The sights and sounds of ‘fringe’ will be in the air from Aug. 6 to 7, but they won’t just be in Calgary.
The first ever Fringe on the Ranche will take place at the Cochrane RancheHouse Theatre, bringing four shows from the Calgary Fringe Festival that will be running from Aug. 1 – 9 in Calgary.
The event is a partnership between Burnt Thicket Theatre and the Calgary Fringe Festival.
James Popoff is the artistic director of Burnt Thicket Theatre and moved to Cochrane three years ago.
He said he approached Michelle Gallant, the festival director of the Calgary Fringe Festival, with the idea of bringing some of the Calgary shows out to Cochrane. Gallant thought it was a great idea and Fringe on the Ranche was born.
“In Cochrane, I think there is a great growing culture scene right now, which is exciting,” said Popoff, listing various events happening around town like live music, comedy and local theatre such as Vision Theatre and High School productions.
“I just began to wonder what would bringing professional theatre to Cochrane look like? This was an opportunity to do that and to bring some real quality work here that we wouldn’t often get a chance to do,” he said.
Popoff said he thinks the fact that fringe festivals are un-juried and uncensored is what makes them so unique. He explained that fringe festivals are usually done by way of a lottery, where artists submit their piece and are randomly selected to be a part of the festival.
Popoff said that one of the great things about the event is that it is a lot of original work that you don’t necessarily get to see at other types of theatre festivals such as a Shakespeare festival.
“The fringe festival provides the artists the opportunity to create the work that they are presenting,” he said.
The first night features Wilma-May and Her Tight White Socks by Calgarian Jennifer Roberts and The Surprise by Martin Dockery from New York.
The second night will have Me and My Monkey by Bradley Spann from Los Angeles and Roller Derby Saved My Soul by Nancy Kenny from Ottawa.
Choosing the shows that would make their way out to Cochrane began with practicality, according to Popoff. He said the dates had to line up with both the artists availability and the venue’s availability. From there he said they chose the ones they thought would best suit the audience in Cochrane.
Wilma-May follows the trials of a woman afraid of everything, while Fringe Festival veteran Dockery’s piece, The Surprise, is a tale of a family rife with secrets.
Me and My Monkey is a journey of a comic-loving boy growing up in the 70s in a home crazy enough to include a monkey, and Roller Derby Saved My Soul is about a shy comic book geek who discovers roller derby and becomes the superhero she has always wanted to be.
Popoff said that if the event were to be successful, he would love to bring more theatre to Cochrane. Popoff mentioned he had a conversation with Allan Boss, Town of Okotoks team leader for cultural and historical services, about theatre performances in smaller communities.
“If a show tours in Okotoks there is no reason it can’t come to Cochrane or another community,” he said. “For an artist that tours, to do a one-off on a weekend is not quite the same as being able to do back to back shows, even if they are in different towns.”
Tickets for Fringe on the Ranche can be purchased online at burntthicket.com or at the door, and the shows are for those 14 years or older. It will be $20 per night or $35 for a two-night pass or $25 a night if purchased at the door. Popoff said they would also be selling tickets at the Cochrane Farmers Market.
Wilma-May
Fears are something that seems to be universal, whether it’s clowns, spiders or public speaking, we all have at least one thing we are afraid of. But it seems no one has them worse than poor Wilma-May.
Jennifer Roberts is a Calgary actor and award-winning playwright and she is bringing her play Wilma-May and Her Tight White Socks to the Cochrane RancheHouse for Fringe on the Ranche.
Fringe on the Ranche will be showcasing four plays that were chosen for this year’s Calgary Fringe Festival that runs from Aug. 1 – 9.
“I am always excited to bring performances to places that are new and might have audience members that are a little new too,” said Roberts of performing in Cochrane. “I think a Fringe Festival show usually tends to be shorter, so it’s less intimidating, and it is a festival, so it will have an exciting festival environment.”
Roberts described Wilma-May as someone who is afraid of absolutely everything and has exiled herself to avoid it all. She stocks up on enough food, water and fashion magazines to last a life time, but the one thing she forgot is light bulbs — and she is most afraid of the dark. She then ends up joining an online support group in an attempt to get past her fears.
Roberts said she created the play in 2004 at the Summer Lab Intensive in Calgary as a solo 10-minute piece and she expanded it to a one-act play in 2005.
“The seed of it began there and it just keeps going,” she said.
Roberts said she loves playing the character of Wilma-May and it is a piece she keeps coming back to and continues to tighten up as a writer.
“She is so completely ridiculous that I keep coming back,” said Roberts. “It’s one of the first pieces I’ve ever wrote and I feel like all of the scripts that are in between then and now have given me confidence to go back and tighten up this particular one.”
She said she would love to do a whole fringe tour with Wilma-May, because it is a fairly mobile piece, adding that all she needs is a pair of long eyelashes.
The show is a solo performance – something that Roberts said has a different energy than a performance with other actors.
“They’re both terrifying for different reasons,” she said with a laugh, noting that she sounded like her character, Wilma-May. “When you work with other actors it’s pretty consistent, but when it’s a solo show, especially with this one, where there is so much conversation back and forth with the audience, I don’t know what they’re going to give me.”
Roberts said the last time she performed the play, an audience member moved her to the point of tears, which she described as a beautiful moment.
She also said she finds her own material sometimes harder to memorize, which she said she knows may sound weird. She said with other people’s work as an actor you know you have to honour the playwright’s intentions. She said when she performs her own work it is hard to stop being a playwright and step away from changing the script.
“I actually have to give myself a firm cut-off date, where no matter what, this is the date where I have, I stick to the words and trust that the words mean what they mean,” she said. “It’s up to me as an actor to figure out what they mean rather than tweaking it a little here or changing a word there.”
