The Winnipeg Fringe Theatre Festival is an alternative theatre festival held each year for twelve days in July in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada.
The Winnipeg Fringe Theatre Festival is an alternative theatre festival held each year for twelve days in July in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada.
Founded in 1988 by the Manitoba Theatre Centre with Larry Desrochers as the first Executive Producer, [1] the festival has three key principles: 1. Festival is non-juried; 2. Artists have freedom to present whatever they want on stage; and 3. 100% of the box office goes directly to the artists. [2] (though artists must pay a flat fee to enter)
In its first year ticket sales were 14,000 across nine days of performances. That figure was 26,000 in 1989 - year two of the festival. It climbed to 44,709 in 1999 and was over 60,000 in 2001. [3]
Chuck McEwen, former director of the Toronto Fringe Festival, is the current executive producer, and has been in charge since 2008. [4] The festival's venues are centred in Winnipeg's historic Exchange District with the Old Market Square serving as the outdoor stage location. But as the festival has grown there are venues outside that district but still close to Winnipeg's downtown.
The Winnipeg Fringe Festival is modelled on the Edmonton Fringe Festival and provides several venues for performing companies, but some companies arrange their own venues, which is more like what occurs at the Edinburgh Fringe festival. Regardless, all venues have paid technicians and volunteer ticket sellers and ushers.
The performing companies at the festival are both local and from across Canada and around the world. For example, the 2005 festival featured performers from France, Australia, New Zealand, the UK, and South Africa as well as across Canada and the United States.
Paid attendance briefly set a record high for North America in 2009 with 81,565 tickets sold, [5] surpassing the then previous record of 77,700 set at the 2006 Edmonton Fringe. However, the Edmonton Fringe festival currently holds the North American record for 2011 with 104,142 tickets sold.
The Royal Manitoba Theatre Centre cancelled the 2020 Winnipeg Fringe Festival as a safety precaution in light of the COVID-19 pandemic. [6] The 2020 festival was scheduled to take place from July 15 to 26. RMTC considered rescheduling the event to late Summer or Fall but ultimately decided to cancel the physical event. [7] Instead, the RMTC offered free online programming from July 14 to 17 beginning at 7PM nightly. [8] The online festival featured local, national, and international programming including performances from Mike Delamont, Frances Koncan, the Coldhearts, Outside Joke, and Anjali Sandhu. Online festival programming was streamed on YouTube and Facebook. [9]
The festival has a different theme each year. The theme in 2015 was "We're all <blank> here," where the blank was filled in variously. On the program, it was "mad," but on the website for Volunteers it was "friends." In 2014, "We like when you watch" was the theme. The Big Top was the theme in 2010, [10] and other previous themes have been the F word, meaning "fringe," and James Bond. In 2012 there was no theme, as that was the 25th anniversary edition of the festival. [3]
| Year | Attendance | Ticket Revenue | Companies |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2019 | 98,673 [11] | 879,034 | 178 |
| 2018 | 103,251 [12] | 890,624 | 178 |
| 2017 | 104,908 [13] | 875,157 | 186 |
| 2016 | 105,000 | -- | -- |
| 2015 | 108,706 [14] | 800,142 | 181 |
| 2014 | 104,859 | 761,522 | -- |
| 2013 | 101,488 | -- | -- |
| 2012 | 100,621 | 686,188 | -- |
| 2011 | 87,851 | -- | -- |
| 2010 | 86,717 | -- | -- |
The Harry S. Rintoul Memorial Award was established by the Manitoba Association of Playwrights to recognize the best play written by a Manitoban and performed at the festival. The award was named in memory of Harry Rintoul, a noted playwright from Winnipeg who died in 2002. [15]
Canada's contemporary theatre reflects a rich diversity of regional and cultural identities. Since the late 1960s, there has been a concerted effort to develop the voice of the 'Canadian playwright', which is reflected in the nationally focused programming of many of the country's theatres. Within this 'Canadian voice' are a plurality of perspectives - that of the First Nations, new immigrants, French Canadians, sexual minorities, etc. - and a multitude of theatre companies have been created to specifically service and support these voices.
St-Boniface is a city ward and neighbourhood in Winnipeg. Along with being the centre of the Franco-Manitoban community, it ranks as the largest francophone community in Western Canada.
Fringe theatre is theatre that is produced outside of the main theatre institutions, and that is often small-scale and non-traditional in style or subject matter. The term comes from the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. In London, the fringe are small-scale theatres, many of them located above pubs, and the equivalent to New York's Off-Off-Broadway theatres and Europe's "free theatre" groups.
The Edmonton International Fringe Theatre Festival is an annual arts festival held every August in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. Produced by the Fringe Theatre, it is the oldest and largest fringe theatre festival in North America. The Edmonton Fringe is a founding member of the Canadian Association of Fringe Festivals.
Royal Manitoba Theatre Centre is Canada's oldest English-language regional theatre. Next to the Stratford and Shaw Festivals, MTC has a higher annual attendance than any other theatre in the country. It was founded in 1958 by John Hirsch and Tom Hendry as an amalgamation of the Winnipeg Little Theatre and Theatre 77. In 2010, the theatre received a royal designation from Queen Elizabeth II, and officially became the Royal Manitoba Theatre Centre.
Manitoban culture is a term that encompasses the artistic elements that are representative of Manitoba. Manitoba's culture has been influenced by both traditional and modern Canadian artistic values, as well as some aspects of the cultures of immigrant populations and its American neighbours. In Manitoba, the Minister of Culture, Heritage, Tourism and Sport is the cabinet minister responsible for promoting and, to some extent, financing Manitoba culture. The Manitoba Arts Council is the agency that has been established to provide the processes for arts funding. The Canadian federal government also plays a role by instituting programs and laws regarding culture nationwide. Most of Manitoba's cultural activities take place in its capital and largest city, Winnipeg.
Brian Drader is a Canadian stage actor and playwright. He is best known for his plays Prok, about Alfred Kinsey and Clara McMillen, and The Fruit Machine, about the Royal Canadian Mounted Police's controversial 1960s fruit machine project to identify homosexual people.
Theatre Projects Manitoba (TPM) is a professional theatre company based in Winnipeg, Manitoba. It was founded in 1990 by playwright Harry Rintoul in response to the perceived need for a strong local professional company to provide opportunities for Manitoban artists and to put local stories on the stage. With close ties to the Manitoba Association of Playwrights (MAP) and a passionate faith in this region’s playwrights, TPM was established as the only professional company dedicated to producing the works of Manitoba playwrights. Since its creation TPM has produced more than 50 new Manitoba works, as well as presenting new work from across the country. Theatre Projects Manitoba is a member of PACT, the Professional Association of Canadian Theatres.
Harry Rintoul was a Canadian playwright and theatre director. He was best known for his 1990 play Brave Hearts, which was noted as one of the first significant gay-themed plays in Canadian theatre history to address gay themes in a rural setting outside of the traditional gay urban meccas of Toronto, Vancouver or Montreal.
Kelly Thornton is a Canadian theatre director and dramaturge. She has served as artistic director of Nightwood Theatre and is the current artistic director of the Royal Manitoba Theatre Centre. Thornton was the co-head of Equity in Canadian Theatre: the Women’s Initiative.
Svetlana Zylin (1948-2002) was a Belgian-born Canadian theatre director and playwright. She was also the founder of the Women's Theatre Collective in Vancouver, British Columbia.
Sarasvàti Productions, often stylized Sarasvati Productions, was a Canadian feminist theatre company. Sarasvati hosts several annual events including the International Women's Week Cabaret of Monologues, One Night Stand, and FemFest.
Audrey Dwyer is a Canadian writer, actor, and director. She is a former associate artistic director of the Royal Manitoba Theatre Centre. She wrote the 2018 comedy, Calpurnia.
Hope McIntyre is a Canadian playwright, theatre creator, and professor. She was the founding artistic director of Sarasvati Productions and served as the company's artistic director until 2020.
Frances Koncan is an Saulteaux-Slovene journalist, theatre director, and playwright from Couchiching First Nation who lives in Winnipeg, Manitoba.
Women of the Fur Trade is a play by written by Frances Koncan about the Métis-led Red River Resistance against European colonisers. It premiered in 2020.
Zahgidiwin/love is a 2016 play by Frances Koncan about the residential school system in Canada. It won the Harry Rintoul Award in 2016.