

You Pick the Pick!

Check out that hot leg!

Don’t forget to rate the shows you see at the Festival! As you leave theatres, our lovely volunteers will be handing out rating cards. Write the name of the show you’ve just seen on the card and rate it on a scale of one to ten, where one is horrible and represented by a little man puking, and ten is hot, like the lady’s leg! If you don’t get a ballot, make sure to ask for one!

We tabulate the votes using an averaging scale. The show with the highest rated average in the local, national, and international categories get to be in the Public Market Pick of the Fringe! Then the Fringe’s staff get to pick their own Pick. A staff Pick! (Hey, we work here and we see tons of shows!). The Public Market Pick of the Fringe runs from September 23 to 26 at the Waterfront Theatre.

The winners of the Public Market Pick of the Fringe are announced at the Fringe Awards Night on Sunday, September 19 at Performance Works and shortly thereafter on our website. Tickets will go on sale at midnight after the Awards Night and are only $18!

Origins on the Food Bank Train

Origins Organic Coffee opened in 1999 with a focus on supporting organic coffee farmers. They use vintage equipment and traditional roasting techniques on site, so you can expect aromas of coffee during performances at this intimate venue. Origins also supplies the Fringe staff with coffee which helps fuel us during those long days and nights spent prepping for the Festival.

Volunteers working hard outside our intimate mainstage venue, Origins Organic Coffee.

Origins originally joined the Fringe as a BYOV but, became a mainstage venue in 2009. When we asked them how we could repay them for their amazing generosity, Origins asked us to give something to the Greater Vancouver Food Bank Society, and the Food Bank shows were born!

Many of our artists are donating 10% of a designated Food Bank’s revenues to the Greater Vancouver Food Bank Society. Some artists are even donating from all their performances! So far, Fringe artists have raised $606.10. And the Food Bank will be able to turn that into $1,818.30 worth of food!

Check out our program guides to find our which shows are Food Bank shows. When you buy tickets to those shows, you’ll help raise money for the Food Bank!

Organic coffee and the Food Bank. Who can’t get behind that? Check out Origins Organic Coffee during and after the Fringe Festival!

Fringe Awards Night

The Georgia Straight Critics’ Choice Award is chosen by Colin Thomas and Kathleen Oliver, the Straight’s theatre critics!

Cara Yeates accepting the 2009 Joanna Maratta Award. Photo by Brice Ferre.

The Joanna Maratta Award, named after the Vancouver Fringe’s founder, honours the artist that exhibits the original founding spirit of the Festival and pairs that artist with an established Fringe artist for a mentorship.

The Volunteer Choice Award is chosen by our hardworking volunteers, many of whom see more shows than anybody else!

There’s lot of other Awards too! Plus, we’ll announce the Public Market Pick of the Fringe winners, which are voted by you!

Want to come? The Fringe Awards Night is on September 19 at 9:30 p.m. at Performance Works on Granville Island. Admission is by cash donation to the Greater Vancouver Food Bank Society.

See you there!

Tasty Treats

Our food theme continues! Our artists have been sharing their food stories with us. This one comes from Kathy Parsons, the writer/director of Escape Artists I:

Kathy Parsons "eating" seafood.

I had a crazy encounter with a seafood buffet in China. A few years ago my husband, my sister, my mom, and I traveled to China to celebrate my nephew’s marriage to a young woman there.  We all spent three days on the beautiful island of Hainan in the South China Sea.

On our second night, we were encouraged to go out for dinner to a floating restaurant/raft which had a great seafood buffet. Everyone (except me) loved seafood, so I agreed, planning to just eat from the salad part of the buffet. No worries.

When we were seated, I looked around at the other tables and could tell that something was fishy…in fact, everything was fishy! There was not one single morsel of food other than fish (or other unidentifiable sea creatures). Not even a grain of rice. Nothing. And when the seafood arrived, much of it was alive–you had to plunge it into a pot of boiling broth at your table! Starving, I spent the evening picking at a bit of something I hoped was fish. When we got back to the hotel I raided the vending machine.

Cast of 13 Gets Surprise Visit from Broadway Playwright

Broadway playwright & screenwriter, Robert Horn, made a surprise visit to the dress rehearsal of the Vancouver Fringe production, 13 at the Firehall Arts Centre the night before the Fringe.

Horn, who co-wrote 13 the musical for Broadway with Jason Robert Brown, is in town working with Ashley Tisdale on the High School Musical spinoff, Sharpay’s Fabulous Adventure, which is being produced for ABC.

Cast of 13, with Robert Horn.

Horn heard that Awkward Stage Productions was producing 13 as part of the Vancouver Fringe Festival. He contacted the Firehall Arts Centre and was put in touch with Awkward Stage Productions.

Horn intended to just drop in and say hi to the cast, but he was so engaged by the energy and talent of the young performers that he stayed for the whole show.  Afterwards, he phoned his writing partner, Brown, and the whole cast left a voice mail message.

13 The Musical is the Canadian professional premiere of this production and features two all-teen casts (a junior & senior cast), crew and musicians.  It is playing at the Firehall Arts Centre from September 9th to 19th. They were even featured on Global TV.

(Thanks to Laurie Cooper, one of the proud moms of 13 for this bit of info!)

This entry was posted on Tuesday, September 14th, 2010 at 2:11 pm. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.