I went on three separate occasions, which was pretty cool: I almost overdid it the first day but all in all it was a good time. It reminded me of how much I love live theatre (the Citadel season does not begin until September after all), and really, the nature of the Edmonton Fringe Theatre Festival means that seeing a diverse variety of shows is quite to be expected, both in quality and theme!
Tuesday I came to the grounds early to get a cheap ticket for Plight. Plight was a superhero rock musical, and while I was perhaps not 100% a fan of all the lyrics, I thought the acting, singing, and fight choreography was top-notch! It was really worth attending this show — plus Jay said hi and was pretty enthused about my attending.
Later that evening (after perhaps a bit much sun, but also some redditgifts shopping, hangin' with Graham, festival food, a Kiwanis meeting and spending time with Dan and Eric) we returned to the Fringe to watch some mediocre buskers and I attended One Man Macbeth with Dan and Graham. This 30 minute play was a hoot! I must have giggled a dozen or more times in that half-hour alone! And the show wasn't just humorous: it had its serious moments too! But I loved the physicality of the acting, the use of toys, and much much more — plus the accents worked remarkably well. The trip home by bus was rather wet (with Dan and Graham) because the storm and power outage happened en route.
On Wednesday after work, Laury and I went for sushi before attending #yegprov. This was my first #yegprov but it was quite awesome! I totally had a blast — improv is quite fun! Plus, sitting in the front row means that they'll often take my suggestions (and the twitter aspect means that some are taken from the internet too!).
Thursday I returned one last time to the Fringe after Chicken for Lunch with Dave, running errands on campus, visiting Brandon at Wizards (and buying an awesome Graphic Novel which I just finished reading this afternoon — it made me cry! Baby's in Black, about the Beatles in Hamburg (and really Stu and Astrid)), and a pleasant walk through the Fringe grounds meeting up with Jamie and Graham, I waited in line for Sexed when the sky opened up with painful hail. We hid under the telephone awning thing at the Telephone museum until they let us hide inside before the show. For the rest of the day I had a large red mark on the back of my leg where a particularly painful bit of hail hit.
Sexed was a really neat show, sort of a mix between GOOD sex-ed, something like the Vagina Monologues, and short scenes from a play. It was really wide ranging about female attitudes toward sex (etc.) and covered both positive topics and negative ones. I liked the use of the bed and the fact that the information was accurate! This was with Maria (thanks for choosing it!) and Beth.
Beth and I walked through the storm to the Apocalypse Kow show where I finally got their second CD. It was awesome! I rather rather love this a cappella group and totally loved sitting front row for the type of concert where it ISN'T painfully loud, instead it is wonderfully pleasant! Maria (different Maria) and Glenn and I went to Remedy for dinner (as the rain had stopped) and we attended #yegprov again (if the weather had been better I would have considered returning to the main Fringe grounds to see something else, but heck, #yegprov is AWESOME, the cast is different every time, and they used my suggestion of a duck throughout many scenes (partially as it was initially forgotten)! I had a blast!
So really, this was a good amount of Fringing for me. I'd love to do more (my record was 12 shows in a year) but this was really quite satisfying.