The Toronto Fringe Festival is slated to hit a venue near you between Wednesday, July 2 and Sunday, July 13.With more than 135 productions involving more than 800 artists in more than 25 venues, it's billed as Toronto's largest theatre festival.
As one would expect, the Parkdale neighbourhood, located right in the thick of the festival venues, is well represented, and The Villager checked in with two local playwrights who have plays in the festival.
But more on that later.
Fringe Festival productions, ranging from dramas to musical extravaganzas to improv, can be found not just in local theatres, as one would expect, but also in some unusual places such as playgrounds, parking lots and more.
A KidsVenue hosts eight plays exclusively for children and families.
The festival also hosts a beer tent, two outdoor patios and a free nightly Cabaret.
The festival bills itself as "unjuried, unexpected, unforgettable".
Visit www.fringetoronto.com for a complete list of productions and show times.
The two productions with heavy local flavour that The Villager recently checked in with are Tyrolia and Rule of Thumb.
Tyrolia is written by Parkdale resident Hope Thompson who lives "just off Roncesvales". It opens Thursday, July 3 at Factory Studio, 125 Bathurst St.
Director: Sky Gilbert. Cast: Moynan King, Mark Koelsch, David Roche, David Tomlinson, Brittany Wright. Warning: mature content. Venue No. 6, Factory Studio, 125 Bathurst St. (south of Queen, at Adelaide Street). Running time, 80 minutes.
Showtimes: July 3, 10:30 p.m.; July 4, 3:15 p.m.; July 7, 8:45 p.m.; July 8, 2:45 p.m.; July 9, 5:45 p.m.; July 11, 7:15 p.m.; July 13, 4:30 p.m.
Questions to writer Hope Thompson:
Q. Describe the play.
A. It's a comedy about a middle-aged couple (who) go on a ski holiday to a fictional Austrian village called Tyrolia, (which is) set in the Tyrol mountain range in Austria and they're going there to renew their romance in their relationship, but things go wrong in a funny way.
Q. The play has a prominent director, how did you hook up with Buddies in Bad Times Theatre co-founder Sky Gilbert?
A. I've known him just through my association with Buddies, ... I've never worked with him before so this is a big thrill.
Q. How did you become part of the Fringe Festival?
A. I developed this play Tyrolia through Buddies' playwrights unit and I've just been trying to get it shown somewhere. There are not a lot of options for playwrights and the Fringe is a great option if you are successful in their lottery. I just tried this because I really like this play and I wanted to get it mounted somewhere.
A. Can you sum up your work, so far?
Tyrolia is my first full-length play. I've written and directed four short films. I was at the Canadian Film Centre's writers' lab for one year. I've written a couple of feature scripts but they haven't been produced. I've written two short plays at (the) Rhubarb (Festival) and I've also written on the CBC comedy and animation series from a few years ago called What It's Like Being Alone.
Q. How does it feel to go to a theatre and watch your own play:
It's extremely exciting and it feels like a huge privilege to see your work being performed by others. One of the great things is just seeing how the audience reacts to things that you might have thought were funny and then they laughed at completely other things.
Q. What's your next project?
A. A new feature project set in the Calgary oil patch called Cougar attack.
Q. In a perfect world ...
A. To have more plays produced, that would be great. Theatre festivals, like Rhubarb and Fringe and SummerWorks are great ways to get stuff played.
Q. Grew up ...
A. ... In Yonge and St. Clair area, went to Northern Secondary and after university I moved here (Parkdale).
Rule of Thumb is written and performed by Parkdale residents Dave Deveau, Sarah Dineen along with Maya Rabinovitch, Shannon Roszell and Jason Sharman
Warning: content, language, strobe, fog, blood, dismemberment.
Venue No. 5 - Factory Theatre Mainspace, 125 Bathurst St. Running time: 50 minutes
Showtimes: July 2, 10:30 p.m.; July 4, 5:15 p.m.; July 6, 3 p.m.; July 8, 8:45 p.m.; July 10, 4 p.m.; July 11, 7:30 p.m.; July 13, noon.
The Villager caught up with Dave Deveau ...
Q. Describe the play.
A. A dark, musical comedy, it could be categorized as an environmental piece. It's looking at a fictitious disease that takes over the planet (and) that causes people's limbs to rot and fall off as a result of all of the radiation and (radio) waves that exist in the air around us because of cellphones and microwaves and wireless Internet connections. It focuses on a group of five individuals who live in fear of this disease that's becoming widespread. And so they create a support group for one another to cope with that fear but of course the fear gets out of control and mayhem ensues.
Q. How did the play come about?
A. The five of us created it together. We were all at York University doing our undergrads in a program they have in the theatre department called creative ensemble. The five of us did the workshop production of Rule of Thumb in 2004 through the creative ensemble class and for years have been wanting to bring it back. ... It's quite exciting to come back four years later and see how each other have changed as artists because we've all gone on to very different projects.
Q. How long have you lived in Parkdale:
A. On and off for the past four years, right now I'm (at) College and Lansdowne. Nowadays I split half the year in Vancouver and half the year in Toronto.
Q. Can you sum up your work, so far?
A. I just finished my masters in playwrighting at UBC (University of British Columbia). ... Two years ago I had a show in the Fringe called An Undershirt, and then last year I was back with a show in the SummerWorks Festival called Nelly Boy.
Q. Next project.
A. I'm actually going to be mounting a stage reading of my thesis play, which is called Map of the West, which will be coming to Toronto at the end of July just after Fringe, and then I'm in the midst of writing a musical that will hopefully be at the Fringe next year.
Q. Ultimate dream?
A. I've been really fortunate in that I feel I'm sort of living the dream, which sounds so ridiculous but I mean as long as the things that I keep writing get a chance to be in front of an audience, I will be happy.