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ON STAGEWhat: Victoria Fringe FestivalWhere: Metro Studio Theatre
(1411 Quadra St.) and Victoriafringe.comWhen: Friday, Aug. 13 to Friday, Sept. 24Tickets: Victoriafringe.comMIKE DEVLINTimes ColonistIntrepid Theatre has come up with a new way to experience the Victoria Fringe Festival in 2021. For a performing arts mainstay counted on to draw 20,000 attendees and about 250 performances from 300 artists each year, that makes for a sizable reinvention.The process of rebuilding the festival after its 2020 cancellation due to COVID-19 didn’t require organizers to start from scratch — the Victoria Fringe is the second-oldest event of its kind in Canada — but they were working within new guidelines. “It’s been a rollcoaster journey planning the festival, but it has also made us realize what a gift it is to have a Fringe Festival and gather in a theatre space,” producer Sammie Gough said.“I think it has really made us appreciate the power of experiencing live performance.”While the ideal situation would be to have venues across the city operating at full capacity, a large footprint was not possible given the short turnaround; the province announced in July that modified live performances were allowed, which wasn’t enough advance warning for Gough and others at Intrepid Theatre to stage a full Fringe return.The festival went with a new hybrid model instead, one that offers both in-person performances and online content over
a six-week period. For many
of the previous 32 editions, the
Victoria Fringe ran for 12 days at numerous venues. In 2021, only one venue is in play.“While we hoped that we would have the best-case scenario, we’ve been planning different iterations for over a year now, to make sure we can deliver a festival in some way but also make sure we can be responsive and flexible,” Gough said.The 2021 festival features dozens of in-person and online shows throughout its 42-day duration, in addition to a series of free digital events on the festival’s social media platforms. Thirteen local companies will perform at Metro Studio Theatre on a rotating schedule, with two companies each giving five shows during the course of one week. Despite the reduced numbers, expectations are high for several shows, from Trent Arterberry’s Tightrope (Aug. 13-18) and Broken Rhythms Victoria Society’s 1,000 Pieces of Pi (Aug. 25-29) to David Elendune’s The Shadow in the Water (Sept. 8-Sept. 12).The on-the-street/outside-the-venue buzz will be missing from many Fringe festivals across the world this year, including the Victoria edition. Walk-up sales for performances at the festival’s only in-person venue, the Metro, are not being offered, which allows Intrepid Theatre to better manage social distancing. Seats and tables at the venue must be booked in advance.That hasn’t necessarily hurt the Victoria Fringe thus far. Ticket sales have been brisk, Gough said, with audiences clearly hungry to experience the festival in a live setting. The Metro is capped at 72 guests for each performance, so tickets for some of the surefire hits will be hot commodities. “There is definitely a palpable air of excitement with people,” Gough said.“We’ve seen pretty solid
initial sales, and tickets only went on sale Friday. It will be interesting to see what happens.”Fringe artists have also been tasked with navigating the new terrain as it unfolds. University of Victoria theatre grad Zoë Wessler, writer-director of Seethered, which opens Aug. 19 at the Metro, has spent nearly two years readying herself for the Victoria Fringe. One of her plays was selected for the 2020 edition, which was ulitimately cancelled.Wessler, who is based in Vancouver, credits organizers at the Victoria Fringe for moving forward despite the hurdles. “It has been a long, drawn out process, but the people at the [Victoria] Fringe have been awesome,” she said.The playwright and her quartet of actors (Emma Newton, Arielle Permack, Kapila Rego, and Rahat Saini) are all UVic alumni, so the Victoria première of Seethered represents a long-awaited return for the group, after a long stretch of turbulence. “Some of us have not been around a stage in two years,” Wessler said.“It’s going to be a beautiful homecoming, all of us coming together in a theatre again.”mdevlin@timescolonist.com