Book review: Spirit of live theatre captured in haunted festival venue

When is a book like a play, or a play like a book — or both? This is the underlying question posed by David Jón Fuller in his debut novel, Venue 13. Considering Fuller’s background as an editor and reviewer for this newspaper, and a longtime part of our city’s theatre community, who better to write a novel that takes place during the Summer Theatre Festival, known locally as Skeeter Fest? (This may sound familiar to any readers who have attended a Winnipeg festival known as the fringe.)

Venue 13 takes the reader behind the scenes of the festival — and not just the actors, directors and sound techs, but the venue owners who mount numerous shows with the hope of attracting large crowds to their BYOV (bring your own venue) location (to use the fringe parlance).

Robert Laliberte has bought an old building that he hopes to resurrect into an arts hub, complete with a fancy fusion restaurant run by his friend, the exotically named Ihor. Winnipeg, and the Exchange District in particular, are well-drawn in the novel, and you can have fun trying to guess which buildings Fuller is referencing.

The novel is a rogue’s gallery of theatre types: the controlling directors, the perfectionist producers, the sensitive actors and even the guy called in to fix the rotting foundation of the theatre.