After a break for most of August (while I previewed 77 Edmonton Fringe shows), Edmonton downstage is back!
- Opening this week:
- Of Love and Wheat – “an allegorical re-telling of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet with a Faustian twist.” – showing at Muttart Storage (a warehouse that’s scheduled to be demolished at 10930 84 street) September 4 – 6 at 8:00 p.m. and September 7 at 2:30. Tickets are pay-what-you-can in cash at the door.
- If you’re nostalgic for fringe already, you can read & listen to these awesome social meedia peeps who documented this year’s Fringe:
- The What It Is Podcast who did EIGHT episodes of interviews with Fringe artists
- Kristen (AKA Finster Finds) who caught shows and did her word of mouth series (asking people in line what shows they’d recommend) in between being in and producing two shows
- And for a cringe-worthy look back at fringe, Mike Ross recounts some poorly-behaved audiences.
I’m very pleased to hear about this (temporary) use of the Muttart Storage building!
A friend of mine is a long-time infill home-builder and I’ve floated with him the idea of short term pop-up art galleries/shows in soon-to-be-demolished houses. He was quite intrigued by the idea, but it’s something that would require a rapid response from the #yegarts/#yegtheatre/yegmusic community to a quite narrow window of opportunity. But I do think the potential for #yegarts Vacant-House Parties is very real and interesting. One would have to consider permits/licensing, of course, and relationships would have to be built with infill builders. But, relationships are what #yegarts is supposed to be about 🙂
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Hey John – absolutely! I love the idea and the use of space. I remember Toy Guns Dance Theatre doing something neat with a house that was about to be demolished as well: http://www.toygunstheatre.com/graffiti-house-gallery.html
I’m curious what kind of turnaround time there is from when a house is scheduled for demolition and when the demolition actually takes place – did your friend specify typical timeframes?
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I expect it varies a little, but there’s always some gap between buying and getting the demolition permit. And then a bigger gap until the rest of the permits are in place. Obviously they want to move as quickly as possible.
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Absolutely! But you’re right, it’s a good opportunity – it’ll be neat to see if shows like this one become more common.
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