Many happy RETURNS

Performers back for more at 2012 Fringe

SPOTLIGHT The 2012 Calgary Fringe

Festival runs Friday through Aug. 11 at various venues in Inglewood. For tickets, schedules and more info:

calgaryfringe.ca.

Once may or may not be fun, but twice means you’re getting somewhere.

That’s one of the messages being subtly delivered at the Calgary Fringe Festival, which kicks off Friday at a variety of venues in Inglewood.

While Calgary’s Fringe is definitely petite-sized relative to Edmonton’s Fringe, evidence suggests that Calgary’s is gaining traction with audiences and performers.

That’s the word from Cameryn Moore, who’s back this year with Power Play, a show that allows the audience to choose the next move, as Moore explores the dynamics of good sex.

Playing Calgary, which features around 35 shows, after Winnipeg’s Fringe, which hosts around 155, is sort of akin to attending an intimate dinner party, rather than some frat house blowout, she says.

“(As a Fringe-goer), you can go a little slower, and see everything you want,” she says.

“(And) as a returning performer, I already have a good share of people’s attention.”

And while there are nowhere near the more than 200 shows that will roll out at the Edmonton Fringe Fest in a couple of weeks, there’s no lack of quality shows headed this way.

That’s because another of those return visits is being paid by Wonderheads, the talented multimedia team of Kate Braidwood and Andrew Phoenix, who were responsible for 2011’s best Calgary fringe show, Grim and Fischer.

This year, they’re performing Loon, which has been scoring best of fest notices in Winnipeg and figures to be one of the top shows wherever it plays.

“It’s really fun to come back to a place that we know,” Braidwood says from Winnipeg.

“(A place) that we’ve been before, where hopefully we have some fans who want to come see us — and it seems like that’s worked out for us.

For Rob (F..king Stephen Harper) Salerno, who’s back with Big in Germany, paying fringe fests a return visit is both an opportunity and just as much of a challenge as it was the first time around.

“It helps out to know what you’re doing when you come back to a festival,” Salerno says.

“The first time we played this (Winnipeg Fringe) festival, we didn’t know how many posters to print, where is the best place to hang them, and how to drum up an audience, how to flyer lines and basically beg people, not beg people, but tell people about your show and get them to come out.”

“It can help give you some momentum right at the beginning, but every year the fest changes a little bit. ...”

The one thing Salerno hopes doesn’t change is the enthusiasm audiences have for his material, which produced a week of packed rooms at Club Paradiso in 2011.

“Last year was fantastic,” he says. “I can’t wait to get (back) to Calgary … I had so much fun there last year.”

RETURN VISITORS TO THE 2012 FRINGE

Wonderheads

(Portland, Ore.)

Fringe, Grim and Fischer: A five-star production about the dance of death between the grim reaper and an old woman. Funny, wistful and whimsical, and the best show of the festival.

2012 Fringe, Loon: “We would say it’s the story of a man, and his love for the moon,” says Phoenix. “A story of a lonely guy who’s unlucky in life, unlucky in love, and a box of treasures from his childhood remind him of what his imagination and his life used to be like — the whole fantastical journey.”

Rob Salerno

(Toronto, Ont.)

2011 Fringe, F..king Stephen Harper: A one-man show detailing Salerno’s quest, as an aspiring journalist for a gay underground Toronto paper, to obtain an interview with the Prime Minister during the 2008 election campaign.

2012 Fringe, Big in Germany: “Big in Germany is the story of a Canadian rock band that gets famous in Germany, even though nobody knows who they are at home,” Salerno says. “They find that that’s unsatisfying because they want to be famous at home — they want people they know and care about to see them as rock stars, so they set about on this scheme to become rich and famous right here in Canada, then things go awry and hilarity ensues.”

Cameryn Moore

(Jamaica Plain, Mass.)

2011 Fringe, Slut R(evolution): A walk through one woman’s life as a slut. “Cameryn Moore invites her audience into her world of Mormon beginnings, fetish clubs, BDSM tents, and train cars in Russia with mysterious strangers. In other words, it’s the quintessential Fringe experience.”

— Jessica Wei, Charlebois Post (Montreal).

2012 Fringe, Power Play (Choose Your Adventure): “Storytelling for adults,” Moore says, “where members of the audience get to decide which stories I tell. If you’re doing sex right, there should be lots of choices: who makes the first move? Want to get out toys or just use hands? It’s a combination of storytelling, spoken word, lyrical writing, erotica and a little bit of motivational speaking. I feel that strongly about good sex.”

Bob Brader

(New York City)

2011 Fringe, Spitting in the Face of the Devil: A one-man show about Bob Brader’s childhood, growing up in small-town Pennsylvania with an abusive dad who happens to be a pedophile.

2012 Fringe, Preparation Hex: A Spalding Grayesque monologue about how the women in his life help Brader deal with life’s painful moments, such as hemorrhoids, breakups and bad reviews.

Pete ’N Chris

(Victoria, B.C.)

2010 Fringe, The Pete ’N Chris Show:

Two guys grapple with growing up in a series of comic sketches about a show biz bromance with legs.

2012 Fringe, Pete ’N Chris and the Hungry Heart Motel: A comedy hidden inside a murder mystery set in a motel that is (no doubt) sleazy and has not left the lights on.

Colin Godbout

(Victoria, B.C.)

2011 Fringe, Around the World in 40 Songs: A trip around the world told through a single guitarist’s stunning fingers.

2012 Fringe, 2 To Django: “Board a bistro/caravan for a Gypsy jazz journey into the life of guitarist, Django Reinhardt,” Godbout writes, “from the caravan fire that burned his fingers to occupied Paris, where he fell in love and rose to stardom.”

Chase Padgett

(Winter Garden, Fla.)

2011 Fringe, 6 Guitars: A solo show told through six characters, all guitar heroes of one sort or another.

2012 Fringe, The Bro Show: A two-man sketch comedy show featuring Padgett and his brother Ross performing skits with an urban, comic edge.