It’s About Community - Fringe Patrons
The Montreal Fringe is in full effect as of this writing, and the streets and seats are full of people. Fringe Park, 13th Hour, and of course, roughly a hundred shows spread out all over the Fringe venue map. St. Laurent is shut down for the yearly street festival and Mural Fest combo, making it dense with wandering Montrealers and tourists hunting down food and activities to pair with the long-awaited heat waves. A little rain a few days in a row hasn’t slowed anyone down from piling into theaters and packing into tables with cans of beer and seltzer. When intermission hits and there’s a break in performance, the attentive audiences jump out into discussion of what they’ve seen and heard and the highlights of the festival so far.
I had the chance to speak to many patrons as they kicked back and enjoyed live music, fresh out of watching spectacles. My questions for them were met with (mostly) resounding positive energy and excitement. It seems people love to engage, which makes for easy writing. As much fun as I had chatting with people about their experience thus far, the patrons I spoke to had more to say than I could possibly keep up with.
My first mission was to see what the Fringe Park goers were up to on opening day. Only a handful of shows had started their runs by this point and many of those I spoke to had already attended them. As a patron myself, I was curious about what other attendees were thinking.
Photo courtesy of St-Ambroise Montreal Fringe Festival
I spoke to someone who preferred to remain anonymous, and even though she was a bit shy about her name being published she happily opened up about her current and past experiences at the Fringe. “My sister is on the board at Mainline Theater and last year brought me to a bunch of shows. This year I bought a six show pass. I really liked Nisha Coleman’s show last year. I really liked Tango in the Dark last year and I’m excited to see the remount this year. I went to the Fringe For All this year, and Grime caught my attention.” Nisha Coleman has a show again this year called Alright: Solving the Problem of Living which has been very well received.
I found Vicky George sitting by herself as the first musical group was performing. She actually started talking to me before I even had a chance to say that I wanted to talk to her. “Before COVID, I was a big fan of (Fringe Park) and I was coming every year. It’s a good location and I love the music." I asked her when her first time coming to the Fringe was. “Good question, it’s hard to say. Sometime in the 90’s?” Vicky has only been to a couple of the actual productions over the years, but prefers the live music at the Fringe Park.
I spoke to Friend of the Fringe, Jenna Daigle, who was fresh out of seeing Tomatoes Tried to Kill Me But Banjos Saved My Life, which she found “interesting.” She was planning to see the remount of Johnny Legdick, and enjoyed seeing both Danny Rebel, and the KGB perform in the park. I asked her what she enjoyed about the Fringe. “I like that the Fringe gets everyone together, outside, and you get to hear people’s stories” Jenna at one point called me a terrible interviewer. As many artists in the festival have learned over the years, you can't please everyone.
I ran into many artists in the lobby of Mainline Theater who were exploring shows this year as patrons. If they didn’t have so many places to be, I might’ve cornered them with questions all night long. “I was in the second ever Fringe,” Dean Fleming shared with me. “What I love about the Fringe is it has an amazing energy, and you never know what you’re gonna get.”
He was joined by Julie Tamiko Manning, another long time artist and patron. “I’ve been a part of Fringe since the beginning. I volunteered for the first ten years. I don’t remember what my first Fringe was… 1993, I think?” I asked her what, as an artist, keeps you coming back to the festival? “For me, the biggest thing about the Fringe is community. The support of the artists, this is where the artists go. The Fringe holds established artists, fosters emerging artists, and makes theater accessible.”
Davyn Ryall had lots to say to me as well. “I’ve been involved with the Fringe since the 90’s. I was an artist in 1999 in a play called Jerry Seinfeldown. I’ve produced nine times at the Fringe. I volunteered, which led to me taking over as Volunteer Coordinator in 2004 and 2005.” I asked Davyn what types of shows he prioritizes. “I’m pretty eclectic,” he said. “I enjoyed A Red Riding Hood and Lungs so far. I saw Josephine last year and saw it twice this year at The Segal Center. In a production, I look for a good script, good interpretation, just…good.” I was also fortunate enough to see Josephine at Segal Center, and much like everyone else, I can’t recommend it highly enough.
Coming out of Death of a Starman, I spoke to a patron I’d met in line. Farshid Etemad pays for a pass to see “as many shows as I want. As many as I can squeeze in. I skipped the first two years of the pandemic because, well, everybody did. I went to 10 shows last year, not as many as usual. Once upon a time they didn’t take no for an answer in terms of my writing reviews for shows in exchange for a pass. The thing that I wrote reviews for isn’t up anymore, but it was fun, and I saw a ton of shows. That was probably in 2015. My friend talked me into that because I was seeing more shows than anybody else. What I love about the Fringe is the fact that people can put on the shows that they want to. They don’t have to talk somebody into giving them money, putting on a huge production that’s beautiful and expensive and amazing. It’s very democratic, and you just get in if you have a dream…Or bad ideas.”
As I'd asked so many people before, I wanted to hear from Farshid (an insightful fan of the Fringe), what he looks for in a Fringe production. “Something that fits my schedule, and something that just stands out. There are genres that are amazing anyway, so if someone has a puppet show, it’s pretty gutsy to have a puppet show for adults. Clown shoes are inherently amazing…all the dance shows are about people’s passion projects. The french shows are by people who are actually professional actors, but these are their passion projects. It's not that they don’t have an audience, it's that this is their venue for putting on their own shows. They don’t have to run it by a ton of people, they get their friends together, they put on the thing they want…they’ve really thought it out. There are all these genres, there are all these one person shows, some of them autobiographical, some of them like the amazing nonsense we just saw. Super inspired, a ton of energy behind it, there’s passion. That's what I look for.” I’m sure everyone behind Death of a Starman will be flattered to hear their show referred to as “amazing nonsense”, which is indeed accurate.
What I loved about my role in Fringe this year was interviewing people in the same position as myself. Patrons with no artistic stakes in this year's festival, looking to be inspired and surprised, and not least if all to socialize. The people I spoke to were all coming from different perspectives with the same task at hand: to be out, to see art, and to think about what they were being exposed to.
Is there something for everybody at the Fringe? It’s hard to say. Many venues remain inaccessible for those who use mobility devices. Even though every show starts with the same land acknowledgement encouraging patrons to support indigenous art, there is still a shortage of indigenous players in the festival. What keeps me optimistic for the continuation of positive change is the spirit of everyone involved. Many patrons are also artists, volunteers, journalists, Fringe employees, sisters of board members, and "just patrons", who keep coming back.
The Montreal Fringe pulls us into being involved, into wanting to do more than just watch. There’s an impulse to make every year a bigger and bigger spectacle, with more changes enacted to make sure that more people are able to come see what’s going on. Stand-up, storytelling, dance, clown, french and english, there is always something not to miss at the Montreal Fringe. It could be on tour across the globe or it could be For One Night Only. (Check them out, I’ve heard good things.)
Photos courtesy of St-Ambroise Montreal Fringe Festival