The Ottawa Fringe Festival is taking venues all over Ottawa by storm—a wild cast of superheroes, gang enforcers, manspreaders and other such hooligans are bringing the city stages to life.
This year’s Fringe Festival features over 400 performances of 56 shows. All ticket sales go back to the performers in the shows.
Performers are here from all over the world.
International artists include Japanese comedian Hiroshi Shimizu and British performer Gemma Wilcox, a chameleon who takes on 23 different roles in her one-woman show.
Many acts also feature Carleton students, alumni and professors.
Tom Sherwood, a Carleton research professor of sociology and anthropology, will be bringing his research to the public in the Fringe play O God, an exploration of young people’s thoughts on the divine.
Sock ’n’ Buskin Theatre Company’s show at the Fringe, Supervillians Don’t Wear Stilettos, is about a couple of female superheroes waging a revenge war against a misogynist millionaire named Bruce.
Experimental Farm Theatre’s (EFT) sketch comedy show EFT-up: Just Like You features Carleton student Amanda Parker and alumni Chris Hannay.
The collective began performing monthly improv shows at Pressed Cafe last September. This show is their first foray into the Fringe Festival.
“It wasn’t as nerve wracking as we anticipated,” director Colin Giles said after the first performance. “Usually you get the first show jitters . . . I think we’re all so comfortable with each other and just excited to finally show everyone what we’ve created.”
Giles said he was inspired by years of watching sketch comedy shows, particularly Kids in the Hall.
“I’m a huge sketch geek,” he said. “I prepared a very long time unintentionally for a sketch show.”
“Kids in the Hall is the reason I got into improv,” added EFT member Dani Alon. “Improv and sketch go hand in hand.”
Amanda Parker said the collective had to learn to balance their love for improv with their dedication to the scripted show.
“People kept saying have faith in the writing, trust the script, and when you get there and perform, the jokes will hit,” Parker said.
The jokes did hit on opening night. Crowd favourites included a game of Cards Against Humanity with surprising paranormal connections and a case of man spreading on the bus gone way too far.
In that scene the itinerant manspreader rolls and lolls his way into the laps of multiple horrified commuters while classical music plays in the background.
The scene was inspired by the recent media storm over the practice of manspreading, Alon said.
She said EFT wanted to find a way to comment on it without being “too preachy and on the nose.”
“So we thought, we’ll make it a ballet,” she laughed.
Parker said she’s looking forward to workshopping the show as the festival goes on.
“The more times we perform it for the audience, we’ll know the beats to hit, we’ll know what to play up and what to do more subtly,” she explained.
The Ottawa Fringe Festival runs until June 28.
