Theatre-deprived Fringers to get online festival fix

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This article was published 10/07/2020 (2280 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Of all the summer festivals, the loss of the Winnipeg Fringe Festival to COVID-19 may be one of the toughest to bear.

The wack-a-doodle plays, the street performers, the beer tents and the overall buzz of excitement was a yearly ritual that typically saw thousands descend on Winnipeg’s downtown in the heat of the summer for a festival of non-stop unpredictable content.

While there won’t be any such gatherings this year, the flavour of the fringe is being delivered online free of charge for four days only, from Tuesday, July 14, to Friday, July 17. Virtually Yours gives you a fringe fix with performances from some of your favourite artists — local, national and international — including stalwarts such as Mike Delamont (who will be performing a “Pandemic Edition” of God Is a Scottish Drag Queen on Wednesday evening), the American troupe the Coldharts (performing their excellent goth piece Edgar Allan & Eddie Poe on Tuesday evening) and stellar locals, including the improv troupe Outside Joke, actor-musician Cory Wojcik, comedian Anjali Sandhu and the Free Press’s own Frances Koncan, who will be performing a piece titled Journalism Thursday evening.

The shows will be livestreamed on both Facebook (facebook.com/WinnipegFringe) and YouTube (youtube.com/WinnipegFringe) for three to four hours every evening of the abridged festival, at no cost.

“With the digital format, we wanted to make the festival accessible and available to everybody to enjoy,” says festival director Chuck McEwen. “We just thought we wanted to give fringers the chance to experience some of the work they would’ve had the chance to see onstage this summer.

“Because we’re getting support from government funding, we’re providing small honorariums to all the performers for their shows, so they are getting something for their time,” McEwen says.

The content of local, national and international shows deliberately matches the makeup of a regular fringe, McEwen says.

“The other thing we wanted to do is give a sample of the kinds of work the fringers would be able to see,” McEwen says. “There’ll be some spoken word, sketch, some improv, some storytelling, some musical theatre, some puppetry. If you’ve never been to the fringe before, you’re going to get a good sample of what you would see if you showed up for the very first time.”

randall.king@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @FreepKing