Fringe Festival offers its biggest show lineup yet
New Scadding Cout digs and ambitious programming for beloved Toronto fest
It’s almost time to come out and play, Toronto.
A year after waving goodbye to Honest Ed’s, its hub for seven years, the Toronto Fringe is celebrating its new home at Scadding Court Community Centre with the most ambitious festival ever, running July 5-16.
The Fringe’s 2017 lineup, announced today, includes the biggest show lineup in its 29-year-history and several new programming strands.
The festival took the opportunity of the move from Honest Ed’s for some organizational soul-searching, says executive director Kelly Straughan. The trick is to keep the crucial balance between being “a hip festival that people want to go to” and being “grassroots, part of the community.”
At the heart of the festival’s identity, they realized, is that it’s the place to “release your inner artist” — and that goes for everyone who Fringes.
“Maybe you’re a data entry clerk who performs in one show over the summer. Or a donor who feels alive when they come to the Fringe,” says communications director Claire Wynveen.
“We hear over and over again that it’s the only time that people come out of their shell,” she says.
The Fringe’s popularity is without question. Over 730 shows entered the lottery for the 160 places in its program this year, and it regularly sells 76,000 tickets over two weeks. The $12 per ticket price ($8 for sameday discount seats) keeps it real from an audience perspective.
Scadding Court’s sports fields and food vendors will be familiar to passersby at Bathurst and Dundas. Those ample outdoor areas are allowing for expanded Fringe Club programming, including live acts on the outdoor stage from 8-10 p.m.; and then “from 10 p.m. — 2 a.m. we’ll have the Fringe Club that everyone knows and loves,” assures Straughan. Audience members and artists mingling over beers and conversation is, for many, the heart of the Fringe.
A desire to connect with Scadding Court’s vibrant community programming has led to the expansion of the Fringe’s TENT (Theatre Entrepreneurs’ Network and Training) program, a free immersive summer program for emerging theatre pro- ducers, which this year includes some 40 participants.
While the TENT program is already booked up, some audition spots are still available for the new Teen Fringe initiative — five days of intensive acting, voice and movement training towards a final performance on the Festival’s closing day.
And as to those 160 shows themselves? Take your pick from the highconcept comedy Shakespeare’s Ghostbusters (“Whom Wilt Thou Call?”); to The Confidential Musical Theatre Project — a new musical performed by actors who only meet an hour before the show; to a new play by actor Rose Napoli with the intriguing title Ten Creative Ways to Dispose of Your Cremains.
Programming information, including audition sign-ups for Teen Fringe, at fringetoronto.com.