Toronto Fringe Week 1 Roundup

The week 1 Toronto Fringe Roundup with producer of Damn Tank (@damntankTO), Laura McCallum (@lauramcsee), Nisha Coleman (@NishaColeman) of Self-Exile, and Scott Garland and David Kingsmill (@dragonliterate) of Romeo and Juliet Chainsaw Massacre (@RJMassacre) joined me bright and early on Saturday morning (by Fringe standards) to talk about Toronto Fringe, what they’ve seen, what they are looking forward to seeing and much more. Recorded Saturday, July 2 2016 @ 10AM

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Transcript

And this is a stage worthy extra, the Toronto Fringe Festival Roundup. I’m here with Laura McCallum, Scott Garland, David Kingsmill, and Nisha Coleman. If you guys want to take a second, each of you will go around, just say a little bit about yourself.

If you have a Twitter handle or something like that, and tell me a little bit about your show. Starting right over here to my left, Laura. Hi, I’m the producer of Damn Tank, if any other creature productions at Factory.

It’s my first time producing a show. My Twitter handle is Laura M-C-S-E. Alright, so I’m Nisha Coleman.

My show is called Self Exile. It’s a solo storytelling show, just had a run in Montreal, it went well, and so I’m happy to bring it in a more polished form to Toronto. It’s an autobiographical story, beginning in a swamp and ending in Paris.

My Twitter handle, Nisha Coleman. Wow. My name is Scott Garland, I’m one of the performers in Romeo and Juliet, the Chainsaw Massacre, and silly me, I forgot to get a Twitter handle.

My associate to my left here might be able to help you out with that. And I’m David Kingsmill, I am the production manager and also performing in Romeo and Juliet Chainsaw Massacre. You can find the show at Barjai Massacre, and you can find me either at Dragon Literate, my personal Twitter handle, or at Upon a Die podcast for my board game podcast.

He’s got two, so you don’t need to tweet. That’s what I’d make up for him. He’s always saving my butt.

So, I mean, the Fringe is just a couple of days in, the Toronto Fringe is a couple of days in, and it’s probably been a busy few days for everybody. How’s it been? A couple of you have had your one performance, and maybe, I don’t know about others, have you had more than one? But how’s it been? Well, we opened yesterday. What about you guys? Same.

Yeah, opened yesterday. Opened Thursday. Oh, so we’ve all just had one show.

One jury. Awesome. And we can all safely say that it’s perfect.

Flawless. Flawless, like, it’s just going to be great. Because theatre is repeatable like that, right? Every show is the same.

You guys, I mean, you’re at the Randolph Theatre. We’re at the Randolph Theatre. One of the really big houses.

Yeah. 215 C’s. Right.

And you sold pretty well the first show. We did. So it’s really great in a space like that.

It’s one of those really intimidating spaces because it’s so big. Well, we’ve got a secret weapon, you see. We’ve got Rebecca Perry on our team.

No, I can’t emphasize enough. She has hustled so far. She got us on, I think, ten must-see lists.

Which, that’s a bit intimidating when ten different listings are like, you’ve got to see this show because, you know, the only thing you can do is disappoint at that point. Well, it’s hard because in the early days, those are what everybody’s going to rely on. And that’s sight unseen.

That’s like without anybody actually having seen it. And I’ve seen a few lists. And this is not your show, obviously.

But, you know, it’s like, this is going to be the hot show. And everybody’s like, we’re not going to mention that show anymore. Oh, sorry.

It’s hard every day to do that, yeah. Because the show that’s the must-watch is not necessarily going to be the show that takes on. It seems like your show is doing really well.

And I don’t know if you guys watch the reviews or anything. But Mooney on a Feast reviews everything. I think we’ve got six shows in the entire fringe left to go.

I saw that this morning. I haven’t had a chance to look and see if they’ve got ours yet. But, yeah, they do.

I think they do. Fingham Day Out. Oh, wow.

That’s incredible. Fun in the morning. It’s incredible.

I’ve probably seen shows in the day. Then write the reviews up. I have so much respect.

Mooney is incredible. I mean, he writes well. Often these rush reviews are weak.

But Mooney writes really well. I used to notice that when there was an iMagazine. Anybody remember? Probably don’t.

Magazine. Weekly was like the alternative to now, weekly. Oh.

Ah. So the alternative to the alternative. Now, for a while, I was like the sponsor.

Like the media sponsor. And they would bring in all of these people that had no idea what theatre was. They get volunteers.

They pull people up. The fashion beat. Stuff like that.

And for some reason, everybody felt like it was their job to give negative reviews. So, we couldn’t have a negative review. But, like, some of them seem to really enjoy it.

So, you come out and you’re like, all right, what are they saying? Oh, my God. Just daggers to my heart. It’s really horrible.

But Mooney’s crew is really great. I think they’re really fair. And you can’t deny when they can get their ears out.

Day of. Laura, how was your first show? We did well. Good audience.

Very supportive. We’re on our way to making some money. Which is nice.

Yeah, well received. Good review. And NeNe, we’re just waiting for the word of mouth.

And our second performance is today. So, I think that will be the first, like, okay, how did that review, word of mouth. What time is your first show today? Is your show today? 3.30 in the afternoon.

That’s 3.30 in the p.m. Well, don’t worry. This is going up today. I’m going to take this home and edit it.

It’s going to be a day of things. So, if people hear it, they’re going to hear this. You can beat him.

Just move it. There’s no way I can beat him in a movie. I have to edit.

You mean, what, are you on your own? Can’t see 114 shows? Look, I can’t even see a show a day, right? Because we’ve worked in my own show. So, I’m trying to see as much as possible. So, Anisha, you’re coming from outside of Toronto.

Yeah. So, you don’t have, this is your first time performing at the Toronto Fringe, right? Yeah. How is that coming into this particular Fringe? Well, the learning curve is quite high because I’ve never even done a Fringe festival.

Like, I did Montreal Fringe, and that was my first Fringe ever. So, I’m a real Fringe rookie. So, Montreal Fringe, I was like, okay, this is how the Fringe works.

But no, it’s not. That’s how the Montreal Fringe works. Then I come to Toronto, and I really do feel like Dorothy.

Like, ah, this isn’t Kansas. Like, there’s a lot more rules, and I’m trying to figure out and navigate through that. What do you mean the bars are closed before four yet? What’s going on? And this no latecomer thing was, at first, I was like, what do you mean? Because it’s Montreal.

It’s like, well, you can choose. You can have latecomers all the way through. I had a lot of latecomers coming in through my show.

At first, that took me aback. But then yesterday, when I had my first show, there’s this sense of security. Like, they close that door, and no one’s going to disturb you.

So, in a way, I’m like, I appreciate that. I’m sorry for the people whose hearts are breaking outside. I’ve seen a few people weeping.

Like, literally weeping outside of venues. But as a performer, that’s the first time I’d ever felt completely safe. And my show starts in a blackout.

So, when people come in, it’s like, ah, damn it, I’m revealed. Like, I’m on stage, but I don’t want them to know I’m there. So, in a way, I kind of like that rule, in hindsight.

Yesterday, I didn’t, but now I do. It’s a little bit shocking, because, I mean, like I said, like you’re saying, Montreal is a little bit more of a lax policy. You can say when you want your latecomers to come in.

Like, all the way through. Yeah, 10 minutes or whatever, yeah. But I kind of like the no latecomers thing.

I find it isn’t as distracting. Yeah, I get it. How has it been promoting your show in a place that you don’t know so well? It’s tricky.

I don’t have the same platform. I just won the best English production in Montreal, French, for Self-Redestyle. So, I’m kind of using that as a way of, like, opening a discussion about the show.

Because it’s not in the program, because it’s brand new. So, I couldn’t promote it that way originally. But now it’s kind of, it’s on my flyers, and it’s a way to open a discussion.

And hopefully get people to come to my show who don’t know me. Because I have a platform in Montreal, but not so much in Toronto. I’m a little bit in the storytelling circuit.

But, I mean, it takes time. And so, I’m doing my best. Yeah.

And Montreal is a month-long affair, is it not? No, it was… Technically, yes. Technically, yes. Montreal does a lot of stuff leading up to theatrical Paul of Fringe.

They consider that all part of Fringe. But the artists don’t show up until, like, the theatre performers don’t start doing their thing until that last two weeks of their month-long affair. Oh, yeah.

And there’s the off Fringe, so that starts actually before the official Fringe. What the hell? And there’s, like, parties, and special performances, pre-Fringe. Yeah, there’s all kinds of stuff.

If you guys have never done the Montreal Fringe Festival, it is the party favorite. Yeah. I’ve heard stories.

Yeah. It is, like, they do this thing called the 13th hour, which starts at 1 o’clock in the morning. It’s a talk show-type thing where they’ll have, like, people doing heads-up from their show.

And you’ll be interviewed about their show. And that lasts an hour. And then there’s a two-hour dance party that follows it.

Yeah. And so, you leave as the sun’s coming up or whatever. And then you do your shows sometime in the afternoon the next day.

Wow. It’s pretty intense. I thought all Fringes were like that.

Well, it fascinates me because I did my first Fringe tour last year. I grew up on the Edmonton Fringe as opposed to the Edinburgh Fringe. Not as impressive, sure, but go Canada.

It was the second largest, and so I think Adelaide just took over. Yeah, go to hell, Adelaide. We had one thing going for us.

But what fascinates me is the difference from Fringe to Fringe to Fringe. Yeah, absolutely. And just kind of the relationship of the entire national Fringe circuit, like the lineup.

I know a lot of people were just like, What do you mean Toronto Fringe is on Canada today? What’s going on? It’s like, What are you doing in Toronto? Well, that was kind of like a national decision, man. Like, the people from Montreal want to come to Toronto afterwards. And people from Ottawa have got their own kind of tour.

So all the ducks getting in line for that alone. But similar situation. Like Ottawa has this beautiful thing where they do a preview night before the entire Fringe Festival.

Where you get to just do a little excerpt. We were out-of-towners. We did three men in a boat.

And we didn’t know anyone. So we just showed up and did like two minutes. And suddenly everyone was like, Gotta see that show.

Look at those handsome men. Especially that guy with the receding hairline. Montreal does a similar thing.

They use sort of a preview night. They call it the Fringe for All. And they do one for local.

And then right before the Fringe starts, they do one for the out-of-towner. For the out-of-town Fringe for All. So everybody gets a chance to be somewhere then.

Hamilton does something. But it’s not. I mean not.

There’s a lot of Fringes that don’t do things like that. So it’s really hard to. As Scott alluded to there.

When I was saying before, I cut my teeth on Edinburgh. And what’s interesting there is you often get the venues will have their launch party. And when they do their launch party, they will do previews from select shows that are at that venue.

It’s impossible to feature everything there, of course. Because you’ve got 3,400 shows happening in three and a half weeks. You will still get to see a proportion of what’s going on there.

And I think the shows that are lucky enough to get some nice little boosts. Yeah, absolutely. Here we really rely on those top ten lists.

And then word of mouth. By today, the first Saturday of the Fringe, those top ten lists are either right or they’re not. And there’s no way to know.

But I mean also that’s part of the inevitable larger part of trying to make a risk-taking venture such as the Fringe a little bit more accessible to people. We always say, go see a Fringe show. And you should see something that you want to see.

Something that you know someone in. And you got to see something that you know absolutely nothing about. Don’t read a synopsis just stumbling off the street.

Our friend Victor, he just recently did a drunk history of the Fringe. And something I didn’t know was that one of the greatest plays to come out of Edinburgh Fringe was in fact a little known play called Rosencrantz and Guildenstern is Dead. Right, yes.

And that was a huge Fringe flop. Like it opened to like seven people. And one of like two of which were reviews were like, well, this is terrible.

They’re talking funny. Like, oh, I hate it. And then from and you get one of the greatest pieces of dramatic literature from the 20th century.

I study it. Yeah. And you get that at the Fringe.

You can only get that at the Fringe. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely.

It’s funny because the, you know, you do have all of these different each Fringe has its own flavor and its own its own way of doing things. So it’s hard to hard to figure out to navigate. For me, the tricks because Toronto Fringe has different rules than say Montreal Fringe, things like that.

For example, the stage manager. Oh, yeah. Completely screwed by that.

Like, oh, yeah. It’s actually priceless. Yes.

You don’t have to have a stage manager. And the tech will run your show. And Montreal, the tech will run your show.

And most other cities, the tech will run your show, but not here. And so you can show up. And if you haven’t prepared for that, you’re.

I’m glad that I established that rule before I got here because I saw that and I was like, oh, I don’t need one. Mine’s not tech heavy. And then I talked to someone else.

They’re like, no, no, you better get someone right away. Do you like doing your show in the dark? Well, you better go. You know, if your queue is lights down, you better have somebody to call that, which is like one of the ways they do things here.

You guys, in terms of your promotion for your show, you’re finding any particular techy tricks that are that are working this year? I mean, you guys are I don’t know how much face to face promotion you guys have been doing for for the Chainsaw Massacre. Well, fortunately, we have a lovely production to those of you who can’t see because this is a podcast. I just put my hand on David’s shoulder and winked at him lovingly into his beautiful eyes.

No, we we really we Rebecca and the entire team have very much embraced the social media aspect of it. But also like leading up to there’s a whole bunch of live events because and again, this is an advantage of like producing locally is leading up to fringe because so many shows are going on and people are in rehearsal. Like we went to a lot of live events.

There was a fundraiser, the Marriage of the Attic Arts Hub with the box. They just show up and do a bit. So we did a bit.

I went to the Ossington. I know on the Wednesday there was kind of an opening to do, which we sadly missed. But there’s a there’s there’s a I run a monthly event called Sing for Your Suffer, which will actually be here at the Fringe Tip this Monday as part store for theatre.

And it’s literally just a whole bunch of artists come into a room and cold read scripts. And at one point the night we did them all in line and be like, well, are you promoting a show? It’s I guess I am. I have 30 seconds go.

And the thing we kind of emphasize is nobody’s making money. Nobody’s making money here today. All we have is our art.

All we have is our community. And so word of mouth is so important. And so you saw me read this script.

So come and see me again. Do something entirely different in an accent in a week. It’s great.

What about what about you, Nisha? Similar. I’m going to be performing at the Busker’s Corner over there. I did a story at the Press Gang Storytelling Show at the Handlebar last night.

I’m going to be doing confabulation storytelling this Wednesday at Burdock Music Hall. I think what works best for me is just performing, because I’m pretty shy, really, to be like, really come and see my show. It just doesn’t work out.

It’s just awkward and weird. Kind of best thing was speaking in Montreal. But even so, like I tried.

I can’t do it. I give flyers to other people that liked my show, and I tell them, please tell other people. And I ask for help, because I’m not very good at this self-promotion.

It’s just me. So it’s tricky. I’m going to be honest with you.

I have the same difficulty. I’ve had the same difficulty. I’ve already had a show at the Friends.

The idea of walking up to somebody and handing them a flyer and saying the dreaded words, can I tell you about my show? And you know what? The anxiety is worse before doing it. But it’s so hard to do. And then you try to make the conversation seem natural.

It feels like in-person telemarketing. I’m interrupting people’s conversations in live. And I pride myself on knowing pretty much.

I make a schedule. I know what I’m seeing. And so to suggest to someone, hey, I know that you have nothing to do tonight.

Come see my show. Look, I might already have something to do tonight. I feel more comfortable promoting other shows.

Exactly. Yeah, yeah. I’m like, oh, guys, you like it.

You’ve got to see it. You’ve got to see sexier acts. Oh, my God, they’re so funny.

It’s like, are you in that? Oh, God, no. I’m in this Romeo and Juliet chainsaw. No, no, no.

But you’ve got to go. Sorry, David. Sorry.

I think people respond better to that, too. Because if you’re just self-promoting, like, yeah, yeah. But if they see you come out of a show and you’re like, oh, I’m so moved.

They’ll ask, what did you just see? And I just think it’s more. Yeah. And I mean, that’s why the reviewers come in.

Because it’s easier to promote another show. It’s like, hey, we’re both audience members and lovers of theatre. I liked this.

Maybe you will, too. Sort the reviews. It’s just like, I mean, I like it.

But so does my mom. And she made me. But so did Moony.

They’re like, yeah, go see this guy. It’s so hard, like, the whole promotion. And you know what? It is so important.

Like, as much as you might not be comfortable with it, you tie this up, how important it is. Because not everybody has it. Like, I see your big spreadsheet there in your book.

Like, that’s no. Like, a lot of people don’t do that. And so then they’ll sort of be like, they’ll sort of show up.

And then they’re like, what’s good? And they don’t know. Right, right. So you have opportunity to sway those people.

Or the shows they want to see, they’re not going to get tickets for. Because you can buy 100% of the tickets in advance. Yeah.

So, and that happened a lot last year. But last year they did that. There were a lot of people who couldn’t get tickets to show.

Oh, yeah. Attacked fast. Yeah.

So have you guys had the chance to see any shows? Yeah. What have you really liked that you think you’ve seen? If you can see bright lights. Did you get a chance to see it? I saw the opening.

Got the last ticket. They only had 12 at the door. It was worth it.

So worth it. I really did. Really good.

And the audience loved it. I was really interested by the audience demographic. I still think of Fringe as very much like a young person’s festival.

And average audience member was at least 35 or 40. Yeah. Probably from the Terragon crew.

Actually, it’s also fascinating because you’ve got three groups of Fringe veterans all together. Or when it’s Ask Peter or Chris, Pat Sandler. Theatre crew in general.

Amazing stuff. Tom Magee is an amazing producer and dramaturgical work is just phenomenal. Have you had a chance to see the Shakey Shake and Friends? Oh, yeah.

The other Shakespeare. There’s only a couple this year. If you don’t know, Shakey Shake and Friends is like Shakespeare for kids with poppins.

Retold by poppins. And they’ve been doing it so many years that it’s really good. They reduce it down.

They do a song and a dance. And there’s usually a huge moral takeaway that they really try to impart on the audience. They’re amazing.

Again, Fringe veterans. A recent review actually pointed out really nicely was this puppet adaptation of Twelfth Night is actually probably a clearer communication of the text than a lot of just straight productions. Obviously, they’re making it more palatable for new audiences to come.

They did Hamlet last year, which is my favorite one they’ve done so far. So I’m very much looking forward to it this year. And my friend Graham Black Robinson helped work on some of the puppets.

So I love him. I love everyone in there. I think it’s great for people who don’t like Shakespeare.

No, no, it’s like glitters are fanny. I think it’s stuffy. It’s old.

I would love to take my parents off because it’s so accessible. It really gets to the heart of the message. It’s easy to understand.

You can walk away and still know the plot. And they do incorporate a lot of the traditional faps. Fassing.

And sup the whole time. There’s a few bros and sups. As one is wont.

I believe Shakespeare invented sup. He did in a different context. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I was thinking the same thing. I remember that word, Shakespeare. Great.

Felicia, have you had a chance to see anything? Not yet. But there are a few that I saw in Montreal that are here. So Jillian English has a bit of shoes here.

Falling Awake is one that I didn’t get to see but got a lot of buzz in Montreal. It’s starting to get buzz now again in Toronto. Amazing, like absurdist.

Kind of like magical show that’s also at the Terragon in the extra space. Percup Pianist, Sarah Hagen. I’m going to go and see her show.

She’s in the same room as me, the solo room. She’s an amazing piano player and she’s incorporating storytelling. So I’m excited to see that.

Yeah, I haven’t seen any shows yet but I have many on the list. Jillian is in one of those unusual positions where she’s like a late addition. She’s not in the program, which can be a bit of a struggle as a performer to get the word out.

Because even though everything is on the web, I know I always go for the neighbor bird. Yeah, that was my situation in Montreal actually. I was replacing these acrobats who were in the program and I was not.

But the buzz helps. So basically you just have to do one good show and have a good audience and then people talk. And sometimes it can work in your favor because you can make jokes about the situation.

And then people are like, oh, that’s that girl that’s not in the program. I would never want to be the one replacing Apple. Ladies and gentlemen, for a high flying risk take, go somewhere else.

Well, I practiced cartwheels and some I saw just in case. I really did because I thought I’ll do some symbolic acrobatic moves just in case. I try to instill the idea in others and be like, imagine I did that.

Another one you should see if you get the chance is to hold the bar fly. Spoon and Hammer show that’s at the Monaco. And I saw that that’s very funny sketch comedy.

Almost the other thing I saw that was really over to happiness. OK, that’s fantastic. Which is in the annex.

I saw that that was absolutely wonderful. Yeah, I tried to think now what I’ve seen. My brain is on.

I just did my first show and I’m fried. Before this started, he was like, I didn’t drink coffee. That was stupid.

Bad move, man. I will. I will.

I will say roaming joystick. Chainsaw massacre seemed OK, but I left it. You heard it here, folks.

You heard it here, folks. But I will. I will definitely echo.

I will reemphasize Wasteland by Sexty Wasteland. And also just because I know the crew and we saw a preview of them. We promote with them a dance animal.

Improvisers dancing, dancers improvising. Anders Yeats just was great. It’s a lovely stew of enjoyment.

Any chance you have the chance to see Dance Animal, Peter and Chris, Sex T-Rex? Honestly, you just go. Just go. What are you guys looking forward to? I mean, we’re early into the first Saturday.

What are you guys… Write likes if I can get it to. I want to see Echoes. I’ve heard some interesting things about Echoes.

Also, I had a musical in Musical Works last year, which Jeff Madden directed. And he’s a great human being. He’s a great man and I would like to see him in a musical.

That’s what it was. Get Yourself Home, Skylar and James, the Jordan Tannehill, Boyd Bovin show at the 918 Baffers. Really excited for that.

And Taimei would cry. Oh, my God. What else? Well, I’m excited to see everything.

Songbuster. Improvised musical. And they got their back from Open Glap, so… I’m excited.

Which guy are black? Donny. Oh, Christian Broon. Nice.

I’ve got another ten shows on my list to see. So I’m excited for all of them. Another one comes to mind is A Lover Improper, Erin Schaefer.

She’s a really good storyteller. One woman show. Looking forward to that.

Of course, I’m looking forward to Peter Criss. I’m looking forward to Exterminating Angel, which is a dance show. I don’t usually do dance shows, but I’ve gotten good authority that it’s not what I’m expecting from dance.

So I’m really interested to see it. And also, what’s the space opera or the space musical? Oh, Hark! The Queen of the Stars. So this will get bored you as well.

I saw that yesterday. That was good fun. I read somewhere, if you like cheesy space, so this is great to see.

Unswisser acting. And actually, I think it’s very apt. There’s a lot of sci-fi puns in there.

I mean, it’s fun anyway, but if you’re a sci-fi nerd, there’s a lot of little in-jokes and things in there that all go down very well. Nice. Oh, man.

Oh, God. I’m actually looking forward to peeking in at Folkwards. I caught them last year during the tour.

They’ve got an interesting format. They’re a duo improviser team. But what they do is, their format is one part classical Chekhovian play, one part creation myth, and the aboriginal stories are like fashion.

And one part extreme movie genre. And then they mix it all together, and then they just do it on stage. That sounds fun.

Yeah, that I’m looking forward to just doing, seeing a show on Impulse. Once in a while, I’ll see a show, like I pick a beer, and I’m like, I like the sound of that. Yes.

Flying monkey purple butt. Yes. Put that in my mouth.

Your friends will all be thinking, what? Actually, bike size caught my eye. The idea is 80 plays in an hour. Yeah.

I think it’s always interesting. Limitation. I was talking to, because you can’t have wet blood in the frame.

Drip off, have you. There’s not time to do that stuff up. Which, you know, was great for our show.

Yeah. When you’re killing people with a chainsaw, that means you have to think outside the box. And I was talking to one of the cast about this, and limitation breeds creativity.

Absolutely. And the idea of being stuck to a three-minute play, I figured, I’ve written a five, and it won a lot of awards before. And it was a really interesting challenge.

But I’d be fascinated to see what 18 other people go. So I would, I don’t know if it’s actually 18 individual playwrights, but however it works. Yeah.

That caught my eye. Just from a technical perspective, like seeing them get in, get out, get in, get out. Great.

And it is, it’s kind of, it’s the epitome of cringe, isn’t it? What you do with almost nothing. Yeah. I put in the desk, I did musical works I did at Edinburgh the year before, and I had no budget whatsoever.

So my set was a load of boxes that we just stacked in different weird ways and things like that. But I just, yeah. The less you have, I think sometimes the more interesting you can be.

Sometimes. I mean, I was talking with Sex T-Rex, just a little tweet about Wasteland. I was like, so, you know, their inspiration is, you know, Mad Max.

I was like, so how do you take a movie based on car chases and put that on a stage? And they’re like, we don’t think about that when we write the thing. We have to figure that out like afterwards. And they come up with like different ways of doing it.

Oh God. It’s just beyond just being entertaining and hilarious, like the spirit of their storytelling style, just it, it makes every part of me happy. Yeah.

God. And like, I’ve, I’ve, I’ve dabbled in, in a non-actor constructed theatre, puppetry, mime, that kind of thing. And they just, they mix it all together to be like the purest form of the spirit of storytelling.

It’s beautiful. It’s beautiful. They’ll make you fall in love with like just a prop and you’ll be like, why? Why? Why did you make me fall in love again? I always find like when in theatre, those simple special effects.

And you know, back to Sex T-Rex, the Watch Out Wild tab, they have like a chase on top of the train. How do you do that? Right. You use your fingers on top.

You’d be brilliant performers. That’s how you do it. Well that’s, that’s good.

It’s so good. Yeah. So what are your plans for the rest of Fringe? Aside from shows, aside from everything else that you’re doing, how are you navigating the festival? What are you planning to do? Are you planning to stay at the Fringe tent every night and drink like so many people? Or are you doing, like what are your… I can’t, I’m too old to do that.

I can’t do that. I was, I was leaning just on that wall over there last night. Probably.

No, this is the last time Fringe will be at Honest Ed’s. Yeah. That needs to do with celebration.

Yeah, that, yeah. I don’t know. Get some buttons made.

Honestly, it’s, it’s, I, I, because we’ve now done the first show, I can switch my brain a little bit. Not entirely. Mostly off production mode.

And focus on, on the Fringe now and being an actor and, you know, engaging with other people. So I think I, I, my plan is to make a play. Yeah.

I… Please. I’m taking two nights off to see the shows that have chosen to go up during the Fringe that are not Fringe. Oh, nice.

Oh, yeah. The Hog Town Experience. Okay.

At Campbell House. And… The… Yes. I really enjoyed it in January.

Good title. And then asking for it. The, uh, play reading with Justine Horne.

The Jian Gomeshi. Oh. Or the response to the Jian Gomeshi trials.

Yeah, the, the workshop here. Next week. So, you know, you gotta, you gotta still participate in the Abitur on a theatre.

I’m not good at that. What I have here, I’m like, I’m like 100% Fringe. Yeah.

Yes, I am. I try, I mean, I don’t know if Jim Rolls is here this year. Uh, he’s not performing, but I, I saw him yesterday.

He’s around. Because watching him promote his shows. Right.

Is like a master class in how to promote a show. Exactly. And only because he doesn’t stop.

Like, he is a constant rotation of every venue, hitting every line at all hours of the day, and I don’t know how he does it. Um, because I don’t have, like, again, just that whole, like, walking people and talking about a show thing that I have so much trouble with. But he’s like, he’s like, he’s awesome to watch.

Right. Um, do you guys, uh, have like, so now that you’re turning your head away from the, like, that production thing, you’ve got your first show under your belt. Um, how are you approaching, uh, what’s changed in your approach to, uh, self-promotion or to, uh, different in general? I, uh, I, I go back to, uh, trying not to promote myself.

Uh, no, essentially I’ll go and say, gotta see this show. Like, there’s so many great people in it. I mean, like, don’t come for me.

Come for them. Like, Dave, David Kingsmill shows up in a hat, and it’s a beautiful hat. It’s wonderful.

It is spectacular. It’s a lovely hat. And I mean, like, I guess Shakespeare’s okay.

Your hat has a feather in it. I think your hat. I have, it’s my hat.

I have two hats, one of which has a very impressive feather. Um, but no, I kind of, I kind of shifted towards that. You know, it’s better.

And I mean, we’ve got a cast of 12 people, so I can be like, check out these 11 amazing artists. And one guy who just gets to show up and hang out with them. It’s great.

And steal things. That’s pretty big cast for a fringe show. Yeah.

I mean, I, I imagine, I haven’t seen it yet, but I would imagine, like, Ben says, that the stacks of shows are gigantic. But I don’t suppose there’s many out there. Who would be so foolish? It happens once in a while, where you have like a, like a big show.

Yeah. I don’t quite know how that works. Neither do we.

We’re still discovering. We’ll see if the reviews say it does work. Yeah.

I think a lot of, a lot of self-promotion, let’s just say, there’s always good, you know, somebody saying, oh, what show are you in? You kind of, it’s almost like an automatic response to hit the 20 second hit. Yes. But also, there’s at least, I think, four of us in the company who have the show’s Twitter on our phones.

Right. So, you know, you come out to the show and even somebody else might be in a show. So you just check your phone quickly and if somebody says something cool, you retweet it.

Yeah, reply to them. Shout out a show you’ve seen. You know, there’s one here on tickets.

And there’s, we’re going through a tunnel. We’re going, oh, oh God. They’re coming for me.

And just something to re-emphasize what the winner of the best Canadian English-speaking play at Montreal Fringe said in terms of kind of embracing kind of the awkwardness of a situation. So I like to be like, hey, let’s trade pieces of paper that we put in every cafe. Right.

Can I tell a slightly off-topic story? Yeah, of course. Yeah, yeah. It’s a wonderful story.

This is one of the favourite stories that is told at the Edinburgh Fringe by the British Society of the Participants team. And it’s, in my opinion, just a gold star of self-promotion. It was a guy who was doing a one-man show and he put it up and the Guardian, which is one of the national newspapers in England, came to see his first show, I think, and gave it a one-star review.

Oh, no. Absolutely destroyed it. And I think it was the very next day, everybody was walking around at every single coaster for this guy’s show and have Rick on it.

Guardian says, a star. Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha. And it’s completely true.

So they couldn’t… No, you can’t say he’s misquoting the press. Right. But, I mean, that is a masterclass itself.

I think it’s finding the ability to do something like that. I mean, maybe not that extreme, but if you can find something and run with it. Absolutely, yeah.

If the press, if somebody in the press says something that sounds great, start repeating it. Yeah. And say, you know, Now Magazine says, or Mooney on Theatre says, and use that little flyboy quote or whatever.

And I think that’s where things change. You have more to work with than just your own, you know, bravado and an actor’s ego for wanting to sell their own stuff. Lie.

Just lie. I actually like the idea of talking about other shows that I’ve seen. Yeah.

Because when I was at Montreal the first time, Kamalyn did a conversation. She had this, it’s like promoting at the fringe. The first thing she says, there’s an audience in it forever.

Just the idea that we’re not, we don’t have to compete for audience. There isn’t an audience for all of us. And so it doesn’t hurt you to talk about somebody else and show her to retweet or to tweet about, talk about other shows.

Well, we, one of our changes is we onload for two days free tickets to other Fringe 10 shows. Oh, yeah. We were like, we’re going to come see you, but we want to make it as easy as possible for you to see us and really support that.

It’s a great networking party here. The first night for opening for Fringe Fan. And yeah, I think it’s a lot of transition.

We did so much for great advertisements, Facebook monetization, postering and whatnot. Very distanced from the audience. We just put it out there.

We weren’t really talking to anyone. And then it’s like, oh, yeah, I should have to talk to people. So we’re cranking out the tank.

We’re going to be taking tank through to Fringe now and bringing it to the tent every night. What would the, like a physical tank, the physical tank? Okay. Wow.

How big is this tank? Just out of curiosity. It’s an oxygen tank. Oh, okay.

Had a very different image in my mind. I’ve got the golden eye bursting through the walls stuck in my head right now. But hey, that’ll get a certain demographic out.

That’s true. Certainly, yeah. I do like, I would like to coin, you should coin the phrase crank out the tank.

That’s the new hashtag. Yeah. Hashtag crank out the tank.

Um, what do you think about, um, oh, I had an idea in my head. I was going to say something and, It’s gone. And then you cranked out the tank and it’s gone, man.

It’s gone. Yeah. Um, Hmm.

We will, we will, we will play the procrastination. The thing I love about fringe is all of the opportunity to see stuff. And, um, I want to thank you guys for, for talking about, about, about something.

But do you have any final words before we end for today? Um, I would echo what Scott said. And if you’re listening, I would encourage you to also think, uh, the genres you fear that do your army and don’t get a chance to see. So like, I make sure I see an improv, a dance, a puppet.

And, but then also something with a friend, something without a friend. Um, I would also encourage everyone to see something by yourself. Because I actually, I think a lot of people rely on going to theatre with friends.

Of course, it’s a community experience. But if your friends say, I don’t want to go, go by yourself, be proud of your choices, commit to it. And you might meet someone new and end up by going by yourself, talking to someone that you’ve never spoken to.

I actually enjoy going to, to see shows for myself. Cause then it’s just, you know, sometimes it’s fun to see stuff with friends, but like, if you’re trying to see something that you wouldn’t likely see, or that your friends are not able to see, it’s great to go by yourself because then you only have your thoughts, not somebody else’s, like, I don’t know, inline negativity or something. They’re with other people who actually wanted to be there.

Exactly. I think three times so far, this fringe, I’ve over, I’ve either overheard or someone has said directly to me that they haven’t gone to see a show they had a chance to see because they had no one to go with. Oh.

My total answer to that is why didn’t you go by yourself? There’s nothing wrong with it. It’s not like it’s a source of shame or something. It’s not a law.

It’s, it’s, actually I was talking to Rebecca about it and she, she quite correctly said to me, it shows that you’re supporting the theatre absolutely regardless. And I, and I mean in the vein of not being swayed by other people’s opinions, uh, just for a perfect example, I have been privy to being in, uh, a show that got a, at the same time, a five star, a one star, a three star, to which, to which selling that was fun. So, it could be anything.

Enjoy. I would say too that Toronto’s a really open city. Like, I’m just having fun meeting a lot of people.

So like, I’ve met people at shows too. Like, you, I mean there’s, there’s a lot of people that are also going to, to shows alone or you meet a couple of people and I just, I already have a bunch of new friends that have only been here for two days. So, that’s what I’m going to do.

Make new friends. That’s a great thing to do if you’re in, in a city you’re not familiar with, especially when you’re here like, basically by yourself. Yeah.

Uh, to, to meet people, both in line at shows and also at, at the French tent. I think it could be an interesting initiative for French incoming years is like a French buddy system. Yeah.

Like, want to see a show and you don’t have anyone to go with. Like, have no idea how to, I don’t know why. But you know what, that’s a really great idea.

There could be an app for that, right? Yeah, yeah. You know, it could, that could, very cool. Looking for someone else who wants to see this show at this time, we’ll meet up.

Or you know, just having a little, like a flag or something. Like if you’re like, saying I’m here on my own, do you want to come join me? You heard it here, folks. You heard it here first, folks.

That’s a really great idea. It, just like to, if it, for all the people who are seeing a show by themselves in line to be able to say, I’m here by myself. Yeah, we need to design an app for that right away.

There’s a five person trademark for that, so. So talk to us, talk about the royalties on that. I’m sure we’ll be a free entry.

But you were looking for a final word, yeah? Yeah. If I may, crank the tank, folks. Crank the tank.

Crank out the tank. Yeah. That’s great.

Thanks, guys. Thank you, Phil. Thank you.