A 181-course feast prepared for hungry Winnipeg theatre fans

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This article was published 14/07/2015 (3747 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Chuck McEwen’s relaxed, unruffled demeanour on the eve of the 28th annual Winnipeg Fringe Theatre Festival reflects his good fortune of being at the helm of the surest thing on the city’s cultural map.

“We are pretty much recession-proof,” says the executive producer, with a what-can-I-say shrug. “We are pretty much weather-proof for indoor shows. Even those years it is stinky-hot or crazy-rainy, attendance stays the same or grows.”

McEwen, at the helm of his eighth festival, can’t really offer anything that he’s worried about.

The unjuried festival — ho-hum — racked up another indoor attendance high in 2014 with 104,859 people seeing 176 shows. Records were set on six out of the 12 days last year.

The theatre party, centred around Old Market Square, is hardly on the fringe anymore. It is Royal Manitoba Theatre Centre’s most successful annual event, drawing a larger audience than the entire mainstage season.

There is no reason to believe the ticket sales will not be higher again. McEwen says Winnipeg crowds have proven themselves to be the most reliable, if not the best, audience on Canada’s fringe circuit. Everyone says so.

“I get better reception in Winnipeg than I get anywhere else in terms of numbers, but also people getting it,” says TJ Dawe, who has performed in 100 fringe festivals worldwide. “Winnipeg is the most dialled-in fringe, as well as the best-run festival on the circuit. You never hear performers grousing about it. It’s a place everyone is happy to come back to.”

The other key ingredient for a thriving alternative theatre festival is a deep supply of first-rate, independent performers willing to travel across town or across the globe to perform in River City.

“We have artists who want to be here, actually are clamouring to be here from halfway around the world,” McEwen says.

The statistics back him up. This year, 77 international acts applied for the 22 spots allocated for out-of-country groups in the annual lottery. Even more national troupes wanted to join the party here, with 106 companies vying for only 33 spots. And only half of the 110 local applicants got approval to perform in their home fringe festival.

It is getting more difficult for even blue-chip performers to gain admission to the second-largest fringe festival in North America. Many name acts, such as Dawe, have an outstanding track record on stage, but terrible luck with the fringe draws. He’s been shut out here the last three years.

“The lotteries are very competitive, way more than we used to be,” he says. “The fact I don’t get special treatment proves how fair they are. Damn their integrity.”

The most popular alternative is to go the bring-your-own-venue route, which Dawe is following to the West End Cultural Centre. There are 56 acts that have rented makeshift spaces — such as the King’s Head Pub or Duke of Kent Legion, or regular theatrical venues, including Prairie Theatre Exchange and Manitoba Theatre for Young People — to stage performances this year.

The easier way is to win the Canadian Association of Fringe Festivals’ touring lottery, which allows the chosen 10 national and international groups to pick no less than five festivals to play this summer. All this year’s winners chose to come to Winnipeg.

Even the CAFF lottery is on the radar of more artists. This year there were more than 90 applications for only 10 slots. That total is more than the number of acts at most Canadian fringe festivals. Word of mouth is being heard farther away.

“There are zillions of people I have met and told, you must apply to Winnipeg,” says Jem Rolls, the popular Scottish power poet. “I’d say to people if their tour doesn’t include Winnipeg or Edmonton, then they don’t have a tour. I always say Winnipeg is best.”

So McEwen is feeling the love between performers and our audiences. And size doesn’t matter… anymore.

A few years back Winnipeg’s festival was nipping at the heels of Edmonton’s for title of North America’s box-office champ. Since then, Edmonton has removed its restriction on the number of bring-your-own venues and indoor attendance surged to 118,280 in 2014.

So with no pressing issues to address, McEwen and his staff have the freedom to tinker. They have introduced a mobile festival app to serve a younger, tech-savvy demographic. The organization will also take the pulse of its audience with an in-person survey.

“The formula is so tried and true and I trust it,” says McEwen. “There will always be some great shows. That part of the game I’m very comfortable with.”

kevin.prokosh@freepress.mb.ca