What a fantastic year at the Atlantic Fringe! Happy patrons. Happy artists. Shattered records. In fact, the festival reportedly made $68,727 in box office, a 31% increase over 2012. This year also set a new attendance record of 11,600 people. That’s 24% higher than last year. And the top 5 shows based on attendance are: […]
Theatre
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Day 10 of the Fringe
Monument Valley by Stewart Delo Despite the fact that Monument Valley is a dark comedy thriller in need of more laughs and more action, there’s a kernel of something fascinating in its plot and writing style. Jessica Pellerin plays a a surprisingly likeable killer-for-hire named May sent to dispatch a weakened old lady (Jozel Bennett). […]
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Day 9 at the Fringe
For anyone who’s counting, it appears my Fringe binge has had two “Day 6’s” and no “Day 8”. You may blame this on a temporal disturbance, time/space dissonance or whatever fringey convention works best. Invasion: A Musical by Steven Heisler I gave this show a standing ovation. Anyone who knows me, will know I’m pretty […]
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Fringe Binge Day 7
Love in the Time of Time Machines by Ned Petrie and David Tichauer Would you choose to fall in love, knowing for certain that it would end in heartache? That’s the question that Bingo-supply salesman Klein (Ned Petrie) asks himself when his girlfriend Gabrielle (Gillian English) tells him their five-year relationship is over. For Klein, […]
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Day 6 at the Fringe
Down for the Count by James Boyer James Boyer writes middle-aged women very well. In his short play Down for the Count , he manages to celebrate both the power and confidence that can be gained with age while also recognizing the vulnerability that comes with realizing there are fewer days ahead than behind. The […]
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Unsex’d
At the core of Unsex’d is the struggle between talent and beauty. In a world where beauty bizarrely trumps talent, director Richie Wilcox adds humour and glitz to our society’s fear of aging and loss of good looks with a wildly historically inaccurate take on two boy-players in Elizabethan times fighting over the role of […]
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Birdy
When Karie Richards was asked to write for a monologue for the most extreme version of herself, she began imagining a character who felt guilty for something they failed to do before they were even born. “What kept inspiring me is how impossible it is to know a person’s whole story. What is hidden from us, […]
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Understudy
“I wrote a version of this play two years ago as my final project for Roberta Barker’s Gender in Theatre class at Dalhousie,” says Gillian Clarke, playwright of Understudy. “Although the script has evolved since then, I have always wanted the central focus of the play to discuss the consequences of the social roles and […]
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L: A Fragmentation Subway Waltz
Kristin Slaney is an elusive subway conductor: you will hear her voice, but you won’t see her. Recently landing at Columbia University’s playwright program in New York, the Fringe Fest veteran was here long enough to get L: A Fragmentation Subway Waltz on the tracks. In the able hands of director Keelin Jack, starring Lesley […]
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Go To Hell
Michael Best wants you to Go To Hell. After the success of his award-winning Gay White Trash in 2008, Best returns with a play following Johnson, a self-obsessed gay lawyer, who dies and finds himself in one circle of hell. Turns out the Christians were right—all gays do go to Hell. Best questions values, identity […]
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Backstage
Since the 1500s, playwrights have been experimenting with meta-theatre. From Hamlet to Chekov to Six Characters in Search of an Author, theatre has always confronted the idea of theatre itself. Devices like plays within plays, audience interaction and overt personal references turn performance into theory right before the eyes of the audience. It is disorienting […]
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The Sh*t Show: Misconceptions and Nuggets of Truth Deep Within
It might seem like comic Josh Dunn and theatre regular Howard Beye make an odd couple, but together they have created a one-person Fringe performance that will challenge expectations and inspire. The Sh*t Show: Misconceptions and Nuggets of Truth Deep Within uses the real-life experience of Dunn’s cerebral palsy and builds a world around it […]