2005 Fringe of Toronto Theatre Festival

Thu Jun 16 21:47:56 EDT 2005

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: June 6 to July 17, 2005
MEDIA CONTACT: Josée Duranleau, 416.652.7672, jduranleau at rogers.com

July 6 to 17, 2005

12 days. 134 plays. 1000+ performances

Get ready for Torontos biggest theatre extravaganza, the 17th Annual Toronto Fringe Festival. This years big event will feature 134 independent theatre companies from Ontario, across Canada and around the world performing 1000+ shows in 12 indoor venues, plus the KidsVenue, located in the Annex neighbourhood and the Fashion District of Toronto!

There will be 12 Bring Your Own Venue productions, the return of the nightly Cabaret Series at the Fringe Club, the seventh annual 24 Hour Playwriting Contest, and the KidsVenue which will be programmed with 8 plays exclusively for families and children from 5-15 years of age, presented at the Palmerston Library.

Patrons Pick Fundraising Performances

We are pleased to bring back the Patrons' Picks series that will provide you with another opportunity to see some of this year's most popular Fringe productions. The company with the hottest selling play in each of our 10 regular indoor venues will be rewarded with an extra performance on the last day of the festival. The winning plays will be selected based on ticket sales and popularity which means our patrons will decide who the winners are. 

The 7th Annual 24 Hour Playwriting Contest, Sponsored by Pizza Pizza 

On Wednesday, July 6 @ 7 pm this popular contest returns to the Fringe! Sixty playwrights will be given a list of four items that must be included in their next new play. The catch? They only have 24 hours to conjure, write, edit and deliver their masterpiece back to the Fringe. Once the winning play has been selected by our panel of judges, a creative team will quickly rehearse and get the show ready for a staged reading as the final Cabaret presentation at the Fringe Club on Sunday, July 17 at 9:30 pm. 

The Fringe Harold Newsletter

Available at all eleven indoor venues and at The Fringe Club, The Harold includes all of the late breaking changes to showtimes or other performance information and includes a feature article along with other news, notes, tidbits, and rumors about the Fringe

The Fringe Club Cabaret Series

Stop by the Fringe Club located at 292 Brunswick Avenue, just south of Bloor Street for the nightly performance of Late Night @ The Fringe With The Rumoli Brothers. Back by popular demand, Rick and Benny Rumoli will entertain you with their wild and wacky talk show filled with interviews and short preview "trailers" by performing companies in the festival along with a few special guests. The show begins at 9:30 pm nightly and best of all its FREE. End your day of Fringing by hanging out at the Fringe Club with friends and dance the night away until the wee hours of the morning with D.J's spinning your favourite tunes from the 70's right up to today's hits.

Free Web Access at The Fringe Club

Patrons are encouraged to drop by the Fringe Club and write a review and post it on eye Weeklys website (www.eye.net) or send it off to their friends. Two computers will be set up for patrons to use at the club between noon and 8pm. 

"Tent Talks" Series

The third installment of the Fringe Tent Talks series will be held in the McAuslan Beer Tent at The Fringe Club. 

Tent Talks is an informative seminar series that invites local arts organizations to host a discussion on the issues facing them and the Toronto theatre community. Previous hosts include the Toronto Arts Coalition and the Playwrights Guild of Canada. Check out the Fringe Harold Newsletter for topics, dates and times. 

Enter The FREE Daily Prize Draw!

Fill in the free ballot you receive with your ticket and drop it off at the Fringe Club by 9:00pm each evening for your chance to win a VIP 6 Ticket Pass. At the end of the festival we'll draw one entry from all the submitted tickets as the GRAND PRIZE winner. The winning entry will receive a round trip for two to in the Windsor/Quebec corridor courtesy of VIA Rail Canada.

78 plays hail from Ontario, heres a taste of whats to come:

Bella Donna by David Copelin directed by Sue Miner; Lust's Labour's Lost, with book, music and lyrics by Brock Simpson; Judith Thompson directs T. Bertos gritty play Serviced; Kate Lynch directs Marivauxs The Dispute; The Stronger...A Variation directed by Allyson McMackon features Liza Balkan; Martha Cronyn performs in Talking Heads by Alan Bennett; Cabbagetown Theatre presents A Fresh Pair of Shorts: Two "Cheeky" Plays by Matthew Toner a past winner of the Fringes 24 Hour Playwriting Contest; 2004 Tim Sims Encouragement Fund Award nominees Iron Cobra Improv (Graham Wagner, Becky Johnson) strut their stuff at the Glen Morris Theatre; Salivating Dog Productions presents Pavlov's Brother by Mark Ellis and Denis McGrath directed by Liza Balkan; Soap Opera by Ralph Pape is directed by Bernadette Jones; The Magnificent Robertsons by Lisa Brooke and Alex Kane is directed by Second City Alumnae Lindsay Leese; Les Mers Rouges (The Red Seas) by Liliane Atlan is directed by Genie winning
 Kalli Paakspuu; Jane Miller is featured in Dark Deeds Theatres LaVicious written and directed by Laura Roald.

Bring Your Own Venue (BYOV) 12 locations:
Rapier Wits The Rude Mechanicals in The Mechanical Mystery Tour! by The Rude Mechanical Ensemble, directed by Daniel Levinson; Sunesis Productions present Oz Recalled: A Musical Comedy about a Middle-aged Dorothy, by Jesse Stewart; Upstart Crow Theatre Group is back with a new show Shakespeare's NHL (National History League); Tethersend Productions present Looking Backward To Now by D.McLauchlan; MacKenzieRo Productions present Talking Heads by Alan Bennett; Donikers Daily present The Demimonde written and directed by Jenny Young featuring Aviva Armour-Ostroff and Pasha McKenley; Singin' Fish Theatricals present The Simplest Thing by Jim Dalling and Adam Lazarus; Irene Carl presents Moving at the Speed of Life by Kristen Valerio; Outport Productions present The Road Less Gravelled written and performed by Wanda Carroll; Manitoba Avenue presents The Comment Card by Tricia Cooper from last year's Fringe hit The Year of the Panda, one of Now Magazine's Top Ten Comedy shows of 2004; Mad
 George Productions present Sarah Martyns Hollywood Grade Eight; Theatre LMNOP is back with Bird's Eye View; Fringe favourites the Rumoli Bros. present SARSical featuring Second City Alumni Paul Bates as Mayor Mel Lastman.

The family favourite Kidsvenue will feature eight wonderful shows:

And The Drum Continues To Beat (Pass The Parcel Productions) written and directed by Christina Wong; How to out smart a troll... The Three Billy Goats Gruff...the musical (Kory Livingstone) written and performed by Kory Livingstone; The Jellybean Forest (Toy Box Productions) by Lesley Carlberg; The Three B's: Mystery at Melody Mansion (BMTC) by Greg Finnegan; The Big Button Show (Peanut Productions) by Bruce Horak with Rebecca Northan; Throwing Stones (Clear Light Theatre) by Chad Barclay; Try On Armour (Seventeen Steps) by Doug Warwick; Welcome to Vaudeville (Ditties & Frocks Theatricals) book and songs by Morel & Parsons, directed by Michele Muzzi, musical direction by Scott White.

Nineteen national companies will perform this year:

Tiny Tuna (Calgary, AB); Etcetera Theatre Collective (ETC) (Edmonton, AB); Cowgirl Opera (Edmonton, AB); Saucy Fops (Kamloops, BC); Peace In Our Time Productions (Salt Spring Island, BC); The Chop (Vancouver, BC); Big Smoke Productions (Vancouver, BC); TJ Dawe - Big Sandwich Productions (Vancouver, BC); mon amour, mon amour (Vancouver, BC); Clutz Productions (Vancouver, BC); Ribbit Productions (Vancouver, BC); Terri-Lyn Storey (Vancouver, BC); Chicken For Supper Productions (Victoria, BC); On the Lam Productions (Victoria, BC); theatre serendipity (Winnipeg, MB); Jolene Bailie / Cuppa Jo (Winnipeg, MB); Moving Target Theatre Company (Winnipeg, MB); Uncalled For (Montreal, QC); Breakfast Table Productions (Montreal, QC).

Seventeen international shows will appear at the 2005 Toronto Fringe:

Hip-Hop 4 Dummeez, Los Angeles, CA; Walking Back to Brooklyn, Los Angeles, CA; Mustapha's Bride, Iowa City, IO; Pajama Men in "Stop Not Going", Albuquerque, NM; half full...of it, Bexley, OH; Girls' Guide, Lake Oswego, OR; Freak Out Under the Apple Tree: (Some of) The Best of Tom X. Chao, New York, NY; Between Takeoff & Landing, New York, NY; Maudlin Dementia Returns to the Stage, Staten Island, NY; Yes, We Have No Bananas!, France and Denmark; An Unfortunate Woman (Nicola Gunn), Melbourne, Australia; Jolly Roger (Jonno Katz), Melbourne, Australia; Tales From Another England, Somerset, England; Jem Rolls' Charm Offensive, Edinburgh, Scotland; The Comedian, Nimes, France; Gags 4 The Masses, Auckland, New Zealand; Bonhoeffer, Cape Town, South Africa.

For more information on The 2005 Toronto Fringe Festival please call
The Fringe Hotline at 416.966.1062 or visit us at www.fringetoronto.com

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