We are Framily

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This article was published 16/07/2024 (612 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Fifteen years ago, when Paco Erhard resigned himself to the fates of a fringe comedian, he conceded that he wouldn’t always rest his head on a freshly fluffed, double-stitched pillow of the sort offered by the Fairmont Hotel.

Sometimes, because he has no other choice, he splurges, as he did in Edinburgh, where it cost a couple thousand dollars for a month’s stay during the world’s largest fringe theatre festival.

But the Munich-born, Colorado-based joker usually enjoys far less princely accommodations, never expecting a mint on his cushion, let alone a cushion at all.

“I’ve slept in somebody’s bathtub,” says the 48-year-old comic, touring since 2011.

In 2015, while performing in Berlin’s mid-gentrified Neukölln neighbourhood, he couldn’t find — or perhaps afford — a room at any inn, so he caught some shut-eye on a cardboard pallet, covering himself in a paper-bag-thin blanket while resting his bones on the street between sets.

“After a couple of days, it became super comfortable. Somehow, my body got used to it,” he says.

Unlike global touring artists, who request mixed nuts, mineral waters and scented candles on their performance riders, fringers are less demanding, satisfied with access to a running refrigerator and their own private doorknob.

On European fringe circuits, performers can either couch-surf or pony up for a surge-priced rental. But since the Winnipeg Fringe Theatre Festival’s founding in 1988, out-of-towners have billeted on sofas, beds and sofa-beds, not in bathtubs.

When Erhard visited Winnipeg for the first time in 2015, he was greeted at the airport by Theresa Thomson, a fringe veteran/makeup artist, and her professional paintballing husband, Sean. During that year’s festival, Erhard turned 40.

“I felt sad not knowing anybody,” he remembers. But then the comic returned home to pizza, his bedroom walls covered in balloons and appreciative Post-It notes.

He loved the Thomsons already, but especially from then on.

“The match was made in heaven,” says Erhard, who will for the sixth or seventh time crash at the Thomsons’ Glenelm home this month while touring his solo show, 5-Step Guide to Being German.

“There’s a term fringers use, which is Framily,” says Theresa, who’s been involved in 29 fringe productions as an actor, director or producer.

“And for me, it’s also my Fringemas, because I have family coming to town from Germany by way of Colorado.”

The Thomsons started hosting in 2005 in a third-floor apartment on Princess Street.

“Sean’s not of the theatre world, so he was a little bit skeptical about having a total stranger living in our house,” Theresa says. “I said it could be a bit of a gamble, but if you’re a touring performer, you’re inherently very cool and outrageously respectful because this is somebody giving you a place to stay, free of charge.”

Nineteen years later, they’re still part of a tradition that enabled the festival to become the second largest of its kind in North America, trailing Edmonton.

At the first fringe, 17 out-of-province shows were in the program. By 1989, there were 29. This year, more than 80 artists from Canada, the United States, Japan, Brazil, Australia, the United Kingdom, Germany and South Africa are being billeted by 65 hosts, says Samantha Desiree, the festival’s performer services manager.

“This year we’ve received double the amount of artist applications over last year,” says Desiree.

In 2019 the festival received nearly 100 billeting applications and had about 80 hosts.

Desiree co-ordinates the billeting program, which was developed and expanded by Kari Hagness, who retired last year. To meet the resurgent demand, Desiree reached out to theatre professionals, donors and staff to expand the host list.

“The requirement is that they have a private space that’s safe, clean and inclusive,” she says.

These days, Wi-Fi is a must. There are considerations about parking, accessibility, proximity to transit and walkability. She also solves some hairy issues.

“A lot of our billets have cats, but a lot of our artists are allergic to cats. It all seems to work out in the end,” she says.

After hosts are approved, they receive electronic introductions to the artist; it’s in their hands to exchange spare keys, alarm codes and phone numbers.

Desiree’s experience as a performer makes the job personal. In 2019, she travelled to Regina for that city’s fringe festival and stayed with Barb Cameron, a former executive director of the Youth Ballet of Saskatchewan.

When Desiree’s show, Seascape with Sharks and Dancer, played at the St. Mary’s Cathedral, Cameron was in the crowd — an example of the mutually supportive relationship between visitor and host.

Erhard and the Thomsons take that connection a bit further. Now a summertime fixture, the comedian’s gone paintballing with them and even attended a Thomson relative’s nuptial pig roast.

They go for breakfast at Clementine — in the basement of the Thomsons’ former apartment block — and often stay up well past 3 a.m.

“With Theresa, there are many late nights with red wine at home or whisky at the King’s Head,” says Erhard.

He’s looking forward to those evenings, and to his “actually comfortable” futon. But especially intriguing is a whiskered reunion.

When Erhard visited the first time, the couple had three cats — Morticia, Frodo and Vincent Priceless.

“Vincent is my favourite cat in the world,” he says, calling him “so very fluffy.” But Frodo, who has since died, was older and grumpier. He was a near-clone of Vincent’s, leading to awkward hallway encounters because Erhard says the elfish cat was not a fan of his temporary roommate.

“I think stuff happened to him as a child.”

This year, Erhard will share space with Vincent, Morticia, a kitten named Ichabod and a 120-pound golden retriever named Ragnar.

To prepare, Thomson will tidy as best as she can.

“At least we start clean and then make the mess together,” she says. “That’s fine. That’s fringe.”

ben.waldman@winnipegfreepress.com

Ben Waldman
Reporter

Ben Waldman is a National Newspaper Award-nominated reporter on the Arts & Life desk at the Free Press. Born and raised in Winnipeg, Ben completed three internships with the Free Press while earning his degree at Ryerson University’s (now Toronto Metropolitan University’s) School of Journalism before joining the newsroom full-time in 2019. Read more about Ben.

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