Something Wrong performed by Andrew Gaunce/Aberrant Theatre in 2019 (Image: Fundy Fringe Festival)
The line-up for the 2020 edition of the Fundy Fringe Festival was unveiled Thursday.
“We’re trying to be as cautious as possible, knowing that it’s very much a gift that we’re able to be in this position of not only being able to have our staff here working on a festival, not having to cancel the event, but also looking at having actual live performances.” said Sarah Rankin, Festival Director.
The festival will livestream shows from the BMO Studio each evening and will feature pre-recorded content, video and audio accessible for streaming from its virtual studio.
“We’re also taking benefit of the technologies out there right now to stream the content and provide digital content and find a way to make the art accessible to everybody,” said Rankin.
The full nine act line-up consists of:
Isolation Time by Decoy Productions | Theatre for a Covid world: boxed in, stressed out, jumped up, and dragged down. A minute-by-minute play-by-play through an optimist’s mind taken over by worries of pandemic proportions.
The Wren & The Bear by Stumble Upon A Story | A Grimm Brothers tale re-imagined with puppetry and musical storytelling that the whole family can enjoy or simply stumble across while in King’s Square.
Sarah/Frank by Minmar Gaslight Productions | A 30-minute audio experience, (think radio play meets theatrical sound design) retracing the untold story of a Canadian legend who fought in the American Civil War. A unique viewpoint from history’s pages that examines how gender, identity, and sexuality are challenged during wartime in the 1800s.
Mashup 2 by Improvisation Corporation
Like Butter In a Dog’s Mouth by Aberrant Theatre
Swing by Pizza Squeeze Inc
Every Young Adult Novel Ever: The Musical by Isolation Creation
Cry Wolf by InterAction School of Performing Arts
Just Desserts by Kay Kreative Arts
Traditionally 50 per cent of the Fundy Fringe’s acts are locally based in New Brunswick, meaning festival organizers were still able to attract many possible acts from in province.
Mashup performed by Improvisation Corporation in 2019 (Image: Fundy Fringe Festival)
“In future years we may have to shift to be more regional, which would be just Saint John only, provincial and Atlantic,” Rankin said. “We are definitely prepared to make those adjustments and recontextualize as much as we need to in order to ensure that the festival continues and remain successful.”
They took a different approach to volunteering this year with an estimated 18 volunteers to help usher, do contact tracing and proofreading and organizing social media from home.
“We didn’t do a traditional call for volunteers, we basically just went and we contacted those volunteers that we’ve known and had for years and years and leaned in on them,” she said. “It was really exciting to see the number of them that said,’ yeah I still want to help out, I still want to do this, I still want to help out with Fringe.’”
In prior years, the festival was held at five different venues hosting five different shows each night to packed houses. This year, capacity has been reduced and tickets are being sold by phone to ensure people understand the social distancing policies and how people can physically distance.
Fundy Fringe Festival Director Sarah Rankin at the BMO theatre (Image: Elizabeth MacLeod)
The restrictions of the pandemic pushed Fundy Fringe Festival organizers to examine how they can cultivate a festival feeling and environment, even if everyone can’t physically attend. “We wanted to be able to allow them to still enjoy art in some way, so the live-streaming thing made the most sense,” she said.
Rankin thinks live-streamed and pre-recorded content available to access at any time will be a Fundy Fringe Fest staple. “I think those are just things that we’re going to have to look at for the future,” she said.
The future of fringe theatre is a topic the international and North American festivals are discussing seriously with many deciding they will continue producing digital content.
“I think hopefully people will also support these festivals, even if they are doing online content. It can be incredibly expensive, if not more expensive to do live-streaming and recording than it is to do a live show because the technology to do these things can be very expensive,” explained Rankin.
“Hopefully people will step up and realize that the arts are very important, and that if you want the arts to continue as they are or if you want to be entertained, you need to support it,” she said. “Sometimes that support has to come first before the art comes.”
