Suck it up. It’s Saskatoon.
// August 3rd, 2007 // Blog, Kris's Soapbox
August in the Bridge City.
The Saskatoon Fringe Festival opened last night, and everyone is optimistic about how it will turn out.
The Festival here — this is no secret — has been mired in controversy in past years. Last year, for example, the program didn’t come out until opening day. Debts were not paid to many venues, resulting in a lack of theatre spaces this year.
The festival administrators are working hard to make the Saskatoon Fringe more appealing to artists. There are fewer venues this year, which should help increase average audience size. The program was distributed free with the city paper some weeks ago. Media coverage is significant. Pizza parties are being thrown for artists to keep us happy and fed.
But Saskatoon is not Winnipeg, and it is not Edmonton. We are spoiled by the larger cities.
Looking at it objectively, Saskatoon manages a pretty sizeable festival considering its population of just over 200,000. In terms of the number of companies represented here, the festival is the same size as the one in Ottawa — a city of just over a million. The artists like to complain about the venues and the technical rehearsals and the audiences, but unless a miracle puts Saskatoon on the same playing field as its sister festivals to the East and West, this will never change.
The infrastructure that is present on Edmonton and Winnipeg simply does not exist here. Theatres have to be created out of school gyms and church basements. Technical equipment has to be brought in for almost every space, and there is a shortage of technical personnel to operate it. Companies, like ours, who are used to getting top-notch assistance with our shows, are working here with less because less is simply what is available.
And that has to be good enough.
The residents (aside from the ones who think the Fringe is just a big street party where people get mugged) genuinely like having us all here. And our shows may not look as sexy or run quite as smoothly as they do in other cities, but everyone agrees that this is a great festival for performers because it is laid-back and we can all get to know each other better. So when it comes to feeling the urge to whine about how imperfect this festival is, I constantly remind myself of a coleague’s mantra:
“Suck it up.” Smile. Genuinely. “It’s Saskatoon.”
