Gruppo Rubato

Please sign our petition: Protect the Fringe!

// September 2nd, 2007 // No Comments » // Blog, Kris's Soapbox

There have been a lot of strange changes to Fringe over the past couple of years.  Two very large ones have caused furor in 2007:

• the abandonment of door sales in Edmonton
• the creation of an “Encore Series” in Vancouver, where the festival has hand-picked five past shows to return and perform again, at a higher ticket price, in prime venues, and at prime times during the regular Fringe festival

Many people have complained about these changes.  Law suits have been threatened.  But everything that is happening is symptomatic of a larger problem: the Canadian Association of Fringe Festivals, which is staffed entirely by executive directors of Fringe Festivals, does not represent artists at all and is, therefore, making decisions that affect the health and integrity of Fringe.

This is odd, since the first article in CAFF’s mandate is to “safeguard the integrity of Fringe”.

A number of touring artists have come to the conclusion that we need artist representation on CAFF so that sea changes such as door sales, ticket surcharges and cannibalistic fundraisers can be discussed among a wider range of stakeholders.   To that end, I have created a petition that I hope you’ll sign, and tell your friends about.

You can find it here: http://www.thepetitionsite.com/6/protect-the-fringe

Click the “petition overview” link on the left to get a ton of background info, including a list of abhorrent Fringe policy transgressions from the past two years.  Click the “letter” link to see the actual petition, and then please sign it.

Prologue video, version one

// May 28th, 2007 // No Comments » // Blog, Kris's Soapbox

The Ottawa Fringe Festival had its media launch this afternoon, and since everyone and their dog likes to use video to promote their show these days, we thought we should have a video.  Videos are shiny and pretty, and I want one.  We can’t manage anything quite as wild as the LoungeZilla promo video, but we can try.

Hoping that the festival was hungry for two-minute clips from local shows, and under the gun of a deadline, we rushed through production of a “prologue” script we wrote a few months ago.  We had some issues with the quality of the video footage, but on the whole it turned out okay.  Our concern, though, is that the result is a bit too dramatic… and we are, after all, producing a comedy.  It’s a dark comedy, true, and it has a meaty center… but it’s a comedy.  The current promo video, unfortunately, gives no indication of that.  As a result, we’ve made some revisions that bump up the humour quotient a bit, and we are going to do some re-shooting later this week.  Eventually, this here blog posting may be the only place to see the original.  Ooo.

If you’re reading this, you may be wondering if there are any hints in the video about what you’ll see on-stage.  The answer is an absolute yes.  I’m just not going to spoon-feed you, because I’m a dick.  At least, that’s what Patrick and my mother both tell me.