The Fringe should not be seen as a passive event, something to consume, but as something to react to. Not just whether or not you like a show, but to be active about, to go further. Like that time in 1996 when an out of town artist sent her father to the Fringe For All to read a snippet of the script, it was memorable because someone older was stumbling over the script, and when she appeared at the Beer Tent opening night, I immediately offered to put up some posters. Completely on the basis of her father's appearance at the FFA. Others decide to volunteer, or put on a show. A few years back, one woman posted about seeing 20 shows, and how much it made her feel creative, in crafts rather than in performing art.I'm the bad volunteer, never signing up and not doing that much official, but boy, have I ever reacted to the Fringe over the years.
For a lot of us, there isn't enough priming in the spring. It's been less than a decade since there was a party before the Fringe, to lure in new volunteers and to talk the old into coming back or doing more. If I hadn't stumbled on a classified ad somewhere, I wouldn't have even known about the party, yet that's one way to prime everyone for a burst of reaction and creativity.
Everyone so young, and all excited. It's never clear if they are excited about the Fringe, or simply because it's become a party. I can remember when the volunteer party at the end of the Fringe was relatively sombre affair, maybe too much drinking but you came since it was one last time to see people before going back into deep freeze till the next year. Now, I can imagine some of that crowd came because they were with friends, not necessarily volunteering but maybe open to it if approached.
It's a really odd situation, all these new faces. amd they don't know anyone, but feel somehow secure in the mass. Then wait, there's someone I barely talked to last year, returning again, and she's made the magical step of being a two-year volunteer, now a familiar face in the crowd. It works both ways, I felt better after seeing her, I hope she felt more in place (if she felt out of place to begin with) after seeing me.
And then a smaller number still of people who have come back multiple years, including someone who said she was retiring after last year, but somehow back yet again.
The Fringe isn't for the young, unlike something Jeremy said two years ago, but some of the events are aimed more at the young, the older ones either not appearing or feeling somewhat alienated from the experience.
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| Some were already working the crowd. Here we have Tali who is doing another show about Jane Austen this year, and Liz, who's presenting "Arthur C. Clarke's How We Went to Mars". Both have been volunteers, so this isn't mercenary, yet it's chance to work the room, yet have a reason for approaching people in the first place, ie they are coming to order beer.Some were already working the crowd. Here we have Tali who is doing another show about Jane Austen this year, and Liz, who's presenting "Arthur C. Clarke's How We Went to Mars". Both have been volunteers, so this isn't mercenary, yet it's chance to work the room, yet have a reason for approaching people in the first place, ie they are coming to order beer |
For a while, all kinds of people would appear, but this year the only technician I remember seeing was Tim Rodriguez, and then the famous improvisers from the Montreal School of Improv (actually, "Montreal Improv") made an appearance. I didn't stay too late, wanting to get up the next day to go out to Montreal West for a book sale, oddly I had been thinking about Vinnie from Montreal Improv since a few years ago I bumped into him at a used book sale out in Montreal West.
Then the next day, this appeared:
Michael - w4m (From yesterday)
Date: 2011-05-07, 6:37PM EDT
I wonder what you look like without that mask.
That's a good cryptic Missed Connection. If it was some other day,
it would mean nothing, but since it was after the party, I read something
into it.
I didn't start reading those Missed Connections until my routine searches
about the Fringe landed me there, and then I kept watching. They can be fun
to read, and yes, if they are cryptic they can be interpreted various ways,
so how one reacts may say more about the person reacting than the person
placing the ad. I rather liked the one after the Fringe in 2008, that
invoked Leonard Cohen's "Suzanne" and enough indirect references to make
me wonder if it was for me. It's made more complicated since I've reference
Missed Connections in the Diary a few times, so it may all be a setup.
