Toronto Fringe Festival

July 11, 2007 - I have to admit, prior to this week, I had no idea what the Toronto Fringe Festival is about. In fact, I have never even heard of it. So when my friend Ruth suggested that we go check it out, I was pretty skeptical. Little did I know that the Fringe movement was actually started in Canada and has since spread to other parts of the world!

The Toronto Fringe Festival allows all artists, emerging and established, with the opportunity to produce their play no matter the content, form or style, and to make the event as affordable and accessible as possible for the members of the community. The Toronto Fringe Festival was started in 1989 and has now become the largest theatre festival in the city. In fact, Canada now has more Fringe Festivals than any other country in the world. Each Canadian Fringe festival also strongly adheres to the philosophy that a "Fringe Festival" be unjuried, return 100% of box office proceeds back to the participating artists and remain affordable and accessible to all.

So tonight, my friend Ruth, her sister Ric, and I went to see "The Cousins of Corsica" at University of Toronto's Emmanuel College courtyard (took us a long time to figure out where Emmanuel College is, which is sad, since all three of us went to U of T), by a group called Food for Thought, which includes drama students from the local universities. The play is a parody of some of Shakespeare's most well-known plays, including Hamlet and Twelfth night. It's a story about a girl dressed up as a boy, about a brother who killed his older brother so he could become king, and about shipwrecks, love and mistaken identities. Their tag line: "It's like Shakespeare, only better."

The play was well acted and I thought it was a really funny story. I did nod off at the beginning for a bit (it was a long day at work), but overall I had fun. It was cool to check out and support our local theatre groups! Ruth also suggested that we go check out Shakespeare at the Park @ High Park, so I might do that later on this summer too. Isn't it great how there's so much to do in the city during the summer? Now if only it's warm and sunny all year...