Fringe plans to expand on last year’s digital fest

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This article was published 22/03/2021 (2022 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The Winnipeg Fringe Theatre Festival will happen this summer, but don’t anticipate joining the mob at the beer tent just yet.

The fest, likely to fall on the week of July 12-17, will not offer in-person indoor programming, owing to anticipated COVID-19 travel restrictions still in place and ongoing uncertainty around in-person performances. Like last summer, it will be a digital-only festival.

But unlike last year, which saw the fringe compressed into four three-hour evenings of performances by local and international favourites, 2021’s model will run longer, with more choices for the fringe-goer.

“This year, we’ll be able to expand the number of opportunities we’re able to give artists, because we have gotten through the online digital component before,” says the fringe’s executive producer, Chuck McEwen, in a phone interview.

“We’re still trying to figure out how many slots we’ll have open. It’s very difficult with some summer digital programming, because you don’t know how much to provide.

“You don’t want to overwhelm everybody in the middle of summer and then have artists competing with each other like they are during the fringe, because I think there’s less room for the competition of having 20 to 30 live events in the same hour.”

McEwan says the program will likely feature a combination of some shorter pieces, akin to what was offered last year, along with some livestreamed full shows clocking in at 45 minutes to an hour.

There may be some element of competition, McEwen says, if they decide to run two or three shows during the same performance time.

“Maybe in a given hour, we’ll provide two options, so that you could either see a drama or comedy,” he says. “You still might want to give fringers the chance to pick something that they’re interested in, so maybe we’ll have two or three shows competing in an hour for a full hour broadcast, as opposed to 20 or 30.”

Applications for fringe performers vying for a space will likely open in early April, McEwen says.

“We’ll put it out there for the artists so they can apply and decide what kind of avenue they’d like to apply for,” McEwen says, adding that the online fringe may also include child-friendly Kids’ Fringe options in the afternoon and live bands playing in the late evenings, “so we could provide a little bit of every element fringers would normally see onstage or out at (Old Market Square).”

 

randall.king@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @FreepKing