More Fringe Notes

• Well-respected theatre tour-de-force Ken Brown collected his observations on the changing philosophies of the Fringe, printed in the Letters section of the Edmonton Journal today.
  


• I didn’t get a chance to stop by the festival grounds of the Calgary Fringe on the weekend. I did read about it though, and it seems this is the second crack for Cowtown’s summer theatre festival. It seems the company that pioneered the first Fringe in 2000 fell on hard times, but a revitalized group endeavored to bring it back last year. They have apparently secured enough funding until 2010. It would be exciting to be a part of such from-scratch development. I was spoiled in Edmonton to have stepped into an already established and successful event.
  


• I was separated from my beloved Fringe program for a few days, and I now realize how difficult it is to plan beyond one show when using the online information system. No show lengths are listed, so it’s difficult to schedule one after another.
  


• The papers are abuzz with Fringe previews: the Journal has numbers pegging advance ticket sales at 13,000, even before a single curtain. More from the Journal, the Edmonton Sun, Vue Weekly, and See Magazine.