Edmonton Fringe Festival unveils 2025 theme: A Fringe Full of Stars
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Playing off the notion that the festival is a constellation of artists, volunteers, and audiences who help the event shine, organizers announced Friday the theme for this year is A Fringe Full of Stars.
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'When you Fringe with us, you become part of an ever-expanding constellation. A vast network of dreamers, darers, rule-breakers, razzle-dazzlers, and day-long dance-party starters,' a festival press release reads.
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'At Fringe, you're not just part of the crowd — you're part of the cosmos. A galaxy stitched together by music, by story, by the fearless pulse of play. Every ticket you buy, every show you see, every beer you drink, every story you tell, adds a new spark to our sky.'
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Artwork to accompany the theme was created by Yu-Chen (Tseng) Beliveau, who is the Fringe's own graphic designer.
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The event will feature 223 theatre productions in 40 venues, more than 1,600 artists from Alberta, across Canada and around the world.
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As part of Friday's theme launch, the festival also announced the return of the pêhonân Series, an Indigenous-curated and Indigenous-centred performace series led by MJ Belcourt Moses.
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There will be a free nightly music series on the ATB stage in McIntyre Park, and the Late Night Cabaret will run at the Granite Curling Club over seven nights.
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The festival also announced a collaboration with Sea Change Brewing, the Fringe beer supplier: Fringe Beer Tent Blonde Ale, which will be available in the Whyte Avenue area through the summer, and will a portion of proceeds from the sale of the beer will help support the festival.
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Meanwhile, the Fringe also announced that its Sustain Fringe campaign has hit more than 540 supporters, which helps the festival continue this year, but pleaded for more donors to step up.
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'Expenses continue to staggeringly outpace funding supports,' Fringe Theatre executive director Megan Dart said in a release.
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'We've built this Festival on duct tape and dreams since we first exploded onto the scene in 1982, but we need the continued help of our community if we're going to sustain the Edmonton Fringe Festival for generations to come.'
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Fringe reviews 8: You decide to exit, pursued by a bear
BODICE RIPPER: A LOVE STORY Holly M. Brinkman MTC Up the Alley (Venue 2), to Saturday ⭐⭐⭐⭐ Part improv and part sultry set piece, Holly Brinkman's spicy, mostly one-woman show digs into her love of romance novels. Each show features a different guest performer from the fringe, who offers their own brief, steamy monologue before Brinkman steps back on stage. She breaks down romance novels into their component parts — 'meet cute,' 'sexy middle,' 'crisis' and 'happily against all odds,' although not delivered in that order in the show — taking suggestions from the crowd on character names, scenarios, genres, etc. An interactive slide show lets audience offer suggestions through their phones — an interesting albeit slightly distracting way to help shape the story. The Victoria, B.C., performer is a very good storyteller, who never falters while cooking up sensual stories on the fly from audience cues and fleshing out compelling plotlines. 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