Category Archives: Festivals

Three solos!

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The economics of Fringe festival touring provide motivation to create an entertaining performance with a limited number of team members. And the artistic challenge of keeping an audience engaged for an hour or so on one’s own raises the stakes for solo performers, and leaves the audience more impressed when it works. There are about 82 shows in the Fringe program that list a single cast member. But theyre not all the same!

On the Fringe opening night, I took in three solo performances.

No Die! Or: How I left Amsterdam and Almost Died in Africa – Fedor Ikelaar, Acacia Hall (venue 5) When we were recommending it to others later, I called this Storytelling and a friend called it Stand-up Comedy. I would still classify it as a storytelling performance, but I see why the performer’s natural delivery and responsiveness to the audience might lead to a description as stand-up comedy. Plus, it was funny! After a few comments about being a Dutch visitor in Canada, the performer Fedor Ikelaar launches into a long tale of travel misadventures, contextualized by the hubris of being a straight white man along with the overconfidence of a first-year anthropology student thinking he could fix the world and could make a significant difference in a short volunteer trip. In school he’s learned about the Human Development Index, so he decides to spend his summer in the country which is currently last on the list, Sierra Leone. The title is a spoiler in that he does not die. But he does wander through more misadventures than Mr. Magoo, receives significant support and care from the Sierra Leonean people he thought he was going to help, and uses his outcome an encouragement to travel more.

The Game of Bluff is Susan Jeremy’s narrative about the shuffling characters and lives of herself, her mother (a lifelong poker player), her grandmother (supporting her household as a small-time bookie), and her great grandmother (a numbers runner). The performer embodies each of these characters with distinct voice and mannerisms, and adds clarity by having the speakers address each other by name a lot. Besides the ones mentioned above, there’s her father, her mothers poker cronies, a fortune-teller, and others. It was interesting to see how she wove the thread of gambling through the multiple generations of the family, with many of them benefiting from the industry and one addict – not a viewpoint I’d seen before. Walterdale Theatre, venue 3.

Solovela was my first improv show of the festival. Diane Jorge from Miami had the half-full room in Acacia Hall laughing right from the start of her midnight performance, creating a telenovela (Latino-style soap opera) from a few questions she asked some (consenting) audience members, and some props she used to signal a shift between characters. She embraced some tropes of the genre such as having the audience recite the name of the story at commercial breaks (one of which was actually a short pitch by an artist in the audience for his own show), and showing a romantic focus on one character by having them stand over a fan blowing their hair around. There was romance, there was suspense, there was a fight (in which she performed both combatants), there was justice and happy endings. Jorge seemed relaxed and comfortable and she was very funny, from her self-deprecating asides to her characters’ physicality.

I had forgotten that it was handy to have cash on hand to donate to touring performers in exchange for show merch. All three performers had mementoes available and I wanted to support all of them. Good thing there are bank machines on the grounds!

Making Fringe unforgettable for more people

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Title page of Fringe Unforgettable program book, 2026

It’s like Christmas Eve – every time I walk past the Fringe grounds I see more of the trappings up. The big schedule pillars. The food trucks. The zipped-up tents that will become the North Beer Tent and the Volunteer Patio. Huge displays of white petunias in front of the ATB Community Patio. I love to see each hint of the familiar routine, looking forward to the 11 days in August that transform my neighbourhood into the Fringe.

But I’m also noticing some things that will be different this year. Things that will make it easier for many different people to have an unforgettable Fringe.

The free Shuttle to the French Quarter is back – but this year there is also a stop by Goodwill (north side of Whyte at 101 St, handy to the West Ritchie venues of Grindstone and Sugar Swing, Mile Zero Dance,The Playhouse, Roots on Whyte, and The Faculty, and quick access to the three stages at Holy Trinity Anglican north of Whyte), and there are stops on both sides of Whyte at 96 Street (by stage 19 under Mill Creek Cafe). With a little planning, using the shuttle will make it easier to access the growing number of BYO Venues spreading out from the traditional hub at the Arts Barns. The shuttle is a pilot project this year, so I hope lots of people take it!

The Fringe ticketing web pages have more information on each show, arranged more conveniently than in the past. Looking at a hard-copy program book ($15) is still the easiest way for me to make plans. But now the website shows the creative team listing for each show, and a “plain-language” description of what to expect which is a refreshing addition to the sometimes cryptic or silly paragraphs in the program book. I like knowing whether a show team has names I recognize, and I think the plain-language descriptions will help lots of Fringe newbies and people who prefer the literal to the obscure. There’s also a quick drop-down displaying all dates and times for a show with a single click.

This year some artists are able to provide various accessibility measures for specific performances. Listings are on the Fringe website here. There may be additions to the list throughout the festival. Currently there are at least five shows offering ASL Interpretation for one performance each, and listing the names of the ASL Interpreters. Three productions offer Open Captioning of audio elements visible to all audience members. Weird Al Karaoke projects all their clever song lyrics on screen at every performance, which means less chance of missing funny bits while everyone is laughing. There are Relaxed Performance and Relaxed Environment options.

There are also three productions offering Audio Description for one performance each. An audience member who wishes to hear a spoken description of the visual aspects of the show, spoken by an off-stage describer without interrupting the show dialogue, can pick up a headset at the door of the theatre. Gwen Coburn (you might remember her from Sad Girl Songs in 2023 and a creepy-hilarious Die-Nasty drop-in), Boston-based performer whose show this year is The Importance of Being Haunted, told me that she got interested in Audio Description ”after meeting patrons who were blind or low vision and wanted to access my show” and has spent the past year training and working in AD (Audio Description) in the Boston area. Performances with Audio Description are listed below.

  • Monday, August 17th at 12pm at the ATB Westbury Theatre The Merkin Sisters #Backcombed Two wildly HILARIOUS, OUTRAGEOUS, delightfully unhinged sisters who take it to a whole new level of absurd brilliance. This jaw-dropping, laugh-until-you-can’t-breathe show will electrify your senses. A vivacious romp sending up our inner cavemen and our ultra-queens, smothered with the unique flavour of absurdity that comes from siblings surviving childhood together. 18+
  • Tuesday, August 18th at 8pm at Mile Zero Dance Stage 12 Angry Puppets 1 performer – 12 jurors – 0 clue! Rub-a-dub-dub, the Baker is dead in the tub. Now the Butcher is on trial… and what ever happened to that Candlestick Maker? A fast-paced dark comedy for adults about justice, bias… and fleece. Great for families! PG
  • Wednesday August 19th at 3:30pm at Sugar Swing Upstairs The Importance of Being Haunted A plausibly authentic vaudeville ghost show. Step into a world of theatrical spectacles, and potentially supernatural ones. Straight out of the vaudevillian tradition of humbuggery, Dr. Silkini leads a show that is equally seance and slapstick. But is any of it real? Can you contact a ghost, if you don’t believe in ghosts? Tap once for yes. PG+

So on this eve of the 2026 edition of the Edmonton International Fringe Theatre Festival, I am looking forward to the festival being better than ever for more people. Hope to see you on the grounds!

Abbreviated Fringe 2025, Fringe plans 2026

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I wasn’t around much for Fringe 2025. I’d planned to spend the first weekend at a family wedding in another province, and the second weekend at friends’ wedding locally – but I did not plan that an airline labour disruption would strand me away for most of a week.

So I managed a bit of Fringing, but I didn’t make time to blog about anything I saw until later, and I’m just posting now, for completeness.

Carole of the Belles – 100% More Girls – the same writers and performers as in last year’s Mass Debating. Kristin Johnson as the take-charge member of a handbell choir and Cheryl Jameson as the trying-hard second-wife newbie, Jake Tkaczyk as timid and mysterious Carole, Billy Brown as an aged mother-in-law and Michelle Todd and Jason Hardwick rounding out the troupe of older women preparing for a Christmas recital. Nuanced as well as funny.

Giorgi of the Jungle – I’ve seen an earlier staged reading of this growing-up story by Lynda Celentano, but I really enjoyed this version, on the Sanctuary stage at Holy Trinity Anglican, as directed by Jake Tkaczyk. Natalie Czar played the Italian-immigrant mother and the three daughters were Miracle Mopera, Jason Hardwick, and Kirsten Throndson. Mopera was particularly impressive as the oldest daughter sharing her beauty-school skills and her own hard-won learning of how to fit in, to advise and defend her younger sisters. And Czar’s monologue of how similar issues had played out for her as a young immigrant woman was thought-provoking, although possibly too long.

Anne Zander is MOTHER – I loved this clown’s look at some of the indignities, challenges, and complications of giving birth and raising an infant. In classic clown fashion, she made brilliant and unexpected use of a few simple props.

The Lost Sock Rescue Society – I thought I knew what would happen in this show, from the premise of an organization created to find new owners for abandoned socks … but it had unexpected delights. Christine Lesiak and Louise Casemore treat the audience as volunteer-recruits for their sock-adoption team.

Flora and Fawna Face their Fears – Flora (Trevor Schmidt) and Fawna (Jake Tkaczyk) welcome a new friend, Fern, played by Jason Hardwick. A fun addition to the trilogy with a few pointed comments on current events. Also, a reprise of the strangely catchy theme song “Face Your Fears”.

Plays by BOTS – I’d never been to this Rapid Fire Theatre improv format, although I’d heard good things about it. The one I went to this year was in the early afternoon and was planned as kid-friendly, with the improvisers playing kids on a ridiculous adventure. (In 2026, RFT is instead doing Plays by Humans.)

Undiscovered Country – Chris Bullough at his essence.

Cabaret of Legends – Tymisha Harris celebrates great Black women musicians of the 20th century and reminds us of their context. (Back in 2026! Worth seeing!)

52 Stories – Dave Morris uses a memory-palace trick to frame some great memoir and storytelling. Also back in 2026!

And now it’s the eve of Fringe Unforgettable, the 2026 festival. My list of want-to-see is three pages long, so I’m postponing some hard decisions. Here’s an excerpt from my list.

Solovela

No Die! Or how I left Amsterdam and almost died in Africa

Game of Bluff

Blackground

Shrute and Tungsta

Queens of Romance

Being Norwegian

Sketchy Broads

Butter Chicken Odyssey

Matt and Ben

Seanchai

The Beanstock Market Crash

Rodgers and Hammerstein’s ROBOCOP the musical

Hellmark Christmas Musical Parody

Fetch

tony wrestles a stranger

Magic, survival, and hidden patterns – a Fringe weekend

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The last four shows I saw in Fringe 2024 included two shows with stage magic and two shows with young women prepping for endtimes or disasters. But four very different experiences!

El Diablo of the Cards was a solo sleight-of-hand performance by Ewerton Martins of Brazil, in red nose. He greets guests in line outside Gateway Theatre, then seats some people on the stage of the intimate black box and goes back outside to announce more arrivals as “next victims!” and keeps promising that the show will start in five minutes. Eventually he taps one of the audience members to give him an introduction, and the one who did it in the Saturday show did a great job. His patter is amusing and he gets help from several audience members without making fun of them. And his tricks are astonishing and delightful.

kicked in the end: a magic show was a solo performance by actor/magician/academic/author Shawn DeSouza-Coelho, in the Kick Point OSPAC space. This charismatic performer also engaged with audience members before the official show start, and then reminded us that as per the show title, before the end of show, there would be some kind of kicking of someone. While we were puzzling over that one, he gave us a long riddle of descriptive poetic phrases that didn’t fit together at all, and then gave us one word that made them all make sense. He engaged audience assistants to conduct various magic tricks. I wasn’t sure what to attribute to physics, what to attribute to impressive “reading” of participants, and what was actually sleight of hand. In between, he told stories from his life which would have made an interesting show even without the magic and interaction. Later it became clear that just as the apparently-unconnected lines of the riddle made sense once the keyword was revealed, the anecdotes also had a common thread in racist microaggression. The structure of the show, particularly the ending that subverted my expectations of what a performer “owes” the audience, had me feeling as if I discovered my own problematic beliefs rather than having someone else call me out, which was much more effective. (Emo Majok’s gentle poking fun felt similar). I don’t know whether the performer teaches undergraduates, but I hope for the sake of York students that he does. Shawn DeSouza-Coelho is also the author of the fascinating biography of Stratford stage manager Nora Polley, Whenever You’re Ready, which I recommend.

Let’s Not Turn on Each Other features creative partners and recent BFA grads Jacquelin Walters and Michael Watt, who have been making performances together at Nextfest, at U of A New Works, and elsewhere. This one, billed as a play with original folksongs, was performed at Spotlight Cabaret, but is going to be held over at the Westbury Theatre next Friday and Saturday. (Note – you might remember that in past years, holdover performances cost more than tickets to regular Fringe shows. This year they’re a flat $20 – the same as the maximum price during the festival.)

Anyway, it’s weird, and playful, and engaging. The two performers, wearing plain modest dresses and blonde milkmaid braids under kerchiefs, are members of a guild, assigned to guard an outpost until they get a signal from their leader. It’s not clear if this is a religion or a doomsday-prep group or what, but they both seem completely devoted to their required daily schedule and the instructions they get from cassette tapes. They sing and play instruments, they make an expedition around the audience space which culminates in some participation from Spotlight serving staff, and eventually they make some discoveries that upset their belief system. See the holdover — and watch for these two in future. I understand that Michael Watt will be playing the eponymous Shrek in an upcoming Nuova Vocal Arts production.

W.R.O.L. (Without Rule of Law) has a more realistic setting and tone, but again it seems to be about a group of young-teen girls who have deviated from standard Girl Guides curriculum to teach themselves survivalist prepping. The script is by Michaela Jeffery – previous works of hers I’d seen in Edmonton were Sundogs (Fringe 2014) and The Listening Room (Cardiac Theatre, 2018). Emily Marisabel directed W.R.O.L. Set designer Amanda Bertrand and prop designer Kevin Cambridge have constructed an impressively detailed space for the group to explore, especially given the 15-minute limitations on setup and strike for each show. Performers Robyn Clark, Baran Demir, Astrid Deibert, Emily Thorne, and Jordan Empson bring five different characters to life, each with their own needs and motivations for becoming competent and independent. At first, the group’s concerns about solving mysteries and defying school restrictions seem immature or foolish, but by the end it seemed to me that they had credible good reasons to mistrust their authority figures, reasons that many contemporary young people might share.

Fringe Day Nine: assorted stories – but not storytelling shows.

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Heading into the last weekend of Fringe, on Friday I watched three fun shows.

Verbal Tapas is a collection of poems by longtime Fringe poet and storyteller Rob Gee. Instead of scripting a fixed order, the performer handed out “menus” on the way in, with various poem titles and descriptions that sounded like restaurant-food teasers. He invited people to shout out titles, after which he might tell an anecdote of context (the time he recited a poem to two police officers in the middle of the night who had stopped him from illicit postering, the creative-writing groups he’d run as part of his work in mental-health nursing, etc) and launch into a recitation. He kept having good lines which I’d try to remember and then they went out of my head with laughing. Acacia Hall is a good venue for this kind of solo with audience connections.

Canterbury Tales has been adapted from Chaucer’s much longer Middle English original by local theatre artist Donna Call. This version has six travellers acting out each other’s stories to entertain the company, and the role-shifting is amusing. Lee-Ann Semenya plays the innkeeper who sells them drinks, proposes the storytelling competition, keeps things moving, and then covers them up with blankets for the night. I don’t know the original very well – the character names were familiar (the confident and ambitious Wife of Bath played by Amanda Stout, the Miller played as a lout by Ryan Mattila), but I didn’t remember the content of any of the stories. Other performers were Martin Stout, Zack Siezmagraff Penner, Anne-Marie Smyth, and Karen Huntley.

Field Zoology 301: Myths and Monsters is part of a series, in a campground-lecture style. Performer Shawn O’Hara, as Doctor Bradley Q. Gooseberry, welcomes his students around a campfire to teach us about cryptozoology, or the study of legendary/folkloric animals. He makes imaginative use of sketches on an overhead projector to illustrate his tales, including most of the cryptids I’d heard of and a few that were unfamiliar to me, along with some very funny narrative of personal encounters. Afterwards, the performer removes Dr. Gooseberry’s extravagant mustache from his own, to thank his contributors, including people who helped him to navigate telling stories respectfully from Indigenous sources. I would definitely see other shows in this series. This was my first glimpse of Mile Zero Dance as a Fringe venue, and an opportunity to spend time in the Happy Beer Street area of West Ritchie, which was exciting. However, I found the seats uncomfortable, and the full room too hot in last night’s warm humid weather.

Fringe Day Eight – second wind

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With no volunteer shift and no stage-management duties Thursday beyond a bit of show laundry, I spent the whole day going to shows that people had recommended to me.

Emo Majok: Australian Aussie was in the intimate space of Acacia Hall. I had heard his guest piece at Late Night Cabaret the night before and was looking forward to it. The stand-up comedian weaves in anecdotes about being challenged by his 7-year-old daughter to leave a job he hates and make a career in performing, about being born in a refugee camp and migrating with his family from Ethiopia to Kenya to South Africa and then Australia, about being Black in Australia (“the Australian indigenous people were the original Black people there, until blacker people arrived”) and in other parts of the world, about being a parent, and other relatable and gently hilarious comments. Emo engages with various audience members individually, teasing a bit about a few immigrant stories and career dissatisfaction stories as well as family groupings (a 60-years-married couple had come with their grandchild, so he congratulated the couple and told the grandchild that it was good of them to spend time with their grandparents but they should get some actual friends).

HerPlease is also in a small performance space, the Nordic Studio Theatre in the Arts Barns. Solo artist Kate Tobie of Minneapolis appears wearing a large vulva costume, from which she pulls out various props while telling stories of her sexual and romantic history and providing some incidental public-service information. Her backstage assistant (not identified, but appearing for bows) is probably very busy, helping out with the various physical bits. Alongside the bigger reveals of the story, I was particularly struck by the comments about enjoying the messiness of having a body while encountering messages of shame about it. HerPlease has shows tonight (Friday) and tomorrow (Saturday) late afternoon.

What a Young Wife Ought To Know made an interesting thematic double-feature with the previous show about women’s (mostly-heterosexual) sexuality in the 21st century. The Hannah Moskovich script, last seen locally as done by Theatre Network in 2018, is tackled here by local indie company Shattered Glass Theatre, directed by Sarah Van Tassel. If you are open to watching a drama in your Fringe-going, consider this one. It is very well done, compelling and well-paced. Abigail MacDougall is breathtakingly heartbreaking as the central character Sophie, starting as a naive 15-year-old who admits she kissed the post-boy because she felt sorry for him having TB, and going through her crush on Johnny, who works at the nearby hotel stables, to marrying him, having several children despite risks to her health and very limited household money, and following through on some very difficult decisions brought about by those circumstances. She breaks the fourth wall between scenes to talk frankly to the audience, mostly directed at other married woman, to ask “what do you do?” and “what would you do?” type questions. Patrick Maloney plays Johnny, and Sarah Spicer plays Sophie’s older sister Alma, both of whom also experience sad outcomes related to their lack of reproductive choice, as a working-class couple in the 1920s.

Batman, Bob, and Bill is an original drama written by Andrew Boyd of No Tomatoes Theatre about the artists who created and developed the Batman stories. Andrew Boyd and Connor Meek play the main characters, with an ensemble of Brooke Hodgson and two more people (I couldn’t find a show program/credits). I thought the ensemble was very well used, as artists sketching in sketchbooks at the back of the stage and discarding some of the results, then shifting to play minor characters, move set pieces (rehearsal boxes with comic-book art on them), etc. It’s playing at venue 18, the Lutheran church hall across the street from Grindstone.

WINNING:Winning is described as a mostly-silent clown show, by Gordon Neill. With lots of artist assistance and no talking, the character works through some of his challenges and fears on stage, while being less compassionate towards himself than the audience is. Near the end, the character and performer merge and speak, giving some of the bigger picture of where this production came from. It was directed by Isaac Kessler (of 1-Man No-Show, etc) and was not only entertaining but moving.

An episode of Die-Nasty and a Late Night Cabaret visit made a long day, but I wouldn’t have missed any of it.

Have a great Fringe weekend!

Day Seven – sketch comedy, improv, and magic

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Sketchy Broads: Choosing the Bear is a sketch-comedy show written by five local multidisciplinary comedians: Nikki Hulowski, Lindsay Walker, Kristen Welker, Jules Balluffi, performers, and Jennie Emms, who is in the booth as stage manager and appears in one cameo bit. My favourite sketch comedy shows are the ones with so many funny bits that they don’t linger on any of them, just – punchline! boom – and then a lighting shift and segue into a different scenario with different characters. Sketchy Broads did this very well. There were some sketches in which they performed male characters, and some in which they were women dealing with men (offstage or onstage). There was also one very funny small child character. There was laugh-out-loud silliness, there was a recurring bit about a har-har eavesdropper taking conversation out of context, and there was a surprisingly-poignant scene set at an anti-feminist convention.

Let’s Go to the Phones is an improvised radio call-in show by the Irrelevant Show crowd, in the Spotlight Cabaret restaurant. The performance I saw had Peter Brown hosting and familiar comedian/improvisers Cody Porter, Dave Clarke, Donovan Workun, and Chris Borger alternating as guest experts and circulating through the audience with microphones for the questions. Peter Brown started by getting topics from the audience, as mundane as possible, and the ones we ended up with were “how to pair your bluetooth devices” and “coffee grounds”. The pace of this kind of show is slower, giving the performers opportunities for developing odd characters and successfully recreating the call-in show atmosphere.

Yesterday I also watched Keith Brown’s magic show 100% Wizard. The magic / illusions were impressive and mysterious, and Keith Brown connects with audiences in a relaxed and respectful way. He used lots of audience volunteers, including some younger ones. I don’t think he did any of the same things he’s done in previous shows – and if he did, I didn’t mind. With use of the large monitors on either side of the stage to enhance the audience view, and one video camera for a closeup of his hands in some bits, the performance worked very well for the large cabaret-seating room of the Sea Change Granite Club venue which is also hosting the Late Night Cabaret this year.

Fringe Day Six: Eleanor and Vavianna. Not together.

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I didn’t catch Ingrid Garner’s solo storytelling show last year, Eleanor’s Story: An American Girl in Hitler’s Germany. But I heard such good things about it from people whose opinions I value that I was sorry to miss it.

This year, her sequel, Eleanor’s Story: Life After War, is on stage at one of the Holy Trinity Anglican Church venues. (This Fringe-grounds-adjacent church community embraces arts outreach year-round, and they have hosted Fringe venues for long enough to be very good at it. There’s a tea-room, a “cheer-garden” with liquor rules allowing you to finish your drinks while in line for a show, and always cheerful patient knowledgeable FOH volunteers.) This year’s show is also a solo storytelling performance by writer/performer Ingrid Garner (and, it turns out, the granddaughter of the real-life narrator). It was very well done. The 17-year-old, who had been stuck in Berlin with her family throughout World War Two, gets a visa to return to the USA in 1946 and describes the next year as the “blackest year of my life”. If you ever read Anne Frank’s diary, you may have been startled to read about her ordinary growing-up concerns being as significant to her as the mortal danger and deprivation she was suffering with her family. In this story, some of those horrors of living not just in wartime Germany but then in Russian-occupied Berlin were a bit easier to listen to because they were recounted by someone who survived. But the confusions and humiliations of a teenager landing in an American high school while experiencing culture shock and post-trauma reactions were so easy to empathize with. The solo performer easily conveys the 17yo’s attitudes and feelings, but also re-creates various family members, the best friend she leaves in Germany, teachers and classmates, as well as less benign encounters.

Late last night, while Late Night Cabaret had the night off, I attended Vavianna Vardot’s Famous Sex Party at the beautiful Rapid Fire Exchange venue, Rapid Fire Theatre’s year-round home. It is hosted by Amber Nash of Atlanta in the statuesque stage persona of Vavianna Vardot. Other parts of last night’s entertainment included a band, burlesque performers Sharpay Diem and Violette Coquette, Zackary Parsons-Lozinski singing crude lyrics to a familiar song, various audience participation bits including inviting a visual artist to do a painting of Vavianna during the show (the outdoor performer Fairy Cowboy/Keltie Kip Monaghan, who was great), and I don’t remember what all else.

Tonight I’ll be back at Late Night Cabaret, selling drinks rather than drinking them, but still watching the show. And before that, I’ll get to watch Keith Brown’s 100% Wizard! Maybe I’ll see you there!

Four-Show Fringe Monday

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James and Jamesy in Easy as Pie: Performers Aaron Malkin and Alastair Knowles have entertained Fringe artists for several years. In the opening of this year’s show Easy as Pie, the two are preparing to fulfill a longtime dream of performing as clowns, putting on costumes and reviewing the order of bits in their turn. Unlike much classic physical comedy, the characters James and Jamesy do talk to each other, but they also make great use of amusing actions and creative props and effects. The performances are in the Westbury Theatre, and the scale is large enough to work in the large full auditorium.

Local Diva: The Danielle Smith Diaries is also in the Westbury, on a large bare stage with one chair used as a prop. The script, by Liam Salmon, had a previous production five years ago, but some topical/timely material has been added to acknowledge the ways in which life has gotten more worrying since then. Performer Zachary Parsons-Lozinski strides in and self-introduces as drag queen / “drag thing” Tragidean, here to recount the events leading up to their current court case. Parsons-Lozinski owns the stage, pacing, pirouetting, posing, telling stories of growing up gay in small town Alberta, then finding community in gay bars and fulfillment in drag performance, while periodically erupting in rants about current events and homophobic and destructive actions.

I’ve seen and read previous solos with an angry narrator building up the story of provocation to some consequences. I think one about an angry man was by Daniel MacIvor, but Donna Orbits the Moon by Ian August, that Northern Light did last season, was about an angry/grieving middle-aged woman who had done some apparently-illogical things, and I’m pretty sure I’ve seen others. In this story, Tragidean’s provocations are both personal and systemic. The personal stories – high school ridicule, thoughtless micro-aggressions of young adults – were smaller and quieter, with the all-out chair-throwing rage reserved for ways in which they see their world being destroyed (timely examples including genocide in Palestine, wildfires in Jasper, and various recent provincial-government attitudes and policies). The character’s eventual eruption over a personal offence appears hugely disproportionate without knowing what else they have to be angry about. And I’m still not sure what I think about that.

Ink Addicted is a solo storytelling performance by Chris Trovador of Orlando, a tattoo artist turned comedian/actor. It was genuine and entertaining. The scenes on stage are interspersed with recorded video of him playing his parents and other characters, and interviewing other tattoo artists and clients. He starts by asking the audience which of us have tattoos and to the others, why not – and then people responded eagerly to the participation bits in his story. He incorporates rap, poetry, music, and a gradual reveal of some of his own tattoos. The unfamiliar specifics of his story (his Puerto Rican mother going from hating tattoos to getting permanent makeup and becoming his chief marketer, disrespectful customer demands) were told in a way that made them easy to relate to. Walterdale Theatre.

I also caught a couple of nights of Die-Nasty. The improv-soap-opera troupe, enhanced by several familiar performers for the Fringe edition, plays every night at 10 pm at the Varscona Theatre, in a story set at the Fringe and populated with Fringe-related characters. Each performance starts with a monologue by that night’s director (Jake Tkaczyk or Peter Brown) which is often laugh-out-loud funny on its own, and musical accompaniment is provided by the amazing Paul Morgan Donald. As in previous years, Kristi Hansen portrays reviewer Liz Nicholls, but this year she has an estranged sister, Whiz Nicholls (Lindsay Walker). Other characters include politicians campaigning for Mayor of the Fringe, the staff of the massage tent, classically trained actors with ‘Downton Abbey accents’, a lounge singer (Jacob Banigan), an improviser from Toronto, a sheriff (Tom Edwards), Kids-Fringe leader Alyson Dicey (Kirsten Throndson), Rachel Notley (Shannon Blanchet), Murray Utas (Randy Brososki), and several others. Guests I’ve seen included Isaac Kessler (directing WINNING:Winning this year and with a memorable Fringe-comedy resume) and Patty Stiles (former Rapid Fire artistic director). The pace is quick and the energy is high, and it doesn’t matter if you don’t know what happened to date. The 60-minute show goes quickly and there’s usually a large and responsive crowd. Oh, and the merch: for $10 they are selling soap. Really nice soap.

The S.P.O.T.T.

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Photo: Stage lit in dim blue light is covered with a big garbage can and a lot of scattered garbage.

The S.P.O.T.T. is the title of Meegan Sweet’s solo show at Sugar Swing upstairs. It’s also the aspirational title of Meegan Sweet’s character in the show, a raccoon who aspires to be the Shiniest Piece Of Trailer Trash anywhere. The playful, endearing, and sometimes crude narrator explains to the audience that their overall aspiration is to be reincarnated as a yooman bean (human being). There is a lot of entertaining audience engagement and a lot of clever use of the prop garbage on the stage, while the character works on the steps needed to reincarnate as human – learn all the skills of being human, arrange to die, get divine help. The raccoon’s gender was not indicated and that didn’t seem relevant.

On the night I went, the audience was totally sympathetic to the character, whose balance of adorable and confrontational was just right.

And then — some of the narrative breadcrumbs dropped earlier fell into place, an opportunity for reincarnation occurred (with a few gruesome effects), and the transformation of the raccoon into a strongly-gendered human left me painfully aware of some of the ways that being human is not all it’s cracked up to be. The raccoon’s opening monologue landed very differently when delivered by the incarnation on stage at the end. Which was brilliant. Meegan Sweet uses they/them pronouns, and their two portrayals have had me thinking about some consequences of gender in human society ever since.

That’s all I watched yesterday – oh, that and Late Night Cabaret, which is now on a break til Wednesday except for a promised takeover/visit to Vivianna Vardot’s Sex Party variety show at Rapid Fire on Tuesday night. Today, Monday, Regression has a dark day so I’m volunteering and then watching four shows on the main festival site. I’m packing a sunhat and a water bottle for my Glass of the Sask!