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Vancouver Fringe Festival: the final countdown, your thoughts and the rice krispie incident
Christina Sicoli (Wild Rose) restores Andrew’s faith in humanity, or somethingWhen David Jordan contacted me about something that Simon Ogden had suggested, my first thought was “what?” Simon’s idea was to review every show in this year’s Fringe Festival over the first weekend. When I told my Plank colleagues about this, they too went “what?”
You mean every show?
Then I met with David and Simon and we started talking about a team of reviewers flooding the festival, Plank Magazine hosting the online forum and getting people talking on the site, debating the shows and generally hurting each others feelings and, man, was on board for that. And so were my colleagues and so, thankfully, are many of you.
This has been just an unbelievably fun adventure for all of us in Plankland. One of my colleagues phoned me on her way home to say how energized she was from the whole experience. And that energy is coming from all of you who have participated in the forums or who have just dropped by to read a few reviews before heading out to the Festival and, of course, from the performers themselves.
We want to also thank our Fringe reviewers who did such fantastic work: Cathy, Ingrid, Miranda, Rachel, Tyson and, of course, Simon! We also want to thank David Jordan and his team and the volunteers.
But it’s not over yet! We still have the final weekend ahead. It’s kind of hard to keep track of all 68 shows – and their reviews – across the site so, if you feel so inclined, why don’t you post your top experience, worst nightmare or general thoughts below. I know David and his team will be just as interested as we are. And please, keep in the spirit of things and don’t shill for your own show.
As for me, my high-point would be having my faith restored in the one-person show by Barry Smith, Christina Sicoli and TJ Dawe.
The low-point would have to be the “incident” last night at the Fringe Club over the Rice Krispie square. I do apologize to anyone who witnessed it but I think you could see for yourselves how unreasonable Alex was being. I really hope Heather will reconsider the ban from the club for the weekend. For me that is, Alex should remain banned.
Get out there and enjoy the Fringe!
Hey Alex, want some?
Reviews
12/31/2008 - 11:23am
12/29/2008 - 5:40pm
12/29/2008 - 2:02pm
12/17/2008 - 5:19pm
Plank Thots
Ignatieff: he likes culture!
12/11/2008 - 4:10pm
Character by Association #4: getting the playwright off my back
11/20/2008 - 5:05pm
Character by Association #3: is this fucking poetry?
11/19/2008 - 3:48pm
Character by Association #2
11/05/2008 - 6:04am
Comments
Thanks to Plank part 2
I’d also like to thank Plank magazine for its audacious accomplishment, especially considering it is volunteer run. I would have missed my favourite show of the Fringe: May Day Parade, if not for the Plank website with its peer and Plank reviews. This is also my shout out to May Day Parade, which was criminally neglected by all other publications and so the public at large. Wayne Harris is possibly the best one man talent in this Fringe and everything story telling should be. I will love him and Plank forever for this Fringe experience.
Thanks PLANK Pt.2
Being the self-absorbed artist that I am, I forgot to thank my technician Sarah, who was absolutely first-rate in running my show at FCC. And a huge thank you to all the volunteers. Every volunteer that I encountered was extremely capable, friendly and flexible. They really made the festival work and bailed me out of a few jams as well.
Danke Volunteers!
Bob Legare
IN TOW
I'll second that...
...but the big thanks must go to Andrew for picking up the ball David and I tossed out and running with it (and huge props to Anna Russell for her incomparable scheduling prowess and editing finesse). Plank materialized in the theatrosphere after the original idea of a critical guide to the Fringe was brought up, and it was immediately evident that it was the perfect host for this kind of forum, not just for the Fringe, but for the health of theatre in Vancouver, period. And the amount and passion of commentary in the audience reviews here has proven that there is a distinct heartbeat to our theatre scene.
As theatre artists we usually have no way of hearing the opinions of our audience, as the sports and TV/film industries do, and this is a detriment to the form. Ideally a public forum such as this will offer insight beyond ‘I loved it!’ and ‘it sucked!’, and move into the ‘this is what worked for me and this is what didn’t, and here’s why’ arena, and a fantastic number of you undertook to express these thoughts here, thank you for your generosity.
Plank Magazine and my own site, The Next Stage, exist for one reason and one reason only, to bolster an art form that we are convinced is an essential one, but one that right now is in dire need of support, from both its artists and its community, and we believe that support starts with open and honest conversation between the practitioners and their audience. I implore you to keep the conversation going after the Fringe has wrapped for this year and the theatre artists are left to their own devices to put up their work – here on Plank, over at thenextstage.wordpress.com, perhaps on a theatre blog or Facebook group or web site of your own. This exercise has proven that theatre is something worth talking about as a city, let’s keep that ball rolling.
And to all the reviewers on this year’s team, you have exceeded my expectations and I am in awe of you, a million thanks for setting the bar so high. You rock.
Stay in touch. That goes for all of you.
Thanks to PLANK
Just wanted to write a quick note to thank PLANK for doing this online forum.
After reading Simon’s comments I realized that it fulfills the mandate of the Fringe – unjuried and uncensored. So we got reviewers calling performers names and vice versa. But I think it got some good dicussion going and hopefully it bodes well for future Fringes if people are so passionate about it. As long as we don’t get a brawl at the Fringe bar. I had a wonderful experience here. What a great setting for a Fringe. And I met so many cool and thoughtful audience members. Let’s not forget them. It seems to me that there is a really strong core audience here for the Fringe and really nice people too! Thanks to Simon for doing the video pitches as well. A really great idea! I hope I can find my way back here again.
In the words of Otto Rot, I would like to say “Danke Vancouver!”
Bob Legare
IN TOW
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