Megan Dart has been involved with the Edmonton Fringe Festival in one way or another for more than half of her life. As the executive director of the Fringe Festival, Dart understands that it is a fluid, living thing. It’ll change from year to year and could even be an entirely different entity from the beginning of the festival to the finish.
“I really do think of it as a movement, like it’s something that continues to grow and respond,” Dart says.
Dart remembers asking Judy Lawrence, one of the festival’s very first directors, what she imagined the festival would be like in 40 years.
“The thing that she said, and it rings in my head all the time, is, ‘I hope it’s unrecognizable.’”
This year Anishinaabe playwright and multi-talented theatre artist Josh Languedoc is directing a new comedy-drama from playwrights Theresa Cutknife and Samantha Fraughton called Talk Treaty to Me. The play is the only Indigenous show at Fringe to come from the Fringe’s lottery or bring-your-own venue program this year. The only other Indigenous programming that can be found at the 2023 Fringe is from the festival’s Indigenous-curated venue, pêhonân, and a Metis Jig-a-long at Kids Fringe.
Languedoc remembers attending his first Fringe as a child with his parents and how he didn’t even see a show, but he and his parents made friends with two street performers.
Later on, he won the entry lottery while he was still in high school. He remembers skipping through the hallways in excitement about the chance to put on his own show. Since then, there have only been two years where he hasn’t been involved in the programming to some extent.
But Languedoc’s most cherished Fringe was from when he was the director of Indigenous strategic planning for the festival’s programming at pêhonân.
“It was amazing, honestly, and like, a long time coming,” Languedoc says. “That’s what a lot of the people I made connections with told me to my face.”
In 2021, pêhonân was the first time that Indigenous creatives were able to have access to the festival without the heavy costs associated with the lottery or the BYOV (bring your own venue) fees. That year, and also in 2022, Languedoc was able to bring in a variety of performers and give many Indigenous artists a platform to tell their stories and showcase their art and culture.
“It was just like a space to say hey, you have room here, you have space here, and honestly, I think the response to it was really, really positive.”
One performance from the internet-famous Chubby Cree even brought Languedoc to tears.
“Their videos have been seen by thousands of people,” Languedoc says. “It’s this kokum, this grandma and her grandson, Noah, and she drums, and he’s just got this wailing beast of a voice. It sounds like he’s screaming and growling while he’s singing. He’s got such power.”
“They did just a short little 45-minute set on one of the outdoor stages, and we had like, I want to say like a 50-100-person round dance going just right in the middle of the Fringe park. It just sort of happened organically, and I just stood there watching it, and I just had like shivers and, like, tears in my eyes. It was Indigenous; it was settler; it was like everyone at the Fringe just communally celebrating and embracing ceremony together. That’s one for the record books for me.”
For Kristi Hansen, every Fringe starts the same.
“Oh, I’m going to travel this summer, I’m going to take some time off, I’m not going to do Fringe,” she will say to herself. “And then inevitably, someone gives you a call, and you go, ‘Oh, that’s a really interesting project!’” and she quickly gets roped back into it.
She still remembers her first Fringe 23 years ago, where she played a small show with a bunch of “very young artists” as well as her spouse. It was written by Mark Haroun, who is now an established TV writer for Heartland.
“I don’t think we were reviewed that particularly well,” Hansen says, laughing. “But we had a really good time. I remember one scene where I was a dominatrix.”
Then she caught the Fringe bug and fell in love with the chaos and strange focus the festival exudes. She loved meeting folks at the beer tent, doing rapid costume changes, last-minute makeup sessions, and even walking down the street in costume amongst the whole Fringe congregation.
You can catch serial Fringer Hansen directing Fake n’ Bake, and she may also reprise her role of famed Edmonton theatre writer Liz Nicholls in the Fringe’s infamously meta and fluid improv show, DieNasty! But she’s most excited to perform in a new show called The Cabin on Bald Dune, written by Jezec Sanders and directed by April Banigan. You can see it all Fringe long at the Varscona Theatre.
As Artistic Director for DieNasty!, Jason Hardwick is a true Fringe veteran with no shortage of wild stories from years past, many of which are used to fuel the improv magic that takes place at the yearly staple. For those who don’t know, DieNasty! is a “live improvised soap opera, heightening the drama of the fringe.” The setting of the story is always at the Fringe, so you can expect anything and everything of note to find its way to the DieNasty! stage.
“I think last year there was an epic musical knife battle at the beer tent on our stage,” Hardwick says.
But some of Hardwick’s favourite Fringe memories are still yet to have their improv parody, including a costume change he’ll never forget:
“My favourite of all time Fringe memory was… I want to say 2013, around there. A friend of mine, Eric Wigston, was doing one show at a venue, and that show finished after his other show had already started — which was across the street. And so, we had to do a quick change from one costume to another while running across Gateway Boulevard. We had people stop traffic, and we had people following him as he just threw clothes, and we picked [them] up, and people were handing him his clothes as he ran through the parking lot to make sure he made it for his entrance on time.
“It was wildly silly, probably not super safe, but I think about it to this day — that is burned into my brain.”
On top of performing in DieNasty! every night at 10 p.m., Hardwick will act with Guys in Disguise in writer/director Trevor Schmidt and Darrin Hagen’s Puck Bunnies, a monster hit comedy from Fringe 2017.
“It’s some of the funniest lines I’ve ever heard on stage,” he says about the play. “And then some of the most touching moments that we get to do.”
Belinda Cornish of Bright Young Things will be bringing an intimate and barebones comedy-drama from Tony and Olivier award-winning playwright Simon Stephens called Sea Wall, which will play at Roots on Whyte through the course of the festival.
For Cornish, the Fringe is a place to experiment, a place to push boundaries, and simply have fun within the medium of theatre.
“A lot of artists will say that the Edmonton Fringe has been kind of integral to their development as an artist, whether it’s as an actor or creator, producer, director,” says Cornish. “It’s always just such a delightful smorgasbord of theatre — theatre of all kinds.”
“One particular memory I have was a number of years ago — probably an embarrassing number of years ago now — myself and my girlfriends, Selena Dean and Jocelyn Ahlf, were producing a play that we’ve co-written called Burlesque. It was a musical, and we’d written the final song on the morning that we opened,” says Cornish.
Six blocks away from the Fringe grounds and just an hour before the show started, Cornish and her friends sat around a living room drinking while they had to learn the song that they had just written that morning.
“It was like two in the afternoon, and we just drank a bottle of champagne and learned this song.”
After learning the song and running the show in that living room, Cornish and her friends walked to the Varscona Theatre in a panicked “champagne-fuelled” daze, only to surprisingly find out their little production had sold out and was lined up around the block.
But even though Cornish doesn’t remember much of the show, it went off without a hitch and was reviewed rather well.
“It was a bit of a crazy start for the Fringe that year, and it was pretty glorious.”
Edmonton, Fringe your heart out and be part of the many amazing stories being created and told in and around Old Strathcona, August 17 – 27, 2023. Tweet @EdifyEdmonton your tales and photos of Fringe 2023.
