From ???@??? Fri Sep 22 03:56:35 2000
To: Montreal Fringe Festival
From: blackm00@cam.org (Michael Black)
Subject: Re: SAVE THE FRINGE!/SAUVEZ LE FRINGE!
But almost four months ago, I broke this news locally, and the Fringe Fest shrugged. Skidmore ran with it, using it to comment on the group, and incidentally promoted her show (and any individual show promotion incidentally promotes the Fringe Festival).
I might have made more effort to spread the word, I do know I told Susan Jeremy about it when I saw her on the first Friday, but as always there is no mechanism to spread this sort of thing other than through the hierarchy, (which doesn't want to deal with it), until the festival is actually taking place, and by then, Skidmore's column had sort of covered it.
At that time, I was not concerned with threats to funding. I've never heard of the Lifesite Canada group before, and considering the form I found it (a message to a Toronto newsgroup where a lot of similar posts are dumped, and with an all-caps subject header), it could so very easily be no more than oneperson, behind the smoke and mirrors of the website. It does not take six people to make a website, though I think it's The Playwright's Workshop that lists six.
My whole point of bringing it up at that time was that it was a publicity hook. People are using the illusion of sex to sell their shows, and that "group" uses this to promote their vision of society, so we turn it around and use the "news" of their outrage at the funding to get into the newspapers to attract attention to the Fringe and the shows. How many had heard of Jana, until her meat dress "scandal" hit the press?
What has changed in four months that the Fringe now feels this is a threat? Has Fringe funding been mentioned in Parliament? Has it shown up in newspaper articles that I haven't seen? Has the Canadian Alliance actually come out against Fringe funding? (I've checked their website at www.alliancecanadienne.ca and I see nothing after a brief glance). Has Heritage Canada specifically said there is opposition to Fringe funding? Take note that when Skidmore did her column in June, she said that the department had not had any complaints.
I did some searches, and nothing new has turned up, though things can be missed.
It would be nice to have some hard information, because this email is just a variant on the propaganda from the "family value" group, with all-caps in the subject header, a suggestion that the Fringe is tottering on the edge, and no background material. Note that if people haven't heard the story, and I didn't tell everyone, they will not have any idea what this is about.
(Similarly, that correction in the Gazette, about how the shows were not pulled by the Fringe, sort of missed it's mark because who was saying they were? The story of the religious group wasn't in the Gazette, and many would have missed Skidmore's column.)
I am not saying we shouldn't be writing letters of support, but there is a big difference between simple letters of support to help a funding proposal, and the sort of letter needed if the funding is in serious jeopardy from a third party (and realistically, how much of the Fringe's funding comes from Heritage Canada?). And if there is a real threat, rather than because someone has suddenly decided four months later that something I pointed out is now dangerous, then it deserves real background material.
If it was a real threat, the time to deal with it would have been during the Fringe itself, since tha actual audience was there in person and we could have sought their letters of support.
If there has been an actual escalation, then we should have seen some quote from Susan Jeremy last week when she was in town, because she was one of the "pornographers", and she has certainly benefitted from the Montreal Fringe Festival.
Or last month, when Rick Miller was at The Mother Fringe. The Gazette ran an article about him, and another about the Simpson's voices doing a show there, but with a little effort, we could have attempted to control the story, meshing the two together, and using it as a platform about this "serious funding matter".
If the funding cut is potentially real, then it should be news, Making the Fringe big isn't a matter of huge numbers like the Jazz or Comedy festival, but its importance in its own little way. The Big Fests would think nothing of going to the press if they had a bad year, and wanted more funding. Yet the Fringe Festival doesn't seem to want to be out there in the world, except for the month of June.
I am not talking about manufactured publicity, but an honest connection between the Fringe and whatever goes on throughout the year. Where would Mask On be without the Fringe to get started? Would Susan Jeremy play the Comedy Fest twice, and Centaur once, if the Fringe didn't exist?
And it is that very connection that will stave off funding cuts.
So do I track down Ame Henderson (Chemistry Experiment, 1999) and see if she'll write a letter of support? She says she'll never do another Fringe show again, because of all the work needed to promote it. But they got a fair audience, precisely because they were promoting.
Or do I look for Mary Ann Lacey (Counting on Gertrude, 1998, and Amazone Obsessions, 1999) at the library to convince her to write a letter?
Should I and everyone else who got that email print out some copies and post them on bulletin boards? For that matter, if this is a serious issue, you might save some effort and fax it to various groups around town, asking them to put stick it up. I don't even see announcements when it's time to send in entries for the actual festival, and the Fringe seems uninterested in this sort of "culture jamming" (there was some reference to it in "The Socially Distracted Misadventures...", 2000).
The point is that the email doesn't give a real idea of how serious this is, but simply uses hyperbole. Either this is just a minor thing, in which case it doesn't need the hype, or it is serious, in which case in needs truth not hype, and we need to go further than a few puny email addresses.
I shouldn't have to point out that this is some of why I pointed out that the Fringe website shouldn't be seen as a product, fancy and static, but as a means of spreading information. And I shouldn't have to point out that keeping the Fringe in the news throughout the year, which is why I want to know what's going on, and why I keep coming up with hooks for promotion, is a way of keeping it in people's minds for more than the week, or the month, that most do.
Instead, we've got a classic example of pushing information. An email message goes out to some people, and from the names (it's customary when sending email out to a bunch of people to use the bcc field) it looks like it was sent out to whoever you had email addresses for. It's not even complete; I could certainly add a few. The news only reaches insiders, not the population at large.
If it's serious, how come there is no news of this at Gaetan Charlebois's site at http://www.canadiantheatre.com/ where he even has an entry for the "Fringe movement", which might be useful background material for people writing a letter of support.
If it's serious, then we should be reading it in the newspapers, either as a bit tacked on at the end of some theatre review, or in an actual article, or if there's no other choice, letters to the editor. But there has to be a real threat, and it has to be based on more than all caps in the subject header.
Where is the Canadian Association of Fringe Festivals in all this? I've never been able to find contact information about them.
And finally, this should be on the Fringe Festival's website. I realize it's not going to do much good there, because few will think of checking the site in the off-season. But had we been using the website as an ongoing tool, providing information and updates to make the site tempting for people to visit throughout the year, then people would drop by the site and see this important information. If this matter isn't put on the website, then it's clear the Fringe festival has no committment to the internet, and has no desire to ensure that the Fringe will be strong in future years. Because no matter how useless putting information on the website might be now, the ongoing use of the website will ensure that future news posted there will be seen.
Let the Fringe lead, not follow.
I took the email, stripped off the email addresses, and turned it into
a webpage. It would have taken me only ten minutes, but I had to read up
on putting accented characters onto webpages. The email is at
http://www.cam.org/~blackm00/fund.html
You can put a pointer from the Fringe's website, or you can take the page
and simply upload it as a replacement to the Fringe's main webpage. Ask
Ira. Content is more important than flash.
My webpage at
http://www.cam.org/~blackm00
also has the story of the "porn fest", including a link to Skidmore's
article, the original message that I found, and the religious group's website.
There's even a link there to my message of response to the original message
I saw, which with deletions and additions will be my letter of
support.
If there are hard sources of information about the funding controversy, I'd put more information up. I'd even use the space to put up loetters of support, if people want to share them with the public.
Other than telling a few people, I never promoted this webpage. It was meant as commentary on the sad state of the Fringe's website, and how it could be better used to provide information.
I hope this funding matter, whether real or imagined, makes the Fringe Festival more receptive to the suggestions of this village idiot.
Michael