See the list of coverage from 2008
Take Note. "News" includes internet only and people's individual commentary but they have to say something significant. "I'm going to the Fringe later" doesn't qualify as a Fringe reference. The more an individual tries to emulate Old Media, the less I'll be inclined to include it here.
Note: My friend Leslie Lutsky dropped by the Beer Tent yesterday, and somehow I didn't get the word that he'd again be doing some Fringe related interviews on his Radio Centreville show, Jewish Digest that is on Saturday mornings at 8:30am, at 102.3MHz. I still don't know who got interviewed this past Saturday, but the show apparently remains online for a week, until the next week's installment replaces it. Going from their program grid, it would seem one can get this week's program here but without broadband I'm not going to check to verify it. (The station's annual raffle is in play again, so you can buy tickets from Leslie if you see him.)
June 26
Yes, I'm sluggish, but as with the diary there are things to be added
here, some that came the last day, some that came after the Fringe. I
needed some time to recover, it will be updated in a day or two.
June 21
It occurred to me too late, ie on Saturday, that one reason there aren't
more passing mentions of the Fringe may be that people are merely posting
about a specific show, again assuming (like those people last year
who didn't mention "Montreal" since it seemed irrelevant) that there's no
reason to mention that it's at the Fringe. The problem is, it takes way
to long to do searches on all the show names, and if you do a search on
only "Fringe" the results are too many. But it's interesting that there
isn't growth there, there were some years when some people were posting
regularly about the shows they were seeing at the Fringe, but that's worn
off, and nobody is taking their place.
Anyway, as predicted, there wasn't anything in the Gazette this morning. There was a photo of the Drag Races on page A3, I'm not going to bother to look for it online.
Reliably, Without Annette has more reviews up (though I think they were generous with the samosa review). Today they've got Review: Antoine Feval and Review: Red Bastard and Review: Tuning Venus.
I've ignored the posts about the peripheral stuff, it's not like they have paid to subcontract space from the Fringe and risk losing money if there's no audience, but since I really had planned to get to the brunch one day (and have succeeded at failing at that), there's one post about it, Feast of Music: Violins En Plein Air.
June 20
It's bound to be the last day of paper reviews, and I don't expect
much in other form. After all, by now everyone is either dead tired, or
realizing it's about to end, so why bother? And why not throw yourself
into it rather than write about it?
Anyway, on page E6, Pat Donnelly has There's still a chance to see popular shows - here's my top 10. I'm not going to list them out, not only is it subjective, but the more time I write here, the later I get over to the Fringe.
Indyish has another (and final) post about the Fringe, Montreal Fringe Reviews :: More Shows to see! :: Part 2 (and final).
June 19
On page D8, Bill Brownstein tacks a clarification on
the end of his
Zach Galifianakis: Hard to say, now impossible to ignore.
column, rightfully pointing out that Jeremy hasn't run
the Fringe since its inception. All I emailed about was the story
a decade ago about his retirement then, and then went on to talk
about Amy and how it's been so long since a woman ran the Fringe.
Then on page D8, Pat Donnelly covers Brazil Nuts, Sportsexdeathporn and A Girl Named Ralph in U.S. comic is back at her 'home away from home'.
On page D2, Victor Swoboda lists a few shows in his tiny thing about dance in the The Calendar (which is more like a Best Bets for the next week than a really good listing). At least one, I didn't think really qualified as dance, which has happened before. and it's not really clear if he's seen any of them or is running off press releases.
I finally had a chance to look for the Suburban and that was worth it even if it was late. On page 24, there is an article titled At the Fringe Festival which covers Whisper, Dance Animal, and The Secret Love Life of Ophelia. Once again, I can't be bothered with their website anymore, so someone else will have to dig through it to find it online (I gather there is no longer a way to link to specific articles, which is another reason I'm not bothering to check).
The Montreal Mirror was out yesterday, but it wasn't online till after I left for the Fringe, so I'm putting it here. On page 60, they have a slew of Fringe reviews, too many to list here (I really should get on that project to have a table listing each show and the reviews they get), and then on page 61 a profile of Jem Rolls (they're right, he has mellowed) and it's all readable online here.
Without Annette has more reviews up, Review: 'We Call This Comedy', Review: Sorry?I Was Going to Turn it into Something Beautiful, and Review: Dance Animal.
Midnight Poutine has another bit up about the Fringe, Fringe '09: The Final, Rain-Soaked, Push, but they aren't actual reviews, just recommendations and they simply quote from old media reviews. What did I saw the other day about how blogging is often parasitic to Old Media?
Davyn has another review up, I thought maybe his sort of preview was going to be the limit. It's Even more FRINGE: BRAZIL NUTS will crack you up!. I had checked a number of times without seeing more, but he batched them up so there is also More FRINGE: The Importance of Being Earnest, More FRINGE: AfterLife is full of life., and Fringe Zoo: Dance Animal - Tribal tribute..
June 18
Since it's Thursday, I guess it's worth pointing out that
Upstage is on today at 6pm on
CKUT, and they have had Fringe
performers on in the past. Nobody tells me anything, so I have
no idea if there is anything scheduled. I remember all the times
we'd put the Fringe away, and there'd be a list on the wall of
when the non-newspaper media outlets would be doing interviews with Fringe
performers, and that information should be released to the world
at large. The show is archived at
ckut.ca/archives.php. Of
course, someone may have gotten on some other show on the station,
hitting one that is about specific topic of the Fringe show.
Bill Brownstein in The Gazette on page D1 devotes his columnn today, Running a festival takes its toll, to his usually annual piece about Jeremy, this year about his apparent retirement. Check the archives from a decade ago.
Then on page D4, Kathryn Greenaway has Line in the Sand has beautiful flow, covering Line in the Sand and As Duas. If the audience likes something, that's all that matters.
And on the same page, Pat Donnelly has Simmons superb in solo work, about AfterLife, Cabaret L'Amour Fou, Naughty Little Children (Children, not Girls), and The Importance of Being Ernest.
Hour is out, and is loaded with Fringe Fest Funny: Reviews, Fringe Fest highs & lows and Piss in the Pool no.5 (which also lists a few other dance shows). I'm too tired to list what gets covered in each, not that they are real reviews, though internet doctrine says it should be, since then it's easy to find reviews for specific shows, be it the artist or audience looking.
The Montreal Mirror isn't awake yet when I decide it's time to finish this off for the day at 2pm. I will update this later when they finally get up.
Without Annette has up Review: Uncalled For Presents: Today is all Your Birthdays. Watch them add something now that I'm trying to finish this up.
Indyish has stepped away from the Fringe, which is a good thing. A press should be independent. As I've been hammering my head against the floor for fifteen years, the internet gives you the means to tell your own story. Old media tells the story their way, because it's their space. You can tell your own story in your own space, and let old media be more critical. But then, everyone wants old media, like I said after Tooker Gomberg killed himself, because they want the distribution that old media has.
Anyway, since they have stepped away from the Fringe, they return to the list. They have a piece up today, Montreal Fringe Reviews :: Some Fantastic Shows to see! :: Part 1 where they cover Take You With Me, Dancing in My Unbirthday Suit, and Dance Animal Presents: Dance Animal,
Midnight Poutine has an actual review, Fringe '09: Need a S.C.R.E.W.?
There are sundry reviews about shows that somehow relate to sex here.
Someone writes A day at the Fringe.
June 17
Kathryn Greenaway covers Pipa,
Aciduite/Aciduity, Dancing in My Unbirthday Suit and
Toys in
Dancer Tamara Ober simply enchanting as Pipa.
Just after I wrote that it looked like Without Annete wasn't reviewing this year, they post a bunch of reviews. That's happened before. Anyway, they have Review: How to Get Your Foot in the Door Without Losing it, Review: Dracula in a Time of Climate Change. and Review: The Accident. I imagine as soon as I upload this, they'll post more reviews.
Midnight Poutine has a bit up about Fringe '09: Break out your bathing suit and head to the 5th anniversary of Piss in the Pool!. That's their first piece about the Fringe this year.
Someone has some commentary on 3 Ways to Handle a Telemarketer, aptly titled Three Ways to Handle a Telemarketer: Theatre Review.
Someone has a bit Montreal Fringe Festival: The Hefner Monologues.
Someone else blogs about the Fringe, sort of interesting since he links to something he wrote a few years ago. Read it Montreal Fringe Festival, 2009 Edition.
Apparently, a show on Concordia's radio station, CJLO (it's actually been transmitting to the world on 1690KHz since last fall) devoted itself to Fringe artists on Monday from 2 to 4pm. I have no idea whether they archive the shows, or who appeared on it.
June 16
I'll try to make sure I change the date after copying and pasting
for the rest of the Fringe.
Pat Donnelly at The Gazette has Grand Prix of hilarity on page D5, covering How Does a Drug Deal Become a Decent 3rd Date, The Secret Love Life of Ophelia, Cobra III, Burlesque Unzipped, Big Girls Don't Cry and Lysistrata.
www.dfdanse.com has an article up about dance at the Fringe, UN FRINGE TOUT SAUF CLASSIQUE, ET POURTANT?. They detail As Duas, A Line in the Sand, Dreamcatchers and Dance Animals.
Someone (I don't know who) has commented on Fringe shows over the past few years, and I was expecting to see something, even if Jo Walton has gone off to some convention (but she'll be at Anticipation in August). Anyway, he has some commentary up about Penumbra and The Importance of Being Ernest, readable here.
I'm ambivalent about old media blogging, it seems more an attempt to dominate the internet rather than do something good. It often doesn't seem to be real blogging (which I admit is vague but seems more about getting around the blockage of old media than the software used to do it), and why should I care what someone is going to see? For the Gazette, Pat Donnelly's blog seems more an excuse to not put content in the paper, than adding extra material and background. I've chosen to not list the entries here, despite the fact that it is reviews. Meanwhile, the Hour's Blog hasn't really said anything new, a handful of posts that cover shows that were already getting coverage. Maybe they were stuck for time, the deadline for the paper must have run out on Monday, but they seem uninterested in using the medium to supplement the paper. They aren't engaging the public, virtually all of the comments are from others at Hour.
Yet, I did grumble when their Summer Preview piece about dance only mentioned the Piss in the Pool show (and erroneously, likely via press release, said it was a Fringe standard when it was independent of the Fringe up to last year). So I will mention that they now have up REVIEW: "A Line in the Sand," by The Lightbox Project. And they didn't use a theatre reviewer to cover it.
The Ottawa Fringe starts Thursday, so things are revving up over there. Someone blogs So You Want To Produce A Fringe Show? Money Saving Tips which was prompted by an article in the Ottawa Citizen, Financing the fringe habit. Really, this is what arts coverage should include, not merely those reviews that are too often little more than a blurb which counts as free advertising, but background material. Arts funding is a continuing issue, not something that comes up at election time or when there are funding cuts, but you can't keep the population on your side unless you keep them involved the rest of the time.
June 15
The Gazette has one piece about the Festival, I think it was on page
A25,
The Fringe in full stride
where they talk about Figure Skating is for Little Girls (they
don't like the acoustics of the venue, not really a surprise),
Perverts, Dreamcatchers, Dance Animals and
then an actual sort of review of Penumbra. I realize they are
stuck for space, but anyone can write a passing line about all
the shows.
There seems to be a slowness this year. I know one year I suddenly realized that some locals did mention the Fringe but I hadn't noticed their posts because I was searching for "Montreal Fringe", and if you're local it's just "the Fringe". I'm not even finding much this year in the way "I'm going to the Fringe later", though maybe that's all hidden behind facebook's wall now. The zines that are portrayed as legitimate internet press haven't posted yet, maybe they didn't get free tickets this year. Hour's Blog has had some entries, but not as much as the hype and multiple posters would have suggested. Not really any reviews, or much commentary after the initial blast. They seem confused, wanting to hold reviews for the paper edition on Thursday, missing the fact that the blog should be about getting reviews out early and in more quantity than the paper edition can hold. When Gaetan did it, he already had a high visibility at the Fringe, and he acted like a traditional moderator, not about keeping people in line but encouraging posting and engaging people.
Anyway, Davyn Ryall has some comments/reviews here., covering Penumbra, Cobra III, Fucking Stephen Harper and 3 Ways to Handle a Telemarketer.
www.requiredelements.com seems to be about ice skating, and they mention Figure Skating is for Little Girls here and since there are already comments it may be worth checking for the insite that might be provided by people actually interested in skating.
Someone who has posted about seeing shows before (and I've been watching to see if he'd post anything) has a post up about Lysistrata and a bit about their Fringing plans. Read it here.
There's also this about the same show, and likewise seems to be from someone interesting in ice skating.
Someone posted a sort of stream of consciousness about the Fringe and the opening night concert, notable because of the style. Read it here.
Someone has some commentary on We Call This Comedy, read it here.
One of the artists has posted about Fringe shows she's going to see, which in itself isn't noteworthy, but maybe the comments will be worth watching. Read it here.
Someone has a fun monologue about the Fringe, the Beer Tent and fire juggling, and Cobra III. It's here.. I'd much rather read something that has style and seems to convey the Fringe than a mere reference.
Since I'm clearing out the backlog, yes some of these blog entries today have been bookmarked for a bit, there is something here about the Fringe for All that reads more like a press release than anything else, so it likely is based on a press release.
June 14
I see two things in the Gazette about the Fringe. On page A14,
Bell Brownstein devotes his column to
Always working, always chuckling, always baking - that's Uncalled For
which in part goes into their history of promoting themselves. Then on
page A15, Pat Donelly has a piece that provides some background
to The Secret Love Life of Ophelia, Virtual Solitaire and
Cabaret l'Amour Fou in
Standout Vancouver artists gamble and win
I wasn't near a radio yesterday to know if there was anything Fringe related on CJAD, be it Sharman Yarnell's entertainment show at noon or Mose Persico's entertainment show at 4pm.
June 13
All I see in the Gazette (though I'll give a closer look later)
is on page E11,
Yiddish festival is a 'milestone'. Scrolling down,
there is brief bits about Tuning Venus and
How Does a Drug Deal Become a Decent 3rd Date?.
June 12
I see nothing in The Gazette, not really a surprise since they've
already previewed the Fringe and no shows have played yet.
Yesterday, I meant to go by the Atwater Library which is a reliable source of copies of The Senior Times but then I forgot. However, the contents is actually online, and there is an article by Fringe Oldtimer Byron Toben where he points to some shows he thinks are worth seeing, Byron's picks for this year's Fringe Festival. I'll try to get some paper copies to drop off at Fringe HQ. I don't see anything else about the Fringe, but maybe the paper copy has more.
June 11
The weeklies are out and Hour is making
the most of their turn at being a sponsor of the Fringe. (They were
a sponsor from 1997 through 2001 or so, with one year absent, and they
took up the role again last year.) They now have a
blog
solving the problem of a weekly that only publishes once during the
Fringe, and that issue comes late in the week. They have made a mistake,
however; starting in 1997 or 1998 they did this already, Gaetan
Charlebois having a daily diary during the Fringe to put up reviews
and general comments. It was groundbreaking back then, now it looks
like jumping on a bandwagon (and the fact that they don't remember
they've done it before is horrible). Just because "blog" didn't exist
as a word back then doesn't mean this is now new. The second year, comments
were allowed, and it became a lively discussion space. Of course, it died
in 2001, fallout of the meltdown that year.
The cover article is Teen Sleuth and the Freed Cyborg Choir on page 10. Then The Montreal Fringe Festival Overview and Comedy at the Fringe at the bottom of page 10. Richard Burnett writes about Susan Jeremy's return to the Fringe, and then smaller bits about some of the other "gay" shows in his column Three Dollar Bill on page 20. And the editorial on page 8, Babylon, P.Q. introduced it all.
I didn't find a paper copy of The Mirror yet but they have this and then in Artsweek here there is a bit about dance at the Fringe. I think that's it, but maybe when I see the paper copy I'll notice something more.
Bill Brownstein continues his tradition of covering comedy at the Fringe by devoting his column on page D1 to We Call This Comedy in If the jokes don't hook you, the free samosas will
The Winnipeg Free Press has an article about the Fringe circuit, using Montreal as the start since it is the start of the circuit. Read it here.
Other years, The Link at Concordia has had some Fringe material in their "Summer" issue, so I've been watching for it. I find it out today, but I can't find anything about the Fringe in it other than Figure Skating is for Little Girls getting listed in an events listing. I'm assuming the troupe took the initiative, which then means either nobody else tried, or due to limited space that's all they printed.
Some years, troupes have gotten onto CKUT, especially on Upstage which is on Thursdays at 6pm. I have no idea if anyone was on this week, but the show is archived at the stations website, ckut.ca/archives.php so it might be worth checking. Maybe there was a hit on June 4th (though that seems a tad early) or maybe on June 18th. If people told me when they'd be on, it would be a lot easier to keep track.
June 10
I don't see anything in
The Suburban this week, but other
years they've had some difference between the paper and online
version (such as more pictures online) so anyone who actually
feels like wading through their online paper might give it a
try. I can't be bothered.
June 6
The Gazette returns to putting their Fringe preview article
on the front page of the section. On page D1 there is
Skating around the Fringe then on page D3
Katharyn Greenaway has a short piece about dance at
the Fringe,
Fringe has many faces, with something for everyone and below
that is Pat Donnelly's attempt at a top 10 list,
Some Wilde, a little Bard and a touch of Hef.
A couple of shows, 3 Ways to Handle a Telemarketer and Naughty Little Children mentioned they'd be on Mose Persico's relatively new show on CJAD on Saturdays at 4pm today. I wasn't in, so I didn't hear; perhaps other shows got media hits on the show. From his page at the station's webpage I see nothing about the show being archived, so either it's not or one has to dig rhough the CJAD website to find it.
June 4
Hour doesn't have anything Fringe
specific, but there are a couple of hits in
Summer theatre preview and mention of the Piss in the Pool
show in
Summer dance preview but it's really minor.
The Mirror likewise makes passing reference to the Fringe in their summer feature, Footloose Fever about dance and Stages Cheap and Free about theatre, but again just minor snips
June 3
The Suburban had a background
piece about the Fringe on page 24 titled Ready to Fringe. There
is no easy way at their "new updated website" to find a specific article,
or maybe even link to it, so if you want to find it online, you'll have
to go to their website and dig around