The Plan is to get William Shatner to the Fringe.
During Fringe 2006, Jeremy was telling us that his newborn son was named James Tiberius. Initially, I thought it was a joke, but it wasn't. Obviously, he's not named after a Degrassi character, but James T. Kirk, who was played by William Shatner.
It took some months, but come the fall it suddenly hit me that what Jeremy would really really like is for William Shatner to come to our little Fringe. Not for publicity sake, but because Jeremy must idolize William Shatner, and it would be a big thrill for him to show the latter around our Fringe.
It was about the next day that there was an article in Hour titled State of affairs for theatre festivals past and future where Jeremy said that he'd rename his son if it would entice a new sponsor. Given that, it's not inconceivable that Jeremy's son got his name to lure William Shatner here. Certainly, it reinforced the notion the he'd like the actor to attend.
In my annual letters to the weeklies about the Fringe's call for submission back in the fall of 2006, the one to the Mirror is here, while the letter to Hour is here, I included in both letters a bit about how Jeremy would like this to happen. Sadly, neither was published, it would seem the days when the Mirror publishes such a letter is in the past, and Hour never published them.
As I said, there was a time when Jeremy staged some episodes of Star Trek, in the early nineties. When the Fringe was at McGill (I gather Shatner attended that university), some of the venues were at the Shatner Building (the student society renamed it that years ago). We had a venue at the High School of Montreal a few years (down the alley in the back, called the P-Scene), and Shatner apparently attended high school there. Montreal is where he was born, though it's unclear how much connection he has with the city nowadays.
But this is the hometown. And just like William Shatner starting out here and getting big, the Fringe was pretty tiny in the early days and has grown all these years. It's something to show off to someone who's from here but may not have had a chance to take it in.
If this was some publicity gimmick, I'd not give it any consideration. But this is for Jeremy. I have my differences with the Fringe, but I also have done the strike for 10 years, and setup the Beer Tent for six or seven. And Jeremy is always there. Not just bossing, but getting his hands dirty. One year Bill Brownstein was waiting to interview Jeremy, while Jeremy was hanging lights at the Beer Tent. In 2006, one last thing to do was go and pick up the most blatant bits of posters washed off the fence and other assorted bits of garbage. One of those icky jobs, but Jeremy did go and do it.
So having William Shatner attend our Fringe is more like a peer thing. Jeremy can show him around, show him what he's done, how the hometown Fringe has grown over the years. But it's pretty obvious that meeting William Shatner would be a treat for Jeremy.
The thorn in the side of this project is that William Shatner has been to the comedy festival, and according to a recent Bill Brownstein column, will be there again this year. How can we compete with the Big Time? Unless the Fringe Oldtimer's Club pools their pennies, there's no budget for paying William Shatner's way. Surely we can make him Guest of Honor (to steal from science fiction conventions), and MC the Frankies. There is a key to the Fringe waiting for him, though a futuristic version is still in the works. I imagine if William Shatner made the effort to attend, he'd be given a Superpass.
It's gotten kind of weird. In thinking about this, I suddenly notice all kinds of odd references to William Shatner. They were actually there before, but I am noticing them. He shows up quite a bit in the Mirror's Best of Montreal, in both good and bad light. He's there this year, but checking shows he was there in the past when I never noticed. Kristian Gravenor even had a bit about him on his blog, about the house Shatner grew up in, read Capt. Kirk's original frontier. We could have a William Shatner Walking Tour, get Stan Asher to lead it. There was even a newspaper article about him doing something new, but I can't remember what.