Vancouver Fringe Festival celebrates its 40th anniversary

When: Sept. 5-15, various times Where: Granville Island, various locations Tickets/info: vancouverfringe.com

Executive director Duncan Watts-Grant wasn’t born when the Vancouver Fringe Festival began, but he still remembers his first Fringe show.

“My first show was an acclaimed comedy duo called the Pajama Men, which my mom took me to when I was nine,” he said. “She still jokes that the only thing not listed on the warnings outside the door was strobe lighting, but the only lasting effect was that it brought me into the theatre from then on. The first show I went to on my own was doing a favour for someone who had a show in a yoga studio but the light switch was in the hallway, so they needed someone to turn it on and off.”

That job gained Watts-Grant a stage manager designation and a festival pass with which he put to use seeing everything he could. If that first play with a parent was a teaser, this second go-round was love at second Fringe.

“It was amazing, your world is changed having those kind of experiences and that year was heavily site-specific with a clown show in the duck pond, a story of an alien and a whale becoming friends under the Granville Bridge, etc.,” he said. “After that, I bought a 10-show pass every year, then volunteered, became a donor and, briefly, served on the board and am now back in a leadership role. I think that having brought the festival entirely to Granville Island has been key to creating a much more focused event, which is a good feature for audience, artists and so on.”

This year, the annual theatre showcase is celebrating its 40th anniversary. The festival features 74 different companies offering over 500 performances across 18 venues, including some roving players and the free nightly music and entertainment in the Fringe Bar, located at the well-used Ocean Artworks Pavilion. Like many other arts festivals, the event has struggled to revive attendance to pre-COVID levels.

But community engagement and a capital program has enabled the 40th anniversary to be a large-scale experience including a trio of ticketed events at Performance Works including the Opening Showcase (Sept. 4, 7 p.m.); Smut Slam (Sept. 5, 9 p.m.) and Cabaret of 40 Years More Bulls — t (Sept. 14, 11 p.m.).

“Fringe festivals rely so much on the artists activating the audience and the financial model of giving them the money is a difficult one facing continuously rising operational costs,” he said. “That is challenging in the face of increased popularity of one-off major events like a Taylor Swift show versus something that runs over a longer time period. It’s an continuing dialogue with us and other festivals across the Canadian fringe circuit to find ways to diversify, which is leading some festivals to go for a more individual theatre shows, plus a street party approach.”

To get people spending thousands for a mainstream stadium concert to part with $25-or-less to enjoy an entirely original arts creation seems simple. But to get folks hitting the “Like” button to get social media demand requires shows that live up to their billing. That’s where Fringe veterans like Sandra Medeiros come in.

A co-founder of the Curious Cats Theatre Collective with Maryth Gilroy and Karen Hamm, Medeiros appears in a production of playwright Rachel Blair’s A Man Walks Into A Bar playing at Venue 7, Sept. 6-15, tickets: $14. Taking the classic opening line of a joke as a launch pad, the play brings the audience into the gag looking at it from the perspectives of the man, a waitress and their opposing perspectives on an emerging, dark, punchline.

“I’ve been involved in producing Fringe Festival shows since 2001 when a friend and I put together a company called Naked Goddess to produce Judith Thompson’s the Crackwalker,” said Medeiros. “It’s such a fun experience, because you don’t know what kind of venue, dates, times or anything that you are going to get. But there is this sense of camaraderie that develops between the artists and the audiences as you go running around Granville Island to see other shows by people you don’t know and just take in the whole experience.”

Like most creators, Medeiros trained in theatre and has worked in everything from sketch comedy troupes to serious professional gigs that have earned her a Joey Award and several Jessie Award nominations. She says what keeps her and her collaborators coming back to the Fringe is the freedom to explore creative pursuits without often onerous demands on performers’ wallets.

“You start self-producing and you aren’t waiting around for someone to cast you and you can try out different things, such as our show Three Chicks in a Tub, which we performed in a friend’s West End apartment,” she said. “That’s the kind of thing that you can do at the Fringe, anything and everything, which is what I love about it. Plus, you can’t forget that shows that went on to become global hits such as Kim’s Convenience came out of the Fringe Festival circuit.”

While you could self-produce a theatre production any time of the year, Medeiros notes that having the blanket coverage of the Fringe Festival is key to artists’ working in that realm achieving greater success with their work.

“Everyone knows what the Fringe Festival is, so you instantly get a different audience than you would just doing it at some random space another time of year, and they put out the guide, which is a huge benefit for publicity,” she said. “That makes it easier for you to do what you do because you love it so much and give that extra time and energy to putting on a better show instead of going out putting up posters, etc.”

After the Fringe Festival, Medeiros is heading into filming a mini-pilot for a sitcom titled Tia Maria’s Cafe.

Based on two sisters who have inherited a traditional Portuguese community coffee shop from their mother, the series was developed from the Fringe Festival production FESTA! which was mounted by Portuguese Buns Productions, another theatre company established by Medeiros and colleagues. She says the Fringe Festival was key to the project development.

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